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4 Facebook factors to face down for maximum brand impact

January 24, 2017 by Seshu Madabushi — Founder & CEO, mKonnekt

With 1.8 billion active users each month, nearly one-third of whom are in that golden 25-to-34 demographic, Facebook is a potential source of restaurant gold, making the quality of a brand's participation in the social media venue absolutely critical to thriving in today's competitive food service environment.

Still, any type of technology, with its continuing parade of upgrades and changes, can be tough to both stay on top of and also keep tabs on. Here then, are some basic tricks and tools under four broad areas that should be part of all brands' Facebook activities, including a deep analysis of your brand's presence on it, as well as some basic pointers on the real nuggets in the Facebook goldmine — the various forms of content you put on your page.  

1.    Know your Facebook "face."

Likealyzer.com offers an often-used Facebook page analysis tool, that gives information about your page's current performance as well as insight into what you can do to increase it. Likealyzer's statistics offer information about an array of brand pages in different categories, representing various cultures and countries. This information is invaluable in helping brand leaders see the pages that perform best in an array of food service categories all over the world, serving as a great source of inspiration for ways to improve your presence on Facebook.

AgoraPulse Barometermust be logged on through your brand's Facebook page and provides performance information, based on posts, when compared against other pages in the tool's database.Unfortunately, this information is provided in a comparison with pages across all business sectors, but it does offer some insight. 

Social Bakers is a tool that compares your Facebook page against your competitors' via an emailed report that hones in on the audience your page attracts and how it is growing, while showcasing the most effectively engaging content you're offering. 

2.    Put your best "page" forward.

After a thorough analysis of what you're offering, it's critical to take action to optimize what's working and shed away what's not. Here, the basics, like a great brand name and cover picture are just as critical as ensuring that you're using the correct dimensions and making a CTA button available to collect customer information in the most optimal way possible. Simple measures like double- and triple-checking the accuracy of your page information, including your phone number, email and location addresses can be the difference between dozens of customers and many hundreds of them. So, to that end, be sure and regularly check the ongoing accuracy of: 

• Profile and cover pictures: Be sure your 168- x 168-pixel profile picture shows the logo clearly and that your 828- x 315-pixel cover photo or design is attractive, connotes your service or product, and prompts consumer action. It's also a great idea to rotate this image with the seasons of the year. 
• Page and user names: Your page name should be 75 characters long with a searchable, unique username and 50-character URL. 
• Individual category tabs: These are business-dependent, but you should always shoot for tab labels that prompt customer interaction.
• Call to action: This could be anything from prompting a call in with an order to providing customer information. 

3.    Content is still king: 

The right content is what makes or breaks a page. Some content guidelines include:  

• Know your customer: Check out Facebook Insights for a typical customer profile and make sure you know what your target customer is seeking and what appeals to that individual most. 
• Develop an appropriate content strategy: Base this on customer needs and include a mix of pictures, videos and user-generated content.
• Engage visitors: Mix questions, contest offers and content, then make a basic schedule delineating what content runs at what time. 
• Analyze as you go along: Use the previously discussed tools to keep evaluating the effectiveness of your content and timing. 
• Make sure content either heightens awareness of your restaurant, engages your customers with your brand, and/or prompts them to buy from you. 

4.    Getting your money's worth on advertising: 
With Facebook's organic reach of around 2 percent, paid advertising is still essential to your brand's presence on the venue. Facebook allows you to target audiences, set budgets and measure ad effectiveness, as well as providing tools based on your campaign's objective, so make sure that objective either heightens brand awareness, generates leads or draws customers in to your offer.
But don't stop there. Be sure also to define your target audience well, using Facebook’s detailed targeting parameters. Then, finally, choose your visuals well ensuring that image text is within the 20 percent limit by using the image text check tool. 

Taken together, these strategies can markedly improve your Facebook presence over the short and long haul. 

About Seshu Madabushi

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A serial entrepreneur with a focus on restaurant marketing, working on the latest venture mKonnekt. mKonnekt is a platform that mines customer data to create personalized and unique dining experiences.

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