Tackling your business’s Facebook page can be overwhelming.  Here are six easy and quick things you can do to make your brand’s presence on Facebook more effective.

#1 Target Your Posts to the Right People

Customize whether a post goes to all your fans, or only to people in certain countries or cities, or just to people who speak a specific language.

If you have an international customer base, you could send the same message in the best language for each audience.

When you’re offering free shipping, wouldn’t it be nice to show a post only to people in the same region where you’re located?

Before posting a status update, click the lock icon near the “Share” button and select “Customize”.

#2 Create a Custom URL for your Facebook Page

The default URL for your business’ Facebook page will look something like this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Name-Of-Your-Facebook-Page/123456789. Not the easiest URL for you or your customers to remember.

Fortunately, you can get a vanity URL like ”’http://www.facebook.com/The-Username-You-Choose”’ by going to Facebook/username and choosing a custom user name for your page. For example, our custom Facebook URL is Facebook.com/AboutUs.org. That tells people right away what our domain name is, so people can easily find our site.

#3 Get Into Your Fans’ “Top News”

The default view on a person’s Facebook news feed shows status updates and posts that Facebook deems “Top News.” Sometimes people switch to the setting “Most Recent,” which provides a stream of all status updates and stories from their friends. If you’re in Top News, your updates will be easier to see, and they’ll probably be seen by more people.

The posts that show up in “Top News” have received more “likes” and comments than others. If you write compelling status updates that your fans want to engage with, you’ll get more likes and comments. You can also ask your staff and friends to like your company’s Facebook status updates, and make appropriate comments.

Also, Facebook has gotten smart and pays attention to what content people seem to like most. For example, if you often “like” or comment on posts from person X or business Y, your “Top News” feed will likely show status updates from those two pages, even if their posts haven’t received any likes or comments from anyone.

So, if you want to show up in more of your fans’ Top News, entice them to engage with your content more now to be in their view more in the future. To do this, try

• Posting more engaging status updates
  • Include eye-catching images with your posts
  • Use language that gets people’s attention
  • Talk about more exciting things that your fans care about
• Asking questions, or
• Running a contest people enter by commenting on or liking one of your posts

Search engines pay attention to status updates and comments, so having more of both – so long as they are relevant and not spammy – can help your company name rise higher in search results.

#4 Link to the Facebook page for your business in your personal updates

If you post a status update on your personal Facebook account that mentions your company, link to your company’s Facebook page. This can help more of your personal friends connect with your company’s page. They’re your friends – if you send them there, they’ll probably “like” it. And that can help your company’s Web presence.

Here’s how to make that link: While typing your status update, type the @ symbol followed immediately by the first few letters of the Facebook page you want to link to. The page should show up as an option. Choose it, and then the name of your page or business will appear as a link to your company’s Facebook page. Note: You will be able to link in this way only to Facebook pages that you’ve “liked.”

#5 Look at Your Insights & Learn About Your Fans

Facebook provides free statistics about the activity on your page and the people connected to it. You can learn the demographics (like age and gender) of your fans, and see which of your posts received the most feedback. To access your page’s insights, look for the Insights box on the left and click “See All”.

Facebook recently added some insight data for admins right in the posts themselves. See image at right.

You can use this data to learn more about your customers, what they like, and how you can improve your social media marketing. You might even be able to use this information to improve your products or services.

#6 Post at the Best Time

According to a Facebook study, posts before noon get the best engagement from fans and Friday is the best day to post. Weekend days are the worst days for business pages to post.

Think about your particular business. Are your customers more likely to check out your website content during the weekend, from home, or during their work week, from the office? In which time zone are the majority of your fans located? (You can look at the Insights mentioned in #6 to learn this.) Schedule your posts accordingly.

Another thing to keep in mind: Will anyone on your customer service team be available right after you post to answer comments on Facebook, answer the phones and respond to emails? You don’t want people to have to wait 12, 24 or 48 hours to hear back from you.

For more articles and advice about Facebook, check out the posts in our Facebook category.

This article was written by Kristina Weis of AboutUs. 

Kristina is customer service and social media lead for AboutUs.  She helps website owners who are trying to promote their businesses online.  Her personal blog is at KristinaWeis.com and she tweets at @KristinaWeis.