Facebook being the most widely used social media platform, it’s no doubt that many consumers utilize it to make purchasing decisions. It’s in fact on top of Social Networking Site that most Australians use. As a result, many business owners also utilize it to influence their followers’ buying behavior. So, is your business getting the best results with the use of Facebook’s key features for marketers?
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​If you think, you are still using Facebook for its superficial features; this article will surely be a revelation for you. Read on and discover the secret Facebook features that you will impress you!

​If you are using Facebook to promote your business, you probably have already created a Facebook page by now. Here are the features for Facebook page management:

​You just got to access your list of fans to get to know who the real followers are and who the bots are. To manage your fan list, just go to your page settings, click on “Banned Users” on the left sidebar. Then, click on the menu that says “Banned" to reveal the dropdown menu. Click on “People Who Like This”.

​Notifications are there for a reason. Without it, you might miss important comments or shares that require your attention and response. However, you’ve surely felt it’s overwhelming sometimes most especially if you are managing many pages or if you are running campaign ads. Thus, it’s essential to mark your notification as read. All you need to do is go to your page settings and click on “Mark all notifications as read” on the top right corner!

Post Attribution Settings
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​Personal or as page admin? Regardless if you’re new in social media management or you are a pro, you surely have had posted, commented or liked with the wrong identity. Here is where Page Attribution settings come in. You have to assign what identity will be used as default on each of your device. To set it up go to your Page settings, click on “Post Attribution” on the left sidebar. Then simply choose your preferred default identity.

Filter Page Posts
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​Perhaps at one time, you wanted to retrieve something you have posted in the past. You probably know that you can find it Activity Log but digging into it is too much of an effort and time to be wasted. Well, worry no more because to help you find that post, you can filter the posts based on the type of post you are looking for. The ability to filter your Page Posts by post type will save you a ton of time and effort. You can filter page posts as Image posts, Video posts, Posts marked as spam, Your posts, Comments, Posts by others, Questions, Notes, Events or Offers. To do it, simply click on “Activity Log” on the left sidebar of your Page settings and choose the appropriate post type.

You are doing social media management right if you are also using it for ad management. Facebook ads are one of the greatest ways to reach your target market. Of course, there are also Facebook key features in ad management that you should know.

​There are page managers who don’t want to settle with clearing notifications but instead, they want it all stopped or they want some of the notifications stopped. If you are one of them, there is a way to set that up. First, go to Facebook ads manager and click on “Settings” in the left sidebar. Next, scroll down to the Ads Emails Notifications section. You can choose which notifications you want to receive or if you don’t want to receive them all just don’t tick all the options. 

Have you noticed the Relevance score under the ad analytic tool? The visibility of these figures should help you ensure ads are delivered to the right audiences and it serves as a tool for you to improve ROI. Relevance scores also let you pilot test new ad creatives giving you a leeway to see if it’s worth the budget. Finally, Relevance score can improve your ad visibility in the future compared to others. That means lowering the cost of reaching to your audiences. To see if you already have this feature, go to Ads Manager and click on “Campaigns” on the left sidebar. Click on your Campaign name and go into the ad set and look at the 5th column from the right.

​Getting at par or even better than your competitors is another great use of Facebook key features. Get to know how you can use them to improve performance and be on top of the game.

Monitoring your closest competitor’s content has never been so convenient. You can see top posts from pages you watch within Facebook Insights. To do this, go to Facebook Insights and click on the “Posts” tab. Next, click on “Top Posts from Pages You Watch". You should be able to find it there.

​Did you know that you can actually download your whole Facebook History to analyze your business? This allows you to review all the posts, photos, and videos you’ve shared, recover your messages and chat conversations, get past info from the About section of your profile, see all the ads you’ve clicked on, find historical data, like the IP addresses recorded when you log into and out of Facebook, and Pull up facial recognition data. There are enormous things you can do with these data and it’s easy to do. First, go to your settings. Then, click on “Download a copy”. Just wait for an email when your archive is ready to download.

Did you know that you can actually download your whole Facebook History to analyze your business? This allows you to review all the posts, photos, and videos you’ve shared, recover your messages and chat conversations, get past info from the About section of your profile, see all the ads you’ve clicked on, find historical data, like the IP addresses recorded when you log into and out of Facebook, and Pull up facial recognition data. There are enormous things you can do with these data and it’s easy to do. First, go to your settings. Then, click on “Download a copy”. Just wait for an email when your archive is ready to download.

These are only few of the simple Facebook key features that are extremely useful in getting greater ROI but are not often used. This is actually how you can start making sales from your social media account. Make sure to use them moving forward to ensure easier Facebook management and profit earning!

If you want a guaranteed success in the Facebook space, make sure to contact a social media management specialist to do the job while you try to familiarize yourself with it!

Tight competition. Diverse audiences. Varied platforms. These are only few of the challenges you have to face if you are using social media for your marketing strategies. However, with all the benefits social media can bring to businesses, this couldn’t just be disregarded if you want your business to thrive. Now if you want to succeed within the social space, you have to be guided with these golden rules.

1. Know Your Purpose and Focus on It

You have to make sure that you know what you want to achieve when starting your social media marketing. Is it to introduce your business to the public? Is it to get more loyal customers? Is it to send new messages and establish new image? You have to determine your purpose and design your social media marketing strategy based on your purpose.

You have to make sure that you follow this strategy and keep in mind your purpose regardless of what may come your way. With the consistent changes in this medium, new things and trends come every time. That doesn’t mean that you have to use and follow these trends. Ignore them if it won’t help you achieve your purpose.

2. Only Publish Quality Content and Regularly Update It

“Content is King” is an overrated phrase in the social media world. However, as common as it sounds, it’s also that important. What you post on your social media pages is what people will perceive about your brand. It takes good research and well-thought-of writing strategy for this. Without quality content, your strategy will never be a success.

You also need to know the 80/20 rule wherein what you are writing and posting should not be recognized as marketing posts. 80% of your posts should not be promotional. Write about trivia, motivational messages and entertainments.

Aside from writing quality content, you have to make sure that you also post regularly. Varied quality contents will assure you that your followers will see your posts and in that way, you will be able to give your message and achieve your purpose.

3. Connect and Link

Although there is competition in social media, you need to know how to connect with influencers. Choosing the right influencers and those of the same purpose as you are, is the key to more followers who will likely turn to loyal customers. If you have successfully connected with these influencers, you will thrive in your social media marketing.

You also need to link to relevant articles that would add to your quality content. You don’t need to own all the contents of your social media pages. You are always allowed to share contents from others. That would also build connections to influencers and other followers.

4. Give Due Credit
Since we mentioned that you can share other’s work, let’s not forget to give credit to the author of the content. Giving proper attribution could be done by tagging the writer or linking back to the article. You don’t want to be involved into law cases just because you copied content without authorization or crediting.

5. Observe, Research and Be Patient

If you are starting your social media marketing, it is really important to observe how things are done and what the effective strategies are. You have to pay attention to your customers and observe their behaviors. You have to pay attention to competitors to know their strengths and weaknesses. You have to pay attention to the platform you are using. Doing this step gives you data to work on.

You have to make a thorough research on what you have observed. The data you’ve gathered is important to know how you can strategize your own social media marketing strategy. This won’t be easy and quick so you also need to have patience. You will be required to give more time and effort. Just be patient and continue the work.

6. Cross Promote

​Your target audiences are found not in just a single social media platform but on across all these social media spaces. You have to share your content across multiple channels. In doing this strategy, you have to make sure that your content is appropriate to the platform you are using. You have to understand that what is a great content in Facebook may not necessarily elicit the same response on Twitter. You have to make sure that while you are targeting more audiences across social media platforms, you are also sharing the right content.

7. Utilize Hashtags properly

Hashtags has been used to reach a broader audience who are looking for that tag or keyword. This is also a way to make your post appear on trending topics. Just as important as using Hashtags is not overusing it. Limit your Hashtags to a number that is needed to include relevant keywords. You can check the Hashtags used by competitors to see what tags are working for them.

8. Ask Questions and Host Contest

Get more participation on your page by getting people involved on answering questions and joining contests. This is not just to get followers engaged but also it lets you hear their opinions on your business. This allows you to establish a meaningful connection with them. Knowing how to host a social media contest is an exciting way to get more followers by having them share it with their friends.

9. Check and Monitor

Make sure that you have set a way to monitor your social media channels. There are varied tools and software that you can download and use. You have to monitor what contents are appealing to your followers so that you will know what kind of content to focus on in the future. This also includes making sure to respond to comments, messages and questions. It would also help to have regular reports of how many followers you have gained to check if this actually resulted to better sales.

10. There is No Single Rule That Applies to All

With the constant change in social media and marketing itself, it’s important to understand that there is no single rule to follow. What works for one business will definitely not work to all other businesses. As a business, you have to figure out what is best for your own business and what sells to your customers. You need to keep in mind that you can’t work on social media marketing overnight. It’s a long term process so you need to discover what would work for you.

Now, you are equipped with the rules to successful social media marketing, you now need to know when to follow and when to bend the rules. If you want to make sure you are doing it right, a versed social media management team can surely help you.

Since our younger years, we’ve been exposed to different brand contests in TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. With the new era of the web, it’s undeniably a new way to introduce new brands and engage old customers to brands and businesses. With the popularity of social media, it’s one popular platform that fuels these contests. Keep in mind though that conducting a contest through social media is more than just posting and drawing a winner?
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Before launching a contest, you need to know why a social media expert is necessary to consult. They can discuss some things with you first before you take any step. After that, you will understand more the things that make a social media contest successful.

​Why are you going to conduct this contest?

Of course, you first have to determine your purpose of launching the contest or else you might just be giving away prizes with nothing to gain. You may come up with one or two goals for the contest and then pattern your contest around these goals.

Since you will be using social media to conduct your contest, you have to be amenable to follow their Terms of Service. Considering the different forms of social media, you have to know that there are certain terms of service for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others! Not knowing their rules might result to your contest being taking down even before it has done its purpose.

​After you have set your goal and studied the terms on the platform that you will use, it’s time to decide what kind of contest to run. Consider what type of contest will help you achieve the goal best and what will not go against the terms of the social media platform. Make sure that you research if the kind of contest you will run had been successful in the past in achieving the same purpose.

It is important to establish what to do on particular dates and schedule every step that will be taken in launching your contest. Mark deadlines! When will be the announcement of the contest? When will the contest start? When will be the announcement of winners? All these must be marked on the calendar.
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This will attract more participants as they would know what are the dates to look forward to. This will also give a sense of urgency to participate on your contest. Make sure to use scheduling tools to post your contests on ‘high time’.

What it is that attracts participants on your contest? Definitely the PRIZES! Make sure that the prizes you will be giving are appealing to your target market. No matter how well you have thought of the mechanics of the contest, if the prizes are not worth it, who will take time to join?
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Give a little more than just the grand prize. Adding consolation prizes are also great way to attract more participants. Making them feel that there is a higher chance of getting something other than the grand prize is worth it.

The most common way to promote your contest is to make social media posters and images. Make sure to have an excellent combination of pictures and content. Make it interesting and catchy. Do a good research on how to make this.

Using a Hashtag that relates to your contest and brand would also be useful to make it known on the chosen platform. Use the power of Hashtags! This is used to attract more attention and make your contest trending.
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Above all these promotions of the contest make sure that your BRAND is known. Include your logo on the images and your brand name on the Hashtags. This will ensure that your brand is getting the exposure while your contest gets famous.

Make it Easy to Join
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It should be easy to join your contest. Do not require too much fields to fill in or too many pages to complete. If possible, limit the steps of joining to 5 steps!
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A part of making it easy to join in is to make it visible to mobile users. That means getting the page mobile-friendly. We can’t deny that most people browse social media through mobile.

Customer Experience
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​This will likely determine if the contest participant will be continuing making business with you even after the contest. This is a great avenue for you to show how you treat customers and how quickly respond to queries.

Countdown
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This is one effective way to attract more participants to your contest. It makes them feel that the contest will soon end and if they don’t join now, they might miss the great prizes that you are offering. 

Measure!
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After the contest, make sure that you have the numbers. You should have the statistics of how many joined and if you really achieved the target goal. Were you able to gain the number of followers you want? Were you able to make the number of sales you targeted? This is the way to determine if your contest was actually a success. You have to find out what are the things that went well and what are the opportunities of the first one. 

Use these numbers are your basis for your next contests. After your first contest, you should earn more customers and you should be able to engage your existing customers. You surely would have discovered more about your market which is essential for your other marketing strategies. Loyal customers also mean that by the power of word of mouth, you will get free marketing from them.
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Keep in mind that a contest is a great social marketing strategy but you have to do it properly. You still need to apply the Golden Rules to Successful Social Media Marketing. If you need a hand in doing it make sure to keep in touch with a trained social media management guru.