Think you understand the core business features and tools of Facebook? Even if you’ve been on the site since the Stone Age (aka 2004), there are always some new Facebook tricks and tips to discover.
With 2.91 billion monthly active users (that’s 36.8% of the world’s population!), Facebook is still the largest social media platform. And since the average user spends 19.6 hours a month on Facebook, you have plenty of opportunities to grab the attention of your target audience.
But the competition is fierce and organic reach is falling. These days, you need more than engaging content to reach your target audience.
Here are our top Facebook tips and tricks to help you increase engagement and reach.
General Facebook Hacks
Not sure how to take your Facebook business page to the next level? These general Facebook tricks can help improve your reach and engagement.
1. Optimize your Facebook profile
After setting up your Facebook business page, spend some time optimizing your profile data.
Before liking your Page, people often go to the About You section to learn more about your business. So give them what they are looking for! Fill in all the details to set audience expectations and encourage users to love your Page.
Share the unique story, mission, and values of your business in the Our Story section. If your business has a physical location, fill in key information such as address, contact information, and business hours.
Cosmetic brand Lush uses the “About Us”section to share their values and contact details:
2. Promote your Facebook profile
If you’re just getting started on Facebook, share your profile with existing audiences on other platforms.
You can get more Page likes on Facebook by adding Follow or Share buttons to your website or blog.
Here’s how fashion brand Asos cross-promotes its social media channels on its website:
You can also cross-promote your Facebook Page by including links to your Page in other social media bios. After all, over 99% of Facebook users have accounts on other social networks.
3. Pin the most relevant content
You can pin a post so that it stays visible to visitors. Try pinning an ad, promotion, or impactful post that your audience already loves.
How to do it:
1. Click the ellipsis button in the upper right corner of the message.
2. Select Pin to Top of Page.
Pro Tip: Keep your pinned post updated every few weeks.
4. Use Facebook search operators
Facebook search operators allow you to filter your search results based on what you want or don’t want to see. Instead of digging through irrelevant results, Facebook’s search operators will do all the hard work for you.
So how can Facebook search operators help you optimize your Facebook marketing campaigns?
Here are some ideas:
- Research your audience. Understanding your audience and the type of content they like will help you post more engaging content.
- Find user-generated content (UGC). Search your brand name to find people who have mentioned your brand but haven’t tagged you.
- Study your competitors. Look at the content your competitors are sharing, how engaged they are, and what their audience looks like. Identify new competitors in your area.
- Find content to share. Look for topics or phrases to determine the content your audience will interact with.
To use Facebook’s search operators, you need to rely on boolean search via Google.
How it works?
Logical operators are terms that allow you to expand or narrow your search results. For example, you can use “AND”to search two search terms at the same time.
How to do it:
1. Use site:Facebook.com [topic] to identify relevant content and companies
Enter site:Facebook.com [houseplants] into the Google search bar.
For example, if you own a houseplant shop, you can use this search command to find the top performing houseplant Facebook pages and groups:
2. To identify local competitors, use the site: Facebook.com [type of business in location]
Type in Google search site: Facebook.com [seattle home decor store]
For example, if you run a home decor store in Seattle, you can use this Facebook search command to find out what your direct competitors are doing.
After that, a list of home decor stores in Seattle will appear in the search results:
This is an exact search match, so Google won’t return results even with minor variations. Search results for “Seattle home improvement stores”and “Seattle home improvement store”may differ.
Facebook tricks for business
Facebook Business Pages contains many features and tools to help you grow your business. Here’s our top pick of Facebook business tricks.
5. Optimize your call to action
Facebook call-to-action buttons are located at the top center of Facebook pages. You can customize this call to action to guide interested audience members to the next step that is most valuable to your business.
If you’re looking to develop leads or just communicate more, consider adding CTA buttons like Sign Up or Send Message.
Design brand Threadless uses a standard “Send Message” call to action to encourage people to ask questions:
If you want people to buy something or make an appointment, select a CTA button like Buy Now or Book Now.
Here’s how to change the desktop CTA button:
1. On your Facebook page, click Edit Send message.
2. Select Edit from the drop-down menu.
3. Choose from 14 Facebook call-to-action button options.
6. Claim your Page’s custom URL
When you create a Facebook business page, it will get a randomly assigned number and a URL that will look something like this:
facebook.com/pages/yourbusiness/8769543217
Make your Facebook page more accessible and easy to find with a customized, personalized URL.
It will look like this:
facebook.com/hootsuite
How to do it:
Visit facebook.com/username to change your Facebook username and URL.
7. Customize Your Page’s Tabs
Every Facebook page has several default tabs, including:
- ABOUT
- Photo
- Community
But you can also add additional tabs so your audience can learn more about your business’ unique features. You can show off your reviews, highlight your services, or even create custom tabs.
How to do it:
1. Click “More”
2. Scroll the drop down menu to the edit tabs.
3. Select the tabs you want to add to your Facebook page.
You can even work with a developer or use the Facebook Page app to create your own tabs.
8. Showcase your products in collections
One million users make purchases in Facebook stores every month. This feature allows you to catalog your products into collections so that customers can view, save, share and purchase your products.
Use Facebook Collections to select and organize your brand’s products. This way, when customers land on your Facebook store, they can easily see different types of your products.
For example, like many e-commerce stores, Lorna Jane Active separates its products into collections and product types. Collections are also more intuitive for clients:
Organizing products into categories also makes it easier for shoppers to find what they’re looking for:
9. Set up Facebook verification in the app
Facebook Checkout allows customers to easily make payments directly to Facebook (or Instagram) without leaving the platform.
Social commerce, or the sale of products directly on social media, is expected to generate $3.37 trillion worldwide by 2028. It makes sense – when you can buy something without going to a new site, you are more likely to spend money.
Note. You’ll need Commerce Manager to set up Facebook payment, and it’s currently only available in the US. Facebook has detailed instructions for setting up checkout and eligibility requirements.
10. Create a community of like-minded people
1.8 billion people use Facebook groups every month. And the Facebook algorithm currently prioritizes meaningful interactions. Knowing this, companies are encouraged to use the platform’s community features.
Facebook groups are one of the most effective ways to build a community of like-minded people. A group is a place where fans can learn about promotions and events, share experiences, or interact with each other and with your business.
Sportswear brand lululemon has a Sweat Life group where members can post about upcoming events and chat with each other:
11. Live
Facebook Live video has the highest reach of any post type these days. It gets 10 times more comments than a regular video and people watch it three times longer.
In addition, Facebook prioritizes live video by placing it at the top of the feed. The platform even sends notifications to potentially interested audience members.
Take advantage of all these benefits by scheduling a broadcast, or simply start streaming live by selecting the Live icon in the Update Status field.
Here are some ideas for Facebook Live:
- Providing tutorials or demonstrations
- Broadcast event
- Making a big announcement
- Behind the scenes.
The longer you’re live (we recommend at least ten minutes), the more likely people are to tune in to you.
Facebook Posting Tricks
Take the guesswork out of posting the right content at the right time with these Facebook posting tips.
12. Schedule your posts
Consistently posting high-quality content will keep your audience engaged. But publishing compelling copy and high-quality visuals every day isn’t easy. One of the best Facebook hacks is to group your content or create multiple posts before scheduling them ahead of time.
You can use Facebook’s built-in tools like Creator Studio or Meta Business Suite to schedule posts for Facebook and Instagram. However, if you post on other social networks as well, you may need a third-party social media management tool.
13. Use Facebook Page Insights to Analyze Performance
Publishing quality content is only half the battle. You also need to track your metrics to identify engagement trends.
Keep a close eye on your Facebook page statistics to see what works for your audience.
You can use the Page Insights dashboard to check a snapshot of your Page’s performance over the past seven days, including:
- The page is liking. The total number of new and existing likes for your Page.
- Visiting a Facebook page. The number of visits to your Page by users.
- Betrothal. The total number of unique people who interacted with your Page and posts.
- Publication coverage. Measures the number of unique views your Page and posts have.
You can also view a detailed breakdown for each post, including reach, likes, and more.
14. Use Audience Insights to learn about audience behavior
Check out Facebook Audience Statistics to get a deeper understanding of your audience’s preferences and behaviors. This tool provides you with detailed information about your main audience.
You get demographic breakdowns that include information about:
- Age
- Floor
- Location
- Family status
- Levels of Education
- Vacancy description
You can also find information about your audience’s interests, hobbies, and other Facebook pages they follow.
Use this data to decide which content topics will be of most interest to your audience.
Facebook Messenger tricks
Facebook Messenger is a one-stop shop for communicating with friends, family, and even brands. Many of Facebook’s best secrets are revealed in Messenger.
15. Get the “Very Responsive”Badge
If you respond quickly to the majority of users who message you on Facebook, you can earn a “Very Fast Responders”badge that will appear on your profile.
To earn the badge, you need a 90% response rate and a response time of at least 15 minutes in the last seven days.
Clothing brand Zappos has a badge on their profile:
Nothing will show up if you don’t reply to messages, so it’s not the end of the world.
But having a Very Responsive badge is an important signal of trust. This shows your audience that you care about their needs and are listening.
16. Use a chatbot to improve responses
If you need help improving Messenger response time, consider using an AI chatbot. Instead of having your support team answer all the questions, chatbots can answer simple FAQ-style questions for you. Then, if customers need more support, chatbots can route those more complex or sensitive questions to your team.
Chatbots can also sell products to your customers to improve their shopping experience.
Facebook advertising tricks
Facebook ads can reach 2.1 billion users worldwide. Knowing a few Facebook advertising techniques will help you reach more of your target audience.
17. Install Meta Pixel
The meta pixel allows you to track conversions from your Facebook ads and remarket to website visitors.
It works by placing and activating cookies to track users as they interact with your business both on and off Facebook.
For example, I spotted a The Fold jacket I was looking to buy on my Instagram feed. I clicked to check the details and digressed before adding it to my cart.
The next time I opened Instagram, this ad popped up:
This is known as retargeting and is a great way to re-engage customers who have already shown interest in your products. Installing a Meta Pixel can help you retarget shoppers close to making a purchase.
18. Promote your best organic social content
Have you ever created content that you are so proud of that you can’t wait to click Publish? Maybe it’s the launch of a hot new product that you’ve been counting down for months. Or it’s a new blog post that you know will solve your audience’s problems.
Whatever it is, standing out on Facebook can be tricky. And right now, organic reach is down to 5.2%. You can’t rely solely on the Facebook algorithm to show your organic content to all the people you want to reach.
Using the Facebook Boost button can help you make your Facebook content more accessible to your target audience. With built-in targeting options, you can reach the people most likely to be interested in your content.
Instead of promoting a post using the Facebook interface, you can also promote a post from the Hootsuite dashboard.
19. Analyze the effectiveness of your advertising
Analyzing the performance of your ads is key to optimizing your paid campaigns. Facebook Ads Manager allows you to not only create campaigns, but also see the results.
In the toolbox, you can get a complete overview of your ad account performance, or apply a breakdown to see detailed metrics.
- Set up columns to test metrics such as website conversions or social impressions.
- Use the suggested columns to see more data about your ads based on your goal, ad, and more.
- View the breakdown to see the age of your audience, what devices they use, and their location.
- Use the analytics sidebar to see a visual representation of your ad performance, such as total ad spend.
However, you don’t have to use Ads Manager to test the effectiveness of your ads. You can also get a detailed view of your regular content and paid advertising campaigns on Hootsuite. From one central dashboard, you can view performance and engagement metrics across your Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn ads.
This way you don’t have to switch between multiple platforms and you can see all your efforts in one place. You can also get custom reports on the performance of your ads.