Recently, I went browsing through my Facebook profile and discovered that I list my favorite book as The Cat in the Hat and my favorite band is Hannah Montana. I don’t remember if I did this ironically or if I was just a weird teenager, but this page had not been touched, updated, or even looked at since Myspace was still a direct competitor with Facebook. Remember Myspace? I miss those days…

Needless to say, I had to go through everything and give it a complete revamp. It got me thinking.. What is the list of things I should be checking on a regular basis on Facebook and Instagram? What should I be doing to get the most out of my Facebook and Instagram pages?

Step 1: Facebook About Tab

Let’s jump straight into the trenches. Visitors will frequently go to the Facebook About tab to find out more about your company. It’s also the page you’re least likely to update in your day-to-day social media activities.

Website link: Think critically about where you link to your website. It may make more sense to link to your All Products category page rather than your homepage. Take a look at the historical data in your analytics program to see the most valuable pages on your website to visitors coming from Facebook. If you have major launches or sales, update this link to direct people to these pages during the promotional time period.

Description: Think about the description as an elevator pitch, instead of a bio. You want to present the pertinent information about your company in a way that converts without weighing them down with unnecessary information. Skip the year your brand was founded or how you decided to start the company. Instead, focus on the value propositions of your brand and your products.

Add Your Instagram Link: Make sure that your other social platforms are linked and available on your About tab. Some people may find you on Facebook, but prefer another platform. Make it easy to find!

Add Your Customer Service Email: List an email address with a fast response time. This email address should also get customers to the solution quickly, whether that’s through forwarding or a quick response.

Update Your Category: Your brand and business may have evolved since you first set up the page. Make sure that your categories reflect these updates.

Add Team Members: Team Members allows you to list the administrators and editors of your page. It’s a way to humanize your brand. For example, you can list the social media manager under this section, so that people have an idea of who they’re talking to when they reach out in a comment or private message. A word of warning, we all have our own way of doing social media. Make sure that the person you list here has a profile that matches your brand’s values.

Once you’ve made these improvements, take a look at the About tab as a whole. Does it tell your brand’s story? If the focus seems off or incomplete, add or subtract elements until it drives the actions you are focused on and provides the details that your customers need more.

Step 2: Polish Up Your Instagram Profile

Next step, Instagram! You should have the same goals for your Instagram profile that you had for the About tab on Facebook: to drive people to your website, to provide relevant information, and to make communication easy.

Update Your Name: While most people would default to their name or the name of the company, there are other options to consider. For instance, Company Name may not give as much information as Company Name: Women’s Clothing. That will also allow you to show up for those people who search for Women’s Clothing profiles.

Double-Check Your Label: If you have a Business or Creator account, then you’re familiar with the additional label that Instagram gives you. Review this and make sure that it still aligns with your brand. Creator accounts have labels referring to the person, while Business accounts will have more business-focused labels.

Confirm Your Link: Your link is the single most important part of your Instagram profile. It can drive traffic directly to your website, or it can use a LinkinBio or Linktree to sort your customers and help them find what they’re looking for.

Add Contact Methods: Being a Creator or a Business allows you to have additional contact info listed on your profile. Add any necessary buttons so that your potential customers can contact you.

Optimize Your Description: Your description should contain your best selling points for your brand and should be optimized for keywords. It can also include hashtags for your niche/industry.

Optimization 1: Make your CTAs clear(er)

Your CTAs on Facebook and Instagram should be clear and easy to find in each of your posts. Your call to action should include an indication of the action you want them to take, and how you expect them to take that action. For instance, “Learn More at https://staging-johnfitch.kinsta.cloud” is a good CTA because you are telling them where to go and what to do.

On Facebook

Facebook allows you to link in the description of your post, so you can link directly to your content’s most relevant website page. To further optimize, you should make sure that your link appears above the “See More” tag and that the link is clearly marked. You can mark it with an emoji or lead into it from the caption with a “Learn More: LINK”

In addition to making the link clearer to see and click, you should also give clear instructions about what the viewer is supposed to do. Are they supposed to shop the link? Read the article? Giving them clear instructions can increase the chances that they’ll click on the link and do the action that you want them to.

On Instagram

Instagram doesn’t allow links in their posts, but there are a few ways to optimize your CTAs. First, IGTV descriptions allow you to link to a website, so video content can be a great way to spread the word about your links. Second, you can prompt people to click on the link in your bio. When this goes to a specific webpage, you can update frequently to include the relevant pages for promotions and sales.

If you are consistently linking to new content, as is the case with news organizations and other content creators, you can use the services LinkInBio or LinkTree to connect each post to a specific URL. That way, people can click your link, find the post they liked, and find the content that it links to.

Optimization 2: Clean Your Feeds

So, this one should be done with extreme caution. Facebook and Instagram have both implemented protections against mass deletions of past posts. However, cleaning out the odd post here and there can help you create a cleaner feed. That way, visitors will see a cohesive set of posts that still has current information.

If you notice people consistently try an old coupon code on your website, or ask about a specific sale that’s expired, you can go through and delete the posts that may be spreading this old information. You can also slowly clean out anything that pictures sold out products that won’t be coming back.

Optimization 3: Set up Chatbots

For a better customer experience, you can set up an auto response with your most commonly asked questions. That way, most customers will get the information they’re looking for without having to wait for a response.

A good chatbot gives concise answers to commonly asked questions and lets the customer know when they can expect a response if their question wasn’t answered. No need to get super fancy, a clear message is all that’s needed here. If you already have an auto response set up for your customer service email, it could be as simple as cutting and pasting.

Optimization 4: Connect Your Data

Connecting your Facebook to your Instagram and your audiences to your Facebook Ad Account can help you create a personalized experience for your customers and visitors.

To start, connect your Instagram account to your Facebook account, so that you can run ads through your Facebook dashboard and you can target your Instagram & Facebook followers with ads that are better informed. Connecting your audience lists and customer lists can also help you present a more personalized experience for your audience.

Keeping your data up-to-date with Facebook can also prevent mistakes in targeting ads. You should make this a regular part of your social media routine, or use an app/plugin to automate the process. Many programs like Hubspot or Marketo can automate this process so that you are always running ads with the best targeting options.

Optimization 5: Don’t be afraid to get back to your roots

In many cases, social media managers scale up their posting, advertising, and commenting, but find lackluster results even though they are adding additional effort. If you are posting more and more and more and finding that your returns aren’t what they need to be, then it could be time to reevaluate your strategy.

Don’t be so afraid to rock the boat that you continue to post just as you had been doing and don’t have enough time to be innovative. In many ways, a good innovative post can more than make up the difference of 5+ mediocre posts.

Perform an audit on your posted content from time to time to see if there are content types that perform better. You should always be upping the bar from your previous posts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean just posting more frequently. Look for ways to take the insights from your previous posts and spin them into new content!

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