All things branding, inbound marketing, inbound sales + growth blog

7 Facebook Tips and Tricks You May Not Know

Written by Remington Begg | February 24, 2016 at 1:00 PM

Looking to get the most of your social media marketing? Get on Facebook. Facebook is the original, and still the king, of all social media platforms. To not go the way of MySpace, Facebook is constantly evolving and growing with the current social media user. That’s exactly what you should be doing too! Here’s a few of the most recent tips to help keep your Facebook strategy in line:

#1 Images posted via Instagram receive more engagement than traditional Facebook image posts

If there was ever a reason to merge your social media postings into one aligned strategy, here it is. A Buzzsumo study of over 1 billion Facebook posts from 3 million brand pages found that images posted to Facebook from Instagram actually receive more engagement than the natively published images. Your followers want to be wowed with cool photos, even on Facebook. If you haven’t yet set up your company on Instagram, do it now.

#2 People are more closely connected than ever

It makes sense that social media connects people, but now there’s actual data to back that assumption up. “Six degrees of separation” is the theory that everyone in the world is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person. Now thanks to social media, it appears the six degrees are now shrinking. According to a Facebook study, the six degrees of separation has now become the three-and-a-half degrees of separation. This means anyone you could want to connect with, from Mark Zuckerberg to President Obama, is only about three or four facebook friends away! The implications of this from a marketing and networking standpoint are pretty huge.

#3 Posts with hashtags receive less engagement than those without

This is a great lesson is knowing your audience and your platform. On Twitter, two hashtags is the optimal amount for the most engagement. On Facebook, that number is zero. This came from the same Buzzsumo study of 1 billion Facebook users. While hashtags are vital on Twitter and Instagram, they’ve no little to no impact at all on Facebook.

#4 Almost half of Facebook’s users are mobile only

Facebook now boasts more than 1.5 billion users. What’s even more interesting is that nearly half, around 46%, of Facebook’s users never log in to the desktop site and use Facebook only on mobile devices. Mobilegeddon is taking over the internet, and Facebook is no different. This means you need to be aware that at least half of your Facebook Friends are seeing your posts, status updates, and photos on a screen much smaller than the desktop you may be using at your office.

#5 You can sync your Facebook Calendar with Google Calendar

If you use both Facebook events and Google Calendar to manage your brand’s events, combining the two is amazingly useful and ,thankfully, pretty simple. Here’s how to do it:

  • Head over to Events on Facebook, and click on one of your ‘Upcoming events’
  • Once you’re on the event page, click on the ‘Options’ button and select ‘Export Event’ from the dropdown
  • Next, you’ll see the below lightbox popup. Here you’ll want to copy the URL under ‘Subscribe to all upcoming events on your calendar’
  • Once you’ve copied the URL, open up Google Calendar and on the left-hand side you’ll see an option called ‘Other Calendars.’ Click on the drop down next to ‘Other Calendars’ and choose “Add by URL” as shown below.
  • Once the lightbox opens up, insert the URL you copied from Facebook and your Facebook events will now sync with Google Calendar.

By joining the calendars together, you’ll make sure you never miss a client’s birthday or charity event again!

#6 Facebook’s audience is maturing in Western markets

The internet isn’t done growing, and neither is Facebook. This is made possible because older people are jumping on the bandwagon and enjoying social media with the younger coworker and families members, at least in the West. In America, only 33 percent of Facebook’s audience is under age 30. By comparison, in India and Indonesia, 75 percent of its users are under 30. Think social media is just for teens and the brands marketing to them? Think again!

#7 Messenger has over 800 million users

Last year, 2015, was a huge year for Facebook Messenger and the app now has over 800 million monthly active users! This is good and bad news for marketers using the platform to maximize their ROI. It means people who want to connect with their friends via Facebook can do solely that, skipping over your posts and ads all together to message someone. However, it also means that you can be one of those people connecting with them on a more intimate level. Use this to your advantage!

One of the most interesting aspects of social media marketing is how dynamic it is. Every platform is a little different and every year brings about new changes. While that is what makes it a fun industry to be a part of, it can also make it frustrating for those who don’t have time to keep up with the new trends. Impulse Creative created a free eBook Mastering Social Media for Business to help. Download it today!