Facebook has started 2021 with some interesting changes to Pages that will help us small businesses use it for marketing.

Change no.1 - the disappearance of the 'like' button

Many of our clients tell us that while they have a decent number of likes on their Page, they get little interaction when they post. One of the causes is that people have 'liked' the Page but aren't 'following' it so the Page's posts don't show up in their news feed. It makes the 'like' number irrelevant.

So...first change it that the Facebook 'like' button is gone. What you'll see now is just the 'followers' and it will give you a better idea how many people are getting your Page posts.

Change no.2 - the reappearance of the Page 'News Feed'

The second, really useful change is that you'll see a News Feed for your Page. They have always been there but Facebook has hidden them in the past. This is *great* news. Why? Because you should be engaging with other Pages from your Page and this makes it much easier to do that.

Would you like some help growing the following of your page? Don't know what we are talking about when we say 'engaging from your Page'? Check out our social media marketing online courses, live and digital workshops in the Stockholm area or talk to us for help with your business marketing.

Change no.3 - asking and answering questions create a Q&A area

Whenever we look at Facebook these days, the feed is full of people asking others for help or opinions on things. Facebook is sensibly capitalising on this. Your fans will be able to ask questions on your Page and the answers you give will be turned into a Q&A area that fans can swipe through to find what they are looking for.

This could be a goldmine for small businesses. If you don't have any fans asking you questions, ask some of your best customers if they'd mind doing so.

Change no.4 - making Page admin more detailed

Admins will now be able to give access to individual areas of the Page back end. Most of us only have ourselves to think about but when, for example, clients of ours want us to help them with Ads or deal with their Messages, they'll now be able to give us access just to those sections.

You'll see the changes to your Page in the coming weeks. Let us know what you think of them!

Check out our social media marketing online courses, live and digital workshops in the Stockholm area or talk to us for help with your business marketing.

Facebook has just launched a new element on business pages called Shops, to tie in with Shopping on Instagram. Perfect for small businesses selling products but also useful for selling services, even when you sell to other businesses.

Facebook Shops are accessable from your Facebook page and from your Instagram account. Perfect, so we don't need to create them twice and maintain two areas.

You can now add products and services that people can browse through and even purchase (at the moment, just in the US...) within the Facebook Shop.

Read more about it below and click here for Facebook's information.

The Shop area of your business page can be used to showcase anything you offer that is productised. This includes workshops, courses, reports and even fixed-price services, although there is space elsewhere for them too

Here is how we have displayed two of our own online courses in the Shop on our Facebook Page.

There is also a tab for Services. If you can't see either tab, look in the settings. You may need to change the template of your Facebook page to get them. It is a very simple thing to do.

Here is how we display two types of services:
1. Individual coaching appointments - one-off video calls with us
2. Coaching packages - to help business owners get their marketing on track and bringing in customers/clients.

While Facebook wants to help small businesses grow, especially at the moment, there are millions of us. Just putting items and services on the page won't get you any extra sales.

Now you need to promote both the Shop and the individual items. Facebook will help you if you put the effort in.

If you would like some help with this, book a coaching call with us or perhaps even sign yourself up for our six-week social media and content marketing programme (online or IRL!). We'll get you up and running!

Did you have any problems with Facebook and Instagram yesterday?

#InstagramDown

On one of the busiest days of the year in the US, both Facebook and Instagram lost the ability to add anything new. People saw content from before the crash, messages in Messenger just sat there and Instagram feeds didn't update.

Of course there will be times when things go wrong but there is no poitn missing the irony that Instagram had to use Twitter to let people know what was happening :)

Now everything is working again but if you are running ads on either platform, go and check to see what happened yesterday. It might affect your results and stats.

If you need help with your advertising, get in touch with us.

Do you use Facebook ads to promote your business? If so, watch out for changes happening mid-August 2019 to the size of mobile ads - they are getting smaller in two ways:

• Only 3 lines of primary text will show on Facebook mobile News Feed. People will be prompted to click to view additional text.
• The max height for photos and videos will reduce to 4:5 on mobile News Feed. The tallest supported aspect ratio for images without links and for videos is now vertical (4:5). Media taller than 4:5 will be masked on Facebook's mobile News Feed.

What does this mean for you?

You will need to think hard about the first three lines of your text - they need to inspire people to click 'See More'. Not an easy task!

On the positive side, images that you use for Instagram will work better with this Facebook ad format.