3 Ways To Get More Out Of Facebook

There is much to be said in favor of Twitter and LinkedIn, of Pinterest and Instagram, but make no mistake about it: Facebook remains the heavyweight champion of social networking, both in its massive scope and in its utility for marketers and small business owners.

If anything, Facebook’s usefulness in marketing is weirdly undervalued and misunderstood in some circles. Most small business owners understand the value in using Facebook for content marketing. They understand that posting text, links, and images to Facebook, once or twice a day, can go a long way toward establishing customer loyalty and brand authority.

Even so, business owners often miss out on some of the more nuanced tools and features that Facebook has to offer. If you really want to get maximum bang for your buck, so to speak, then make note of some of the perks and tools listed below.

1. Audience Insights

Content marketing is about listening as much as talking, and to really do it effectively you need to take the time to get to know your audience a little bit. Unbeknownst to some small business owners, Facebook actually provides some neat tools for demographic research. Check out the Audience Insights tab on your Facebook page—you should see it over on the left-hand side of your administrative page—and use it to find out things like whether your users are mobile- or desktop-based; how old they are, and what level of education they have; how often they interact with your posts; and more. (Caveat: You have to have a custom audience of at least 1,000 people for this feature to work.)

2. Video Uploads

You probably know already that Facebook allows for user video uploads. What you may not know is that Facebook is whizzing past Instagram and even preparing to surpass YouTube as the leading video upload platform. Yes, that’s right: It is expected that Facebook will soon be getting more video uploads than YouTube does. If video marketing is something you do, make sure you’re doing it on Facebook!

3. Paid Posts

Finally, you may know full well that you can pay Facebook some money to “boost” your posts—but what you might not know is that doing so is really essential for expanding your social reach. You don’t need to promote every post, but you should promote a few really great ones, from time to time; Facebook’s algorithms essentially require you to do this now, if you want your company page to remain visible in people’s newsfeeds, so don’t neglect it!

In the end, Facebook is what you make of it—and if you want to make the most of it, you need to use as many of its features as you can.

3 Ways To Get More Out Of Facebook