Five Things You Should be Checking on Facebook

You know you should have a Facebook page for your business. You know that you should post regularly. You have an awareness of the social media best practices, and you probably have an understanding of how to leverage Facebook to your advantage. But often when we log onto Facebook, we get consumed in scrolling the news feed (which is important—it tells you a lot of what your industry and peers are up to), but before we know it, an hour or two has passed, and all we have accomplished is confirming that Brad and Nicole are engaged, finding out that Jennifer got a new job and that your third grade teacher just retired. 

While those things are certainly newsworthy (maybe) to you on a personal level, it doesn't do much for your business. It helps to have a checklist of to-do's that you should do every time you log on. This allows you as a business owner to be intentional about your Facebook presence. 

First, you obviously are going to check your notifications. If you are burdened with a Type A personality like me, you simply cannot have that little red flag telling you that you have pending notifications. In the notifications section on Facebook, make sure to check your mentions. You can find it under "activity" on your notifications page. This alerts you to anyone who has tagged your business in a post, thus telling you who is talking about your business and what they have to say. It's important to interact with these people whether the post is negative or positive. If it's positive, make sure to screen shot it or at least copy and paste what they said and save it for your testimonials!

Second, check your comments and your shares. Depending on how often you post, it may be easier to go post by post on your page rather than checking them in the notifications section. We prefer to check our comments and shares there so we don't miss any. We then try to acknowledge each person or business who has shared or commented. This is when Facebook becomes a conversation!

Third, take a look at how many new followers you have. This should be done at least once a week. You should be gaining a few followers each week or at least, regularly. If you're not, it's time to take a look at the type of content you're throwing out there. If it's not being shared or engaged with, then your target audience isn't interested. 

Fourth, under the insights tab on Facebook, if you scroll to the bottom, you can add pages to watch. You can add pages of your competitors or pages you admire. Throughout the week, Facebook will tell you how many followers they have, how many times they are posting in a week, and what their engagement is per week. This is free, valuable information on your competitors! It also lets you measure your own social media success.

And finally, check your messages every time you log on, even if there isn't a notification for a new message. It happens time and time again when an alert doesn't notify you that you have a message waiting in your inbox. It's a good habit to continually check your inbox, just in case. You'd hate to miss out on an inquiry or prospect!

LEARN HOW TO BECOME A WEDDINGDAY PARTNER HERE.