Facebook Pages: Creating, Optimising & Analysing

Creating a Facebook page.............................................................................................. 5

Optimising your Facebook Page: .................................................................................... 7

Accessing your Facebook page: ................................................................................. 11

Understanding EdgeRank .............................................................................................. 11

How to optimise your Facebook Page activity for EdgeRank.......................................... 12

Different Types of Content ............................................................................................ 15

Videos ..................................................................................................................... 15

Images .................................................................................................................... 15

Responding to comments and posts: .......................................................................... 15

Promotions & Competitions ........................................................................................... 16

Integrate Facebook with your online marketing activity: .................................................. 18

Share your Facebook page via other social media platforms: ........................................ 18

Evaluating your Facebook activity: ................................................................................. 19

Summary .................................................................................................................... 19

A Little Bit About Koozai:

Koozai are a multi-award winning digital marketing agency.

We’re one of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies having been ranked 23rd in the

Deloitte Technology Fast50.

We help businesses connect with their customers online – providing a range of industry-

leading services from Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC)

Management to Link Building, Social Media and Brand Management.

We thrive on building long-lasting client relationships and delivering true value for money.

We’re passionate about what we do - and that shows in our work.

No lengthy contracts, just world class Digital Marketing. Koozai will help you build your

brand online and achieve ROI that can be clearly measured against your bottom line.

How To Get In Touch:

If you would like to get in touch with us, please visit our website (www.koozai.com) or use

one of the methods below:

About The Author:

Tara West has digital account management expertise and a degree in Advertising and

Marketing Communications, giving her an excellent understanding of the social media space.

About This Whitepaper

This whitepaper will cover, in detail, how to create and optimise a Facebook account. It will

also cover the kind of content you should be posting from your page to get maximum

engagement from your fans as well as the best metrics for measuring interaction.

Creating a Facebook page

1. Make sure you are signed in on an existing personal Facebook account. This should be a

real Facebook account with friends. If you create a personal account and then

immediately try to set up a page, Facebook will view this as spam and prevent you from

doing so.

2. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

3. Choose whether the page is for

- Local business or place

- Company, organisation or institution

- Brand or product

- Artist, band or public figure

- Entertainment

- Cause or community

There is a lot of overlap between these categories but pick the one you feel best suits

your offering:

If your location is particularly important to your business or organisation then choose

“Local business or place”. This should help your content appear in the news feeds of

those who have strong geographic proximity to it and are therefore most likely to

engage.

4. Choose a category and name. Again just select the one which fits your offering. When

giving your page a name avoid generic names such as ‘Shoes’ and make sure it is your

business name. Facebook may take down your page if it considers it to be too generic.

You should also ensure your page name does not contain character symbols or excessive

punctuation.

If you have chosen ‘local business’ as the type of page, you will also need to provide your

address at this stage:

5. Upload an image for your Facebook page. This will be shrunk to 180 x 180 pixels so

ensure it is this size or still looks acceptable when it is reduced.

6. Click next, where you will be asked to provide some basic information about your page.

According to Facebook, this influences your page’s performance in search engine results.

Make sure it is clear and concise, and includes the name of your brand, product or

service. Look to use terms and phrases that search engines users may use within their

queries. Make sure you fill in the area for your website and also tick that the page will

represent a real business, product or brand.

7. You will then get asked if you would like to enable ads. These are paid ads and will not

be covered within this white paper, so for this purpose we have chosen ‘skip’. You can

always create ads at a later stage.

8. The next stage is to ‘like’ the page you have just created. Be aware that this is ‘liking’ it

from the personal account which you would have been signed into originally.

9. You will then be prompted to invite your friends. It is recommended that you leave this

step until you have finished completing your Facebook page and have some content on

it. You can just click ‘skip’.

Optimising your Facebook Page:

The next steps will show you how to add content to your Facebook page:

1. Click to add a profile picture (if you didn’t do this in the set up process). Again, this will

be reduced to 180 x 180 pixels so either choose an image with these dimensions or one

that remains clear when minimised. You might want to use your logo or part of your logo

that fits this size format well.

SEOmoz make their profile picture match the background of their cover photo which

allows them to have a seamless image whilst also showing their mascot in a fun setting:

2. Add a Cover photo. This should be 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. It should be

striking and match the look and feel of your website so that visitors can see it relates to

your brand. Avoid including details such as your web address, email address, or any other

promotional information. It must not include any call to action such as ‘like this page’ or

‘order online now’.

Your cover image on your Facebook page is a great place to promote your brand – it’s

the biggest area of the page so it’s natural to want to make the most of it.

Instead of this kind of promotion, try using your cover image as a way of reinforcing your

brand image. New Look have done this well by using some striking images that reflect

their brand image. This does not mean including your brand name in your cover photo,

but ensuring your image reflects the style and look and feel of your brand:

3. Update your ‘About’ section. This should be similar to the description you entered earlier,

but also state why people should ‘like’ your page. For example “Like us for the latest

news and exclusive offers”

You can also add your company history which Coca Cola use in a fun way:

4. Click ‘edit’ above ‘about’, ‘basic info’ or ‘contact info’ to add more details:

You should fill in as much detail as possible on the next page, as this will all help

strengthen your page and increase the likelihood of it appearing in search results:

5. Add some photos to your page. This will make it look more attractive in this initial stage

until you have built up photo albums as part of your marketing activity. To do this click

‘photos’ and then ‘add photos’.

For example on the Koozai Facebook page we show photos of us speaking at

conferences:

6. Give the album a name (Click on ‘Untitled Album’ and it will become editable) and a brief

description, as well as adding the date and location when they were taken. The more

information you provide, the more likely this content is to show up in news feeds and

search results which will increase your page exposure.

Accessing your Facebook page:

1. Log in as normal via your personal account at https://www.facebook.com/ and then click

the little downwards arrow next to ‘Home’ on the top right-hand side of the screen. Then

select the page you want to access.

2. You can then post from your page as normal.

3. To go back to your personal account just go to the little downwards arrow next to ‘Home’

on the top right-hand side of the screen and chose your personal profile.

Understanding EdgeRank

Ever wondered what determines who sees your Facebook updates, or what you see in your

own news feed? Besides overcomplicated privacy settings, there is an algorithm that

determines these factors, known as EdgeRank.

What is EdgeRank?

Each time someone posts something on Facebook, they are creating an ‘edge’. In addition

to this, every time someone interacts with a post that has been shared on Facebook, it also

creates an edge. This could be as anything, including a photo or status update, or sharing a

link, and it could be any interaction such as a like or a comment.

The top-level concepts which make up the EdgeRank algorithm are:

Affinity

How ‘close’ are you to the person who posted the object and vice versa? For example, if

they often comment on your posts, tag you in places or photos, send you messages, or even

if they look at your wall often, they are thought to have a higher affinity score in relation to

you.

Weight

Each kind of object posted or interaction behaviour (Edge) has a weight. For example

posting a photograph creates a stronger edge than a regular text based update. This applies

to interactions too, for example commenting on someone’s status probably creates a higher

edge than just a ‘like’.

Time Decay

This means that the older the post or the interaction, the less important it is and the lower

the ‘edge’.

The EdgeRank algorithm determines a score for each of these factors and then multiplies

them together to create an EdgeRank. The higher the EdgeRank between two contacts, the

more likely they will see your activity in their newsfeed.

In addition to these basic ideas, there are other factors which are thought to contribute to

EdgeRank, such as how many times a link is clicked, or how many outbound links a user

clicks on.

There is also debate over whether using a third party tool or API to post to Facebook can

have a negative effect on your EdgeRank, as it is thought that the algorithm determines

these posts as not being optimised for Facebook, or being scheduled, and so being of lower

value.

How to optimise your Facebook Page activity for EdgeRank

Optimise for Affinity

Create content and posts that people will want to interact with! Don’t post rubbish.

This obviously depends on what your users find interesting, but you could try to encourage

engagement within your posts, for example Foster’s regularly create polls to engage their

users:

This kind of post is likely to have a higher weight than a straightforward text-based status

update and it also encourages interaction which will increase their ‘edge’.

You should also encourage fans to post on your wall. This could be through asking them to

share their stories. The more they interact with your page the more likely they are to see

your updates in their newsfeed.

Tag other pages or brands within your posts if they are relevant, for example Cosmo UK

tagged Bestival’s Facebook page in their update about festival fashion:

If your fans also like these pages you have tagged in your post, they might be more likely to

find your content in their newsfeed.

Don’t forget to interact with fans too. For example you could ‘like’ some of their comments.

There is growing belief that EdgeRank also perceives the people that you message as having

a higher ‘edge’. You could try messaging your fans individually to see if it helps increase

your ‘edge’, for example Vodka Revolutions messaged me recently:

Following this, they seemed to appear within our newsfeed more. This may be coincidence

or it may be as a result of EdgeRank.

Optimise for Time Decay

Experiment with the frequency of your posts. There are various pieces of software you can

buy to measure the levels of interaction that your page receives when you post at different

frequencies, which can give you a broad overview. It greatly depends on your industry too,

for example a gossip or news page might post more often than a jewellery ecommerce

brand. It also depends on what is happening in your industry; for example, if there is an

event you can be talking about you might benefit from posting more often. The key here is

to find the balance, but remember you won’t please all the people all the time:

You might want to start with a strategy where you post once to twice a day, depending on if

you have additional newsworthy stories to share of post. It is important to remember to

spread out your updates, as if you post too many in a short period of time, Facebook might

collapse your updates and only show the most recent with a message that says ‘See similar

posts’.

Optimise for weight

Give your posts weight by uploading videos and images sometimes. For example we post a

new video every week:

You could also try posting links and polls to add weight to your posts. Just remember to

keep it relevant and interesting so your audience are encouraged to interact. If you have not

got a business page but have set up a regular personal profile in the name of your business

– which is not ideal – you could also try adding a location to your post (available to personal

profiles but not business pages at the moment). This might be particularly useful if the post

is relevant to a certain location, for example the opening of a new store or an event. This

might mean it is more likely to appear to those who are in the area or have visited and been

tagged in the area on Facebook.

When you are considering all these aspects of EdgeRank for optimisation, it’s important to

think about them in conjunction with one-another, rather than as individual elements. One

really good example of a social media campaign that achieved this is when Ikea asked fans

to tag themselves in images from their catalogue in order to win them. This creates an

update with weight by uploading a series of images, it encourages a strong weight of

interaction by asking users to tag themselves, and it can help them build affinity with a

wider audience by appearing in the newsfeeds of friends of those who have been tagged.

Different Types of Content

The content you post on Facebook should not always be directly related to your brand. For

example if you are a fashion retailer, you can post about the latest look a celebrity has

worn, and ask your fans for their comments on the look.

Do not post exactly the same content on a Facebook update that you have posted on other

social media platforms. Users need a unique value from each platform otherwise they will

not follow you on all of them.

The richer the formats you use on Facebook, the more likely they are to appear in users’

newsfeeds and drive engagement:

Videos

Post any videos relating to your industry, for example if you are a food retailer you could

post cookery videos by professional chefs. You could then create a discussion below the post

about the best ingredients to use, which will relate the post to your brand.

Images

Post any images you have alongside regular updates to make the update more eye-catching

within the user’s news stream.

Responding to comments and posts:

Respond to comments and posts as soon as possible.

Do not delete negative comments or posts, but respond to them in a timely manner and ask

the user to email you their details so you can talk to them directly. The key is to move

negative conversations away from Facebook but remain transparent so that other users can

see you are still responding to negative feedback.

If you receive a lot of negative comments or posts about the same issue, do not respond to

them all individually but create a post which address the issue separately and then respond

to each post with a link to your main post which addresses the issue.

Promotions & Competitions

If you’ve ever read Facebook Pages T&Cs (and managed to stay awake all the way through)

you’ll have noticed that they are very keen to stress that they are not responsible for any

promotions which you run via their site. This is understandable, as competitions can go

wrong sometimes and Facebook do not want to be liable every time that happens.

To coincide with this, they also don’t want you to use their functionality to run your

promotions on their site. Any promotion featured on a Facebook page cannot use any of

Facebook’s own functionality as a means for entering.

So if you have ever asked your users to ‘like’ your status in return for any kind of incentive,

you are violating Facebook’s terms of use.

If you are taking users’ information as part of any promotion, you need to make it clear to

the users that they are supplying their details to you as a third party, rather than to

Facebook. Some brands get around this in a very simple cost-effective manner by asking

users to email to enter their competition. One example of a brand who use this method is

Malibu UK:

If you run a lot of promotions via Facebook you might want to consider having an App

developed from which you can manage all your Facebook promotions. The advantages of

this route are that you don’t lose users from your Facebook page when they leave to access

their email in order to enter the competition. The likelihood of them returning to your page

after entering your competition is much higher. App development can be costly if you are

looking for something customised, but there are also off-the-shelf apps available which

may be more cost-effective depending on your resources.

Giving away Gift Cards or Vouchers as prizes is not permitted in Facebook Pages T&Cs, so

you will need to make sure your prizes and promotions are for products or experiences. We

all know cash talks, but offering experiences that can’t be bought can also produce great

results!

If you often drive further interaction through your page by asking your fans to vote on who

should win competitions, you might want to consider getting them to vote for some finalists,

and then having a panel or someone within the company to make the final decision. This is

because you are not allowed to have users vote as part of any promotion using Facebook’s

functionalities such as ‘Liking’ or sharing in any way. This is also a good way of avoiding

controversy, as by having the final decision made internally you can always state in your

own competition terms and conditions that the decision is at your discretion and will be final.

This reduces the possibility of any discrepancies.

Information Collection

If you are taking users’ information as part of any promotion, you need to make it clear that

they are supplying their details to you as a third party, rather than to Facebook. As with any

time when you are collecting users details, it’s also recommended you familiarise yourself

with the Data Protection Act to ensure you are using their data legally. It is one thing to

break Facebook’s rules but it’s another to break the law!

Adverts

If you are running ads on your Facebook Page, you might want to take a detailed look

at Facebook’s advertising Guidelines, as these are a completely different set of rules

which your ads need to abide by.

Here is a quick summary from a recent post on Marketing Gum of some of the popular

promotions which are actually violating Facebook pages T&C’s.

Never ask the user to do the following in order to participate in your promotion:

Share content

Create their own content and post it to your page or upload it to their own page

Comment on a photo, video, status or any other post

Vote in a poll created using Facebook

Promote the page to their friends

To be safe we recommend having a good read through the official T&Cs on their site.

Integrate Facebook with your online marketing activity:

Facebook should be integrated within your online marketing strategy, and the following are

tips which will help you to achieve this integration:

Facebook Buttons for your Website:

Facebook should be integrated within your online marketing strategy, as such all relevant

Facebook buttons should be on your website linking to your Facebook page.

The buttons should be prominently featured on your website. Boohoo.com is an example of

how the buttons can fit into your site in a prominent position:

In particular you should implement the following as a minimum:

Like button (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/)

Page / Profile button (https://www.facebook.com/badges/)

In particular, you should consider having the Facebook ‘Share’ button on the confirmation

page after checkout if you are an ecommerce brand because often visitors are keen to post

about what they have just purchased.

There are also many other buttons which might benefit your site and can be found at

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/.

Share your Facebook page via other social media platforms:

Do not post the same thing on every social media platform. Users need a reason to engage

with you on each profile.

You should however share your Facebook content via other social media platforms. For

example, if you are running a competition which uses your Facebook page or app to enter,

share this competition and link on Twitter.

Evaluating your Facebook activity:

There are lots of metrics which might indicate success or need for improvement on your

Facebook page and within the content you publish, but some of the key ones you should be

analysing are:

Fans gained

Fans lost

Posts which got the most impressions (post similar things and they should gain higher

impressions too)

Number of comments on posts

Number of shares of posts

Number of conversions on your website where Facebook has been a touch point

(assisted conversions)

Number of people who visit your site via Facebook

You can get data on your fans, comments, and shares from social media tools such as

Crowdbooster https://crowdbooster.com/.

You can get data on referral and conversions assisted by Facebook within the social section

of Google Analytics (http://www.koozai.com/blog/analytics/google-analytics-social-reports-

explored/).

Summary

You should now have a good understanding of the types of Facebook pages that get shared,

content that you can create and how to get started. The best step you can make is to

register an account and get started.