Most of us are quite aware of the latest Facebook News Feed update. To review, Facebook recently changed its News Feed algorithm with the sole attempt (according to them) to offer users more relevant information from their friends, family, and groups they’ve liked.

Mark Zuckerberg’s take on the change was: “You’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

It seems that Facebook’s latest News Feed tweak won’t be the last aimed towards bringing more interesting topics to people’s timelines and fighting spammy posts.

Don’t Panic – Businesses Can Adapt to this Facebook News Feed Update

So what does this mean for your local business? Since the official announcement of the update, you have probably noticed а drop in your local business page’s organic reach and user engagement metrics, including impressions, page views, user reactions to your posts, comments, video views,and shares. This means that your followers’ news feeds show more photos and videos of a classmate’s newborn baby or a colleague’s summer travel adventure, and fewer updates from your business page.

But there’s no need for you to panic. Whether you’re managing a law firm, a restaurant with multiple locations, or a dental practice, the key to success is to adapt your social media marketing strategy in order to gain advantage from the update.

Тhe latest News Feed update won’t affect you if you keep the following tips in mind:

• Despite the decline in organic reach for business pages, authentic and high-quality content will show higher in News Feed
• Live videos and event updates will rise to the top
• Promoting your Facebook updates will help you grow your audience and re-engage with your current followers
• Interacting within Facebook Groups is what you need. Just look into your News Feed – you will see many posts from the most popular and active groups that you’re a member of, and fewer from the business pages that you follow

Again, Facebook Groups is the key to overcoming the negative effect from Facebook’s News Feed update.

5 Tested Tactics to Navigate the Facebook News Feed

Below we’ve listed five tips and tactics that will help you take advantage of Facebook Groups’ potential, spark a conversation around your brand, and nurture meaningful engagement with Facebook users.

1. Browse for Relevant Industry and Local Groups

Finding active Facebook Groups that are relevant to your industry, location and target audience will help you generate new connections with industry peers and potential customers.

Join industry-focused groups, where you can discuss with other experts the trends, studies, innovations, and events related to your field. For example, Trapped in an Op is a Facebook Group for dental hygienists who share their experiences and opinions on building a career in the dental hygiene niche.

If you’re a pediatrician with a practice in Dallas, Texas you can join local moms’ groups like the one in the example below, and discuss specific treatments, educate, or even inspire the given community.

Use groups to listen to your target audience. You can share your knowledge by replying on users’ requests for recommendations.

2. Create Your Own Facebook Group

As an admin or a moderator of a group you have the power to decide what topics will be drawn to the attention of the given community. Invite your current customers, partners, vendors, and other local businesses to join your community. Just be aware that managing a group requires a lot of commitment and hard work. You should keep your group active by regularly asking questions, sharing tips and informative articles. That way, you can always be at the forefront of group member news feeds, as well as being top-of-mind.

3. Take Advantage of Polls

Polls allow you to ask group members anything you want! Use this free Facebook feature to learn the needs and problems of group members, to better tailor your offerings and provide custom solutions.

4. Use Groups as a Testing Ground for New Ideas

You can get opinions on new products, services, brand logos, colors, or anything related to your business.

Groups are free tools to see user reactions and get feedback on your ideas. This will help you save time and energy, and avoid creating something your customers won’t like in the end.

5. Grow Your Email List with Irresistible Incentives

Groups can help you build an email list for your business.How? That’s easy – just offer freebies to people when they submit their contact information. Incentives may include free webinars, free procedures at your beauty salon, or gift vouchers for a hot drink at your coffee shop.

Create a special post with the offer and pin it to the top in order to make it more visible to new members.  

Get Active with Groups and Conquer the Facebook News Feed!

In the long run, this Facebook News Feed update will actually boost small business owners who generate content consistently relevant to their local area.

If you haven’t considered focusing on Facebook Groups as part of your social media marketing strategy, now’s the time to do so! Taking part in community groups can help you show your expertise in the field to prospects, who are seeking valuable information and looking for solutions to their problems. Moreover, by listening and responding to user comments, you will foster engagement and expand the social media presence of your business.

How #Facebook Groups Can Help You Stay Visible by @OptiLocal #RocksDigital
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Did reach and user engagement for your business page shrink? Have any experience with, or plans for Facebook Groups? Share your thoughts in the comments. 

The post Overcoming the Facebook News Feed – How Facebook Groups Can Help You Stay Visible appeared first on Rocks Digital.

Are you managing a Facebook page for a local business? Still considering whether to use Facebook advertising? Wondering how you can get more foot traffic to your storefront or generate more calls using Facebook?

Facebook Advertising – An Important Key to Local Reach

Advertising to the right audience and using the right set of tools is the key to reaching more potential customers and outshining the competition.

Essentials for Location-Based Facebook Advertising

The following 4 tips can help you better utilize the latest Facebook location-based advertising features and to adjust and fine-tune your message so you can appeal to your target audience.

1. Choose the right local marketing objective.

Facebook is a social network where people usually tend to hang out with friends, have fun, and get the latest news. However, with the right selection of Facebook advertising tools you can reach the right audience and make them aware of your brand and services. Facebook ads can give a nudge to potential customers to find out more about you, to make a buying decision, or to recommend your business to their friends and relatives who may also need your products or services.

Depending on your local marketing goals, you can opt from a large pool of Facebook ads to promote your business.

Begin your ad creation by choosing the objective of your Facebook campaign.

However, there are two ad types aiming to meet the needs of local businesses: Reach and Store Visits. If you have a single business location, use the first ad campaign type while defining your service area. It enables you to show your ad to people who are currently situated near the selected area, and not waste your money on Facebook users who are unlikely to be interested in your offer.

On the other hand, the Store Visits objective is only available to businesses with multiple locations that have enabled the Locations feature.

2. Experiment with your targeting.

Facebook’s advertising allows you to combine multiple targeting approaches. You can target potential customers by location, demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can also reach people who have already interacted with your business on Facebook, your website, through offline channels, or other platforms.

Facebook allows extremely detailed location-based targeting. Your targeting can be as broad as a country or state, or as narrow as city, neighborhood or ZIP code. You can include one or multiple locations, as well as prevent your ads from appearing for people that fall into a specific location.

You can refine your target audience based on their spatial behavior – whether people are currently living near your business, or they are just visiting or passing by. This type of information is determined by the city mentioned in the Facebook user profile, and is also based on the device and connection information that Facebook collects.

However, to get the most out of your local Facebook ads, add more layers of audience information like age range, gender, hobbies, income, and behavior data. As with the location targeting, in the “Detailed Targeting” section you also have the option to include or exclude people.

When creating a niche audience for your ads, take these peculiarities into account:

• When you add criteria to the “Include people” or “Exclude people” fields, you will include or exclude users who meet at least one of the listed criteria.

Let’s say you are a realtor based in Oakland, California. Your target audience will consist of people who are likely to be new movers, who have updated their current city to Oakland in the past 6 months, or people who have recently married and are looking for a home with their partner.

• Use the “Narrow” options when you want people to meet all target requirements:

This time your ads will be shown to people who are newlyweds, have an estimated household income between $250K and $350K, and don’t own a home.

• Be careful with the interest targeting options because you may serve your ads to your competitors and suppliers. Incorporate behavior and demographic targeting to enjoy much better results.

If you own a barber shop in Denver, Colorado, your target audience will be men between 18–65 who invest in men’s grooming services and products. Don’t forget to exclude your competitors – barber stylists and hair designers.

3. Boost conversions with call-to-action buttons.

When making the ad creative, take some time to choose the right call-to-action (CTA) button to get people to engage with your business. Although Facebook doesn’t allow you to craft your own unique CTA, you can pick one from a wide range of predefined CTA buttons. Here’s a list of the most relevant buttons that will help potential clients instantly reach your local business:

• The “Book Now” button is best suited for hotels, holiday homes, restaurants, beauty salons, spas, automobile mechanics, local attractions, and vacation rentals
• The “Call Now” button is a good choice if you are a service provider, for example: a plumber, an electrician, a locksmith, a house cleaner, or an air conditioner expert. The button makes it convenient for potential customers to reach you directly from their mobile phones
• “Get Directions” is a perfect add-on to ads promoting local stores, law firms, dental or medical clinics, since these services require face-to-face contact in the business’ venue. The ad will automatically redirect customers to their navigation apps installed on their phones
• The “Save” button is a good fit for your brick-and-mortar business because it enables people to save your business address, so they can easily visit you when in need
• If you manage a local restaurant and have uploaded a menu on your page, you can add the “See Menu” button to your ads
• Use “Learn More” when you need to explain why customers should choose your products or services over competitors. For this type of CTA it’s crucial to ensure that you use original and engaging content on the landing pages associated with your ad

Test different approaches to your CTAs, because your target audience will respond differently to distinct stimuli.

4. Create special offers that can be redeemed offline.

Linking the online activities to actual sales results is of great importance to plan out your future marketing strategy. Your current Facebook followers and prospects are more likely to take action for a targeted offer.

Facebook Offer ads enable you to share discounts and coupon codes with your targeted audience and drive foot traffic to your physical store.

You can upload promo codes and barcodes, set an expiration date, and limit the number of people who can view your offer.

There are two ways to promote your offer:

• Set up an offer through your business page and then boost it by choosing your targeting audience and budget:

• In Ads Manager, select one of these three campaign objectives: Traffic, Conversions, or Store Visits, and then activate the Offer

Facebook Advertising – A Local Game-Changer

Ads are a vital part of Facebook’s News Feed, and uncovering the nitty-gritty of Facebook ad features will help you master the intricacies of your Facebook local business page management process.

Having a smartly predefined target audience, a clear message that is consistent with your ad and landing page, and an irresistible offer is a game changer for your local marketing efforts.

The sooner you implement the above tips, the better you’ll connect with your local audience!

Expand the Reach of a #Business: Make the Most of #Facebook Advertising by @OptiLocal #RocksDigital
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How are you using Facebook advertising to promote your local business? Share your experience with us in the comments!

The post Expand the Reach of a Local Business: Make the Most of Facebook Advertising appeared first on Rocks Digital.

It may seem like an easy task to create and manage a local Facebook Business Page, but you have to put in some thought and time in order to maintain an engaged and loyal local fan base. By using the right tools, tactics, and Facebook features strategically, you can reach the desired audience, make Facebook an effective part of your customer-service strategy, and drive more customers to your storefront.

Make Your Local Facebook Business Page Work for Your Business

In this article, you will find 8 do’s and don’ts to follow in order to master and get benefits from your local Facebook Business Page:

1. Do: Use Facebook Local Awareness Campaigns to Promote Your Local Business

Facebook has made radical changes to its interface and its main news feed of late – for example, the global rollout of Facebook Explore Feed. Facebook users are now predominantly exposed to selected friends’ updates and sponsored content. The result: more Facebook Business Page owners are complaining about seeing dramatic drops in their pages’ organic reach and engagement. One of the most effective things you can do to reduce the negative effect of Facebook’s ranking algorithm updates is to start promoting your content. The simplest way is to boost your posts, but you should consider the recent restrictions on boosting some types of posts. These kinds of ads are a good option for promoting local events or special offers because they are optimized for engagement.

If your goal is to reach more people in your local area who might be interested in visiting your business location, you’d better start running a local awareness campaign. You can tightly target your prospects based on Facebook’s detail targeting categories, such as age, location, job title, education, relationship status, interests, behaviors. You can upload a custom contact list to connect with your current customers and website visitors on Facebook, or create audiences that are similar to your existing clients to expand your reach even further.

2. Do: Collaborate with Other Local Businesses

Team up with your partners (distributors, resellers, franchisees) and other small businesses that aren’t direct competitors by jointly promoting contests or events on Facebook. For example, if you are a professional photographer, collaborate with a local children’s clothing shop and create a weekend event for families to come and hear about the latest trends in photography and kids’ fashion. Offer special discounts for kids’ outfits when they book a portrait session. Interacting regularly with other businesses on Facebook – like sharing their posts and tagging them – can boost your brand’s engagement, visibility, and grow your online and foot traffic.

Cross-promote other local Facebook Business Pages by tagging them, so you are visible to each other’s followers.

3. Do: Learn More About Your Local Audience

One of the ways to better know your targeted audience is to find relevant local groups. Note that at the moment you can only join them with your personal Facebook account. As a starting point, you can begin listening to groups’ conversations. They are a great source of valuable insights about customer desires, needs, and interests. When you feel comfortable you can start taking part in those chats, show your expertise in the field, and build trust by sharing tips and information that educate potential clients. When you build credibility within those groups you can begin sharing posts directly from your Facebook Business Page, and thus boost its traffic, engagement, and followers. Another way to learn more about the audiences that matter most to your local business is to use Facebook’s tool, Audience Insights. It’s free and you can find it in the Facebook Ads Manager within the “Plans” dropdown menu.

The Audience Insights feature lets you learn about a specific audience by looking at six categories of data: Demographics, Page Likes, Location, Activity, Household, and Purchase.

4. Do: Blend Online with Offline

As a local owner you should kееp a strong involvement within the local community through sponsorships, fundraisers, supporting local charities, and organizing events. Create and share Facebook events to inform local people where and when those offline events will take place. You can also set up an event ad to reach audiences who could not be reached through traditional marketing channels, like TV or print.

A ramen restaurant located in Orlando creates a Facebook event to celebrate its first birthday. The restaurant owners invite customers to join in by providing detailed information about the upcoming event and the special offers it will feature.  

Create how-to videos, share before & after videos/images, or ask your clients to send photos showing use of your products or services to demonstrate the high-quality work you provide. Also, offer incentives like free Wi-Fi, drinks, or discounts to encourage your clients to check into your office or storefront by using the Facebook Places feature. Check-ins will show up as updates on your customers’ timelines, which can help the business get noticed by more people.

A hair salon posts before-and-after photos to better illustrate what its employees can do to give customers confidence in booking a particular service.

A medical center broadcasts with Facebook Live to interactively discuss double-chin treatment options, the process, and results after the procedure.

5. Don’t: Ignore Your Page Review Section

Don’t get upset about negative comments, and never delete them or ignore users’ opinions. Customer complaints spread like wildfire on social media and can end up harming your company’s reputation, and even cause a decline in physical store traffic and sales. If a customer is grousing over poor service, try to stay calm and don’t rush to fight back. Remember, it’s not personal. Better put yourself in their shoes and send an apology for the caused inconvenience as soon as possible.

Reply to the user by tagging him or her (use the @ symbol followed by name), thank the user for reporting, and explain that you will investigate the situation and work on resolving the issue. You can compensate dissatisfied customers with vouchers, coupons that will get them a free meal/drink, offer them money back, or free stays (if applicable). This kind of proactive approach will stop the crisis before it becomes viral and turn complainers into brand advocates. When other customers see how empathetic and friendly your business is, they will be more likely to make a booking or purchase your products or services.

A burger restaurant replies to every upset customer and informs them that he or she has the attention of the restaurant’s owner.

However, if you catch a competitor’s dirty tricks, like posting fake negative reviews from fake accounts on your Facebook Business Page, you can hide, report the post, or even ban the account from your page. No matter how great your services are, you cannot please all the people all the time, but do use customer complaints as a way to learn about potential flaws in your business and learn to improve your services for the future.

6. Don’t: Automate Everything

While you are busy meeting with clients, selling your services and planning your local business, it can be really intimidating to maintain a steady flow of content on Facebook, especially when you don’t have the time and the resources to hire a person or an agency to assist with managing your page. As a result, many page owners resort to using tools like Buffer and Hootsuite to automate their status updates.

However, setting up a given tool to post on your behalf could be a double-edged sword. On one hand, there is a steady stream of posts that keeps your local business visible on the social network. Also, using automation helps you avoid forgetting to publish important updates for your Facebook fans. On the other hand, it’s not a good idea to automate everything. For instance, when customers leave comments the automated tool won’t be able to address those comments. Of course, that will appear totally unprofessional and you risk losing client trust. It would make sense to go the hybrid way by automating messages that promote your business or share tips and informative links, while at the same time posting real-time updates by yourself – for example, local hot news, or live-stream an event happening at your physical location, or a local event that you’re attending or sponsoring.

Remember the reference at the very start of this article? This is definitely part of having to put in some thought and time to create (and maintain) a successful Facebook Business Page!

7. Don’t: Like Your Own Updates

It’s an awkward situation when your official Facebook account appears to have liked its own updates! This could be viewed as a form of vanity or a desperate attempt to get more likes by your page followers. Instead, encourage your staff to like and share your posts immediately after they are published on your Page Timeline. By giving your page a pat on the back, your team members will help you increase the chances of your posts making it into the news feeds of their friends, and thus get more exposure to locals.

8. Don’t: Overshare Posts

It’s good to be active and share posts regularly with your Facebook community. However, some Facebook Business Pages go below normal by sharing only inspirational quotes, or promoting products several times a day. It looks rather spammy and indicates you might lack creativity. You may be asking yourself: How often to post on Facebook? There are a lot of social media frequency studies out there sharing different recommendations. But no matter how often you post, try to diversify your content strategy to improve engagement, and always focus on the quality and relevance of your content rather than the quantity. A good practice is to use a content calendar to organize your social media posts.

Implement the Do’s and Don’ts – and Watch Your Local Facebook Business Page Grow

Facebook is constantly making updates and launching new features to attract small businesses and at the same time, to provide relevant and high-quality content to its users. Implementing the tips above into your social media strategy can help your local business leverage Facebook for improving its online visibility and winning new customers. A well-managed local Facebook Business Page, connecting people offline and online, and effectively executing promotional campaigns will reward you with new customers – and happier existing ones.

8 Do’s of Managing a Local #Facebook Business Page by @OptiLocal #RocksDigital #SocialMedia
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What tip above could you start implementing – or stop doing? Do share your experiences in the comments below!

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