The social media channel that seems to most often dominate the news, Facebook is used by both teens and baby boomers. It’s the channel that’s practically a requirement to be in the modern world. However, Facebook can be difficult for brands to find traction in. A few years ago, Facebook changed it’s page display algorithm. Instead of allowing you to be guaranteed to see all posts from business and brand pages you follow, Facebook wants you to pay to display your posts more on a brand page.
Still Facebook has features that other channels can’t match like the Facebook events feature. It’s free to create an event on Facebook and very, very easy. You can even connect your ticket selling app, like Eventbrite, to Facebook to automatically publish the information of your event. You can promote a specific event and it’s easy to invite your followers. Our website also has the ability to follow specific Facebook pages and share their upcoming events automatically on our website, without any additional work from us or the event hosts.
Facebook Live launched a few months ago; it’s a video streaming service that’s available for both business and personal pages. The live video streams only to your page followers instead of the whole world. This means you interact with people specifically interested in what you have to say. The biggest success we’ve had in using Facebook Live is to stream at the same time every week. As time has gone on, followers begin to notice that we’re always on at the same time and they start setting aside time in their week to join us. I would also recommend creating an agenda of what you want to talk about in your first few videos to keep yourself on track. We also promote our Facebook Live stream on other social media accounts, reminding people that we’re going live in a few minutes and sharing links to the video once we’ve finished.
Facebook also makes it easy to connect with other like minded people through Groups. There’s different groups for business owners, some private/invite only, some public. Some are large and some are very intimate. Local groups that are interested in meeting offline have been the most beneficial for me in terms of networking. It’s easy to find people interested in the same things as me and connect with them quickly.
Author: Kelsey Bigelow (Associate Member – FGI Denver)
Kelsey Bigelow is the COO & co-owner of Denver Style Magazine. She manages the magazine’s operations, including social media, local partnerships, and advertisers. Denver Style Magazine is committed to growing the retail industry in Colorado through a bi-monthly print publication as well as events, workshops and one-on-one business consulting. Prior to Denver Style Magazine, Kelsey worked as a fashion blogger and portrait photographer. She is passionate about helping solo entrepreneurs manage their businesses and find success. Follow along online at kelseybigelow.com or on Instagram @kelseybigelow