Target audience: Nonprofits, social media managers, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, Facebook administrators.

The difference between a Facebook update that gets results, and one that doesn’t is the content. After all, Facebook users primarily share content they find useful and interesting.

But knowing this and actually doing this takes more that just “posting awesome content” – an overused mantra that’s not too helpful.

There are several steps that need to happen before, during and after a post is published:

Listen to your community first

1Every species on this planet has thrived by listening first. But for some reason, human beings tend not to listen first when engaging on social media.

When you listen first, you get important information such as current topics most interesting topics, news, etc. Insights allows you to see which updates your community is engaged with most.

You can also use Graph Search to discover a lot of cool things about your Facebook fans. For example, see the search result at top of pages liked by people who like the Sierra Club.

Be clear about objectives

2We all know that objectives should be smart, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely, but relevance is often overlooked in this formula.

• You want more Facebook fans? Why?
• What does that have to do with your organization’s mission?
• What value we do offer in exchange for the increased Fanbase?

These are questions you should be asking way before Facebook comes into the picture.

Create and curate useful content

3Most nonprofits make the mistake of posting content that’s mostly self-serving. A post about your latest event is not that useful. Neither is the link to your donate now page.

Remember, you are competing with friends the for attention in the newsfeed. The only way to stand out is to be useful.

For example, the Humane Society of Indianapolis shares dog care tips and training tips (see below), instead of only info about dogs for adoption. Being indispensable (useful) to adoptees, increases chances that adoptees will share their updates with their friends (through liking, commenting, and sharing).

Click the infographic to seeing it full size.

Optimize and publish your post

4In general, photos get the most engagement on Facebook and links get the least engagement. But this doesn’t mean that you should be publishing only photos to your Facebook page.

Carefully consider the best way to publish your content, based on your objectives and what will be useful to your community.

For example, instead of posting a link to an article about dog tips, create a simple infograph listing those tips. Posting this image instead of a link, in this case, immediately increases the chance it will be shared with friends.

It’s also best to publish a mix of text updates, photos, and videos on your page so you don’t exclude fans who prefer other types of content.

Monitor immediate engagement

5Most of the engagement on Facebook update happen within the first couple of hours. During this period of time you want to have your community management hat ready in hand. Responding quickly demonstrates your commitment to the community.

Remember, Facebook users want to be heard. They want to know that your organization is listening and cares about what they have to say. Facebook is an awesome place to demonstrate this!

Use GPS to adjust strategy

6Within the first few hours after an update has been published on your Facebook page, you’ll get a sense of how open “viral” it is. If you see that people are liking, commenting, and sharing the update more than previous updates, consider adjusting your strategy to give it more exposure.

Promote post with other channels

7One way to get your updates more exposure is to use other channels, like Twitter, Pinterest, email, and your website.

For example, if the the dog shelter mentioned earlier finds a lot of engagement around the infographic, they can embed that update within a blog post (blog posts tend to have much longer periods of engagement than Facebook updates). This approach will increase the exposure for that Facebook update, while at the same time providing the shelter with a blog post idea that’s already been vetted by the community.

For organizations that use Pinterest, a good practice is to re-post hi-performing Facebook Page photos on a Pinterest board, linking back to the original photo on their Facebook page.

Use Facebook ads

8Facebook ads are like salt and pepper, and your content is the meal. Ads are best used to enhance what you’re already doing right.

Facebook ads can be used in a number of ways to lengthen the exposure on specific updates. As a general rule it’s good to focus on updates that have already performed well (lots of likes, comments, and shares).

Don’t forget about other pages

This is a “good karma” strategy that relies on people’s desire to reciprocate. Here’s how it works: Partners and similar nonprofits want to get results with Facebook too. Selectively reposting their updates makes you look like a hero and increases the likelihood that they’ll reciprocate.

What can you add?

The post 8 ways to expand your Facebook page reach appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target, retarget and create with Power Editor

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, organizations, social enterprises, small businesses, Facebook administrators, general public.

I’ve written about Facebook’s Power Editor before but understand why people don’t use it as much as Facebook’s self-serve ad tool:

It’s dog ugly and unintuitive.

However, the Power Editor includes many advanced Facebook ad features that were originally intended for use by agencies (and not available in the more commonly used self-serve tool).

I’ll get to these advanced features after you install the Power Editor.

How to Install Power Editor

• Use Google Chrome Power Editor in Google Chrome extension. If you do not have Google Chrome installed on your computer yet, please download Chrome from http://www.google.com/chrome.
• Install the Power Editor Plugin by clicking here.
• Open Power Editor by navigating to this URL: facebook.com/ads/manage/powereditor.

Don’t ask me why it works only in Chrome.

Now, here are six reasons to use Facebook’s Power Editor for Facebook ads.

Target your database

1Imagine being able to target first-time donors on Facebook with a message encouraging them to become a monthly donor!

The Power Editor includes a feature called custom audiences that allows you to target people by email, mobile number, Facebook Profile ID or app user ID.

Watch this video tutorial for details:

Target look-alike audiences

2With the Power Editor, you create a “look-alike audience” that targets people who are similar to your custom audience list.

So if you only have 1,000 emails in a particular custom audience, you can use look-alike audiences to reach more people with your ad.

Create unpublished posts

3The Power Editor allows you to create Facebook Page posts that your fans won’t see.

Why would you want to do this?

Let’s say that you have a campaign to encourage first-time donors to become monthly donors. Publishing a post to your fans might turn many people off, but with the Power Editor, you can target this post to first-time donors using a custom audience.

Partner categories

4Target ads using data collected by Facebook partners Acxiom, Epsilon and Datalogix. This data include things like income, lifestyle and purchase transactions.

Retargeting

5Retargeting is the dark secret of online advertising.

Imagine you read a Feeding America blog post about how you can support the passage of a farm bill. You then visit Facebook to waste time like you normally do and notice a Facebook ad from Feeding America promoting that same bill!

Creepy, yes?

Creepy or not, it works because interaction recency with a brand increases ad clicks. Read Jon Loomer’s post on retargeting Facebook ads.

Conversion pixels

6Are potential donors and volunteers actually completing the actions you want them to take? Or are they simply leaving your website after clicking through the ad? Conversion pixels solve this problem.

A conversion pixel is code that allows you to track conversions on your webpage back to the ad on Facebook. This allows you to see how well an ad converts new donors or volunteers once they arrive at your website.

Here’s now to create a conversion tracking pixel:

• Click on the Conversion Tracking tab in the Power Editor.
• Click Create Conversion Pixel located in the top right.
• Give your conversion pixel a name and select a category from the dropdown menu.
• Click Create.
• A pop-up box will appear where you can click View Pixel Code. This is the code you will need to integrate into the Web page where you want to track conversions.

Have you used any of these features in the Power Editor?

Related

• How to install Facebook’s new Power Editor (Socialbrite)

• How to target your donors or email subscribers with Facebook ads (Socialbrite)

The post 6 reasons to use Facebook’s Power Editor for Facebook ads appeared first on Socialbrite.