Facebook Marketing Pitfalls to Avoid

With 1 Billion unique users worldwide, there’s no disputing that Facebook can have huge marketing potential for your firm. However, as with any type of marketing, your efforts will only be effective if you follow best practices. Growing your fan base will be easier if you avoid these common mistakes:

1. Publish only self-promotional content

Promoting your own content is a great idea. Promoting ONLY your own content is not. The real value of social media is in the sharing of content and ideas, so make sure you’re following the 80/20 rule: 80% of your social media posts should provide value to your audience, meaning it’s content that educates, entertains, or offers a solution. The remaining 20% of your posts should explicitly promote your law firm. Not only will your fans find your page more interesting, but you’ll be establishing yourself as an industry authority.

2. Publish text-only posts
   

Continuously posting only regular text updates will get boring fast, so mix it up. Post different types of content on your page – upload photos and videos, post links to interesting and valuable content, issue invitations to upcoming seminars.

3. Automate all of your activity
   

Social media management tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer can make implementing a social media marketing plan much easier. However, avoid publishing all of your content through these third part apps.

Some studies suggest that posts that are automatically published via one of these tools have a lower Edgerank, which is an algorithm developed by Facebook to determine what’s displayed on the News Feed.

More importantly, you should be publishing timely content and responding individually to fans, something that’s difficult to do if you’re scheduling everything in advance using an automated tool.

4. Never include a call to action

One of the easiest ways to engage your fans is to ask them a question. In fact, studies show that when you post an update and ask a question at the end, people are almost 50% more likely to interact with your content.

Asking a question isn’t the only way to encourage interaction with your content. Ask your fans to caption a photo, fill in the blank, or “like” if they agree with you.

5. Only consider your fan growth

Watching the number of Likes on your page skyrocket is exciting, but it’s not the most important measure of your page’s success. Engagement is a much more significant metric.

Having more fans is useless if they never engage with your page. It’s much more valuable to have fewer fans that are regularly commenting, liking, and sharing your content. When those fans do engage with your content, their friends see your updates in their newsfeeds, so you have the potential to reach a wider audience.

6. Don’t promote your Facebook page

What’s the point of developing a great page and posting valuable content if no one ever sees it? Encourage prospects to visit and like your page by making it easy for them to find it.

Include a link to your Facebook page:
– on your website and blog
– in your email signature
– on your business card
– on all of your other social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, & LinkedIn

With a small amount of effort, Facebook can be a powerful marketing tool. Have you increased your engagement with your customers and prospects on Facebook? What strategies worked best for you?

Rita Chaires

Director, Web and Online Marketing Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com