You may have an awesome pet service business, but if your Facebook page stinks, you could be pushing clients away without realizing it.
Your Facebook page is like walking into a job interview. Based on how your page reads, looks, and even functions, prospective clients will quickly decide whether to become a customer (or, hire you). So, it’s important to make a good first impression.
If you’re unsure about what kind of impression you’re giving, or if you’re worried that your Facebook page isn’t as good as it could be, here are 10 simple tips to officially un-stink your Facebook page:
1. Create an Actual Business Page—Not a Personal Page That Acts Like One
Using a personal account for a business page doesn’t just look unprofessional. Using a personal account for anything other than a personal page violates Facebook’s Terms of Service, and Facebook can delete your account at any time if they discover you’re using your personal account for business.
If you’re using a personal Facebook page for your pet service, learn how to convert it today to a true Facebook business page before Facebook decides it’s time to “hasta la vista” your page into oblivion.
2. Tell People What Your Pet Business Is About
The About section of your Facebook business page is one of the first places that potential clients will visit to learn more about what you do. So, it’s important to populate this section with clear, concise information that fully explains what you offer.
This is especially important if your pet business name does not convey or reflect the nature of your pet business.
If you have a dog-grooming business called Quality Pet Services, for example, there’s nothing in the title alone to tell people what you do. Without informing people on your About page that you provide dog grooming, your service is unclear, and confusion generally causes people to abandon pages.
Make sure to fill out all the sections in the About page, including:
- Your contact and website information so prospective clients know how to reach you
- The products you sell (if any)
- Your hours of operation
- Your location (ideally identified with Google Maps)
- Categories to help people find your page
In marketing, clarity generally trumps persuasion. When you provide prospective clients with clear, concise information on your About page, the easier you make it for them to decide you fit their needs.
3. Choose a Profile Picture That Represents Your Pet Business
Your business page profile picture will be seen with every post you make. So, make sure it’s easily recognizable.
Your pet business logo is the ideal choice, and the simpler the elements in your profile picture, the better. A logo combined with text, for example, may look great displayed as part of a large website banner. Yet when scaled down to fit within the 170x170 pixel display space for profile pictures on computers (and even smaller for smartphones), a logo with text may appear illegible and unappealing. For greater visual impact, use your logo alone in your profile picture.
Keep in mind that your pet business logo will be cropped to a circular shape to accompany ads and posts but will appear square when people visit your page. Also, use a high-resolution logo image and scale it down to fit your profile picture for an image that appears crisp and bold. Scaling up from a small logo generally causes poor image quality through pixilation.
4. Choose a Banner Photo That Provides Clarity and Trust
Your Facebook business page banner photo is a marketing tool that should immediately answer two terse questions in the minds of prospective clients:
- What does this pet business do?
- Why should I trust them?
If you run a pet boarding kennel, for example, a high-quality picture of your facility certainly tells people what you do. Yet a picture of happy cats and/or dogs at your kennel tells a deeper story. It connects on an emotional level by telling people that they can trust your kennel to take good care of their pets.
Pro Tip: Drive more traffic to your website by adding a description and website link to your banner image and profile image. Simply click on the image and click on “Add a description.”
5. Organize and Customize Your Tabs
Custom tabs are valuable to social media marketing because they let you create a richer visitor experience on Facebook and control the content that visitors and your followers see when they come to your page. Tabs (Photos, Videos, Posts and other apps associated with your page) are displayed below your cover photo and can be arranged in the priority you want visitors to see.
- Go to Settings (top right-hand side of your Facebook business page)
- Click Templates and Tabs in the left-hand column
- Click and drag a tab to reorder it
Keep in mind that some tabs (e.g. Home, About) can’t be removed, and others (e.g. Home) can’t be reordered.
6. Set Your Message Options
You can choose whether visitors are able to send you private messages. If you disable this feature in Settings, the Message button will not appear on your page. Keeping the button on your page makes it easier for fans to connect with you if they have questions. So, we recommend keeping this feature enabled, provided you’re prepared to monitor your inbox.
7. Get Visual to Increase Your Page’s Visibility
According to Hubspot, Facebook posts with photos receive 53% more Likes than the average post and attract 104% more comments than the average post. More Likes and comments help increase your EdgeRank, Facebook’s visibility algorithm, which helps your page to appear in Facebook’s newsfeed more often.
8. Mix It Up
Don’t make all your posts about pitching your services. Mix it up and show your personality with some funny posts, interesting links, or videos/pictures about your pet service. Social media is about being social to build up and sustain engagement. It’s not about undermining engagement and driving people away by constantly trying to sell them something.
9. Use Facebook Insights to Better Understand Your Followers
Do you know when your page followers are using Facebook? To find out, click on the “Insights” tab at the top of your Facebook business page. Then click Posts at the right-hand side of the page. You’ll be able to see which days and times your fans are most active. You’ll also be able to see which posts are reaching and engaging more people, all of which can help you create future content to maintain engagement.
10. Mix It Up Again!
Keep on eye on your Insights and look for trends. If you’re noticing a decline in engagement, mix it up and try to replicate the types of posts that has success in the past. Insights provide invaluable analytics for figuring out what works and what doesn’t with your followers.
There you have it! In 10 simple steps, you’ve just un-stunk your Facebook page.
Now that you have a Facebook business page that’s as awesome as your pet service, you can feel better about promoting it to connect with more pet owners and turn new customers into lasting and loyal ones.
