Hi there Saturday Sugers! This week we are talking about Facebook Pages. A great place to grow the audience of your blog or business and pretty much still a free service. I know my page is still the number one referrer to my blog even with the recent changes, so you won’t find me complaining any time soon. Sometimes I even wonder would I be happy to pay a subscription for access to pages and I think the answer is YES. Just don’t tell the Facebook people. Don’t want to give them any ideas now, do I? Soooo, moving on, here are my favourite things about Facebook Pages that you may or may not know and how to use them.

Schedule

Gone are the days where we have to use a third-party app or site to schedule or Facebook updates. Thank, freaking, goodness. When posting a status update or photo simply click the small clock icon to the bottom left of the status box. If you haven’t set a start date for your page you’ll have to do this, so click on it before you enter your witty and outstanding update or you’ll probably lose it. Then simply choose the year, date and time. Easy peasy and seamless too. You won’t have your updates bundled with other app type updates like we had to deal with in the past. Keep in mind though that Facebook is an interactive thing, if you’re not going to be on your page all day, sending a number of updates you don’t plan to respond to with only annoy people and discourage interaction.

Highlight to Page

You know how sometimes people say lovely things about you or share a photo that is just TOO god not to share on the page? Well I don’t know if it’s a recent change to Timeline or whether it has been around for a while but I have JUST discovered the highlight/show on page. Which I LOVE. To do this click on the X to the right of the minimised ‘Recent Posts by Others’ post. Here you can choose between show on page, highlight on page and all the usually spam and delete ones too. This is an excellent way to acknowledge great participation on your page and increase that kind of interaction. Especially if you deal with a lot of spam links and more. Delete them and let those sharing real value posts shine.

App Tabs

Changing these is one of the most simple and effective things you can do to streamline the look of your page is to add an image to the App Tabs. To do this follow the simple steps below and the size guide above. I kept mine simple on my page, but you really can go to town with invitations to follow, attention grabbing images and captions and more. Get creative with this, you won’t be sad you did.

• Click on the small tab with the down arrow to the far right of the App Tabs section.
• This opens all available apps.
• Hover over the app you are editing and click the pencil
• Click edit settings {note this is where you change their positioning too}
• Click CHANGE next to custom tab image
• Upload image and click ok
• Return to page and you’re done

Milestones

When working with businesses one of the first things we do is go back through their business story and enter Milestones. Awards, media mentions and milestone events for the business. New locations, new branches etc. Do this by going to the same area where the status updates and upload images section lives. There is a third section there with offers, events + where you can enter your business/blog milestones. Take some time, do this. People spending time on your page will look. I know I do after a while. I’m nosey like that.

Offers

So the newest of the additions {that I’ve noted} is the Offer section. This is a place for businesses to promote offers such as free samples, discounts etc. I haven’t used it yet {you get one free trial, apparently} but I plan to for ad spaces in the near future. I am waiting because I haven’t worked out how I best want to do it. And that line of caution is probably the best piece of advice I can give to you. Be smart about how you do this, for me, as a Facebook user in the recent weeks, I have hidden from news feed or unfollowed based on these posts more often than not. Soooo, I assume it feels a bit the same to every body. Keep this in mind and only offer things of REAL value to your subscribers because every man and his dog will see it AND how many people take up the offer. Awkward if no one does, just saying.

That is everything for now. I’ll make edits as they come through or if things change. This is one of those things that change constantly and is updated and fiddled with regularly. You really have to be on your page, editing and updating all the time to stay in touch.

Do you use Facebook Pages to promote your business or blog? What’s your favourite function?

Find this blog’s page at www.facebook.com/SugerCoatIt – just sayin.

Melissa Walker Horn

Hi! I’m Suger; Chief Blogger at Suger Coat It. Blogging since 1901; love a casual ootd, taking photos + writing about things that irk or inspire me. I love wine and cheese, long days at the beach and spending time with my family. I make stuff for the internet; photos, create content, write copy and devise social media plans for personal brands, small businesses and bloggers. You know, living the sweet life.