Small Business Facebook FAQ

For most business owners, however, navigating the endless options on Facebook can seem overwhelming. From trying to run active engagement to advertising campaigns on the platform, there’s just too much going on. That means most small business owners won’t be able to work through all of it and run their business at the same time.

This means you need a marketing team that understands your organization and can help you grow on Facebook both organically and through Facebook and Instagram ads (known as pay-per-click, or PPC for short). The catch, however, is that you should have a basic understanding of what Facebook for Business actually looks like and how it operates on a fundamental level. That way, you can make better decisions alongside your marketing team, as opposed to simply leaving every move up to them.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the essential aspects of Facebook for Small Business. We’re going to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about running social media campaigns on the platform, so that you can navigate it more easily and make better decisions month after month.

How to Run a Small Business on Facebook (FAQ)

1. Why is Facebook so important for small business?

Many small business owners have better things to do than run their social media accounts, so it’s key to understand the importance of Facebook specifically, for growth both online and in the real world.

With over 3 billion monthly users (yes, Billion with a B), Facebook, which also includes Instagram and WhatsApp) has the largest market share of any social media company.

That’s more than Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, or any other social media platform or network that you can think of. Because of this, any small business looking to grow through digital marketing efforts should strongly consider being on Facebook. More to the point, the massive number of users on the Facebook and Instagram gives small business owners access to an enormous amount of potential customers and clients. Even better, with Facebook’s advertising platform, any type of small business can literally target any type of customer or client directly with their ads. It sounds like magic, we know. To be honest, that’s not entirely wrong.

There’s power in numbers, and Facebook has the most. So, given the current nature of digital marketing on social media, Facebook and Instagram have an outsized influence, making them a key player for small businesses looking to reach more clients online.

2. What’s the difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook Page? Are pages free like profiles?

Simply put, Facebook offers one primary type of account: personal profiles. Business pages are created from a personal profile. In other words, a business cannot go onto Facebook and create their own business page without an individual first having a personal profile.

Facebook Profiles are meant for personal use. This is the account that you use to post pictures of the family vacation, your new puppy, and to view other friends and family posts.

Facebook Pages are meant for professional and business use. These are the pages that you interact with from brands, like Nike or Adidas, Coke or Pepsi, Microsoft or Apple. Any type of organization or person can create a Facebook Page and run their organization’s social media from it, assuming they already have a personal profile to create from.

3. How do I create a Facebook Page for my small business?

If you already have a Facebook profile, you can easily create a Facebook page for your small business from your home page. Follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Click on the orange Pages flag icon on the left-hand side of your Facebook home page.
2. Click “+ Create New Page” in blue type, which will appear on the left-hand side of your screen.
3. Follow the prompts to fill in the necessary information about your small business.

It really is that simple to get started with a Facebook Page for your business, and it’s completely free to use.

4. What types of posts are best for Facebook Pages?

Just like with your personal Facebook profile, there are a few main types of post: text, image, and video are the most common. Of these three types, the “best” kind will depend largely on your business and the kind of interaction levels and feedback you get from your followers, customers, and clients.

That being said, a healthy combination of text, image, and video posts is nearly always the best way to go. As the saying goes, variety is the spice of life, and social media is no exception. With a variety of different post types, you can engage different people in different ways. Video, for instance, is an engaging way to explain a new product or service in detail.

With all that in mind, the one thing you really want to focus on with your Facebook Page posts, no matter what type they are, is this: be genuine. Social media is most often used for entertainment. People do not want to go there to look at ads all day, or to be sold your new service or product. They want to be distracted from reality.

If you post nothing but “Call Me Now” all the time, then you will become a sort of constant commercial. This will either get you consistently looked over or even muted by potential customers. Be original and let people get to know you. This helps to build trust and loyalty.

If you have to talk about your business, then consider answering a common question that you get a lot, and go into detail on the answer from your professional perspective. The internet is full of examples of companies using social media in a poor effort to “fit in”. Don’t worry about “fitting in”. Instead, focus on your followers, be honest, and try to genuinely connect with your potential customers and clients. Remember, these are real people, not just data.

Word to the wise: response time matters. In a recent survey, a full 20% of Facebook users expected a message response immediately, and a whopping 24% of users expected a response within an hour. In other words: really fast. So, when you set up your Facebook Page, know that you will be expected to have a good response time, and that your customers will be incredibly appreciative if you do.

6. How often should small businesses post on Facebook?

Much like the question above about post types, the number of posts will depend a bit on the type of company you run and your clientele. Even so, there’s a lot of data that suggests a certain minimum number of posts for businesses to run on their Facebook page.

Thankfully for you (and small business owners everywhere), the data suggests that Facebook Pages require very little new content each month. In fact, Hubspot, one of the most influential digital marketing platforms, reports that posting more frequently can actually hurt your engagement over time.

So, how much should your business post on Facebook? About 5 times per month. You read that right: just five total posts every month. If your Facebook Page has fewer than 10,000 followers, then more posts equals less engagement. Period.

Source: Hubspot

As you can see from the chart above, only pages with 10,000 or more followers actually saw increased post activity and engagement with an increase in the number of posts. All of the others decreased. This may be surprising, but it’s simply where we’re at in terms of the evolution of the Facebook News Feed.

7. How do Facebook ads work?

This question has been written about extensively — both here at Cut Throat Marketing and elsewhere — so we’ll just talk briefly about the way Facebook ads work.

Basically, Facebook ads are advertisements that display on different parts of the Facebook and Instagram platform. Businesses can run ads on Facebook by setting up a Facebook Page and selecting an image or video to run alongside some text and a link. They can show up on the News Feed, in search, within messages, during videos, and many other places.

While Facebook ads are a great source of advertising potential, they aren’t meant for every type of business. As we have also written about here on Cut Throat Marketing, another excellent option is Google ads. In fact, in some cases, Google ads offer an even better solution. But that’s a discussion for another day!

8. How do I know if my Facebook Page is helping my business or not?

As with any platform, Facebook offers a wealth of data to help you see if it’s helping your business. The only drawback is that you sort of have to run your Page for a few months before you’ll have any of that data for yourself.

Basically, there’s a lot of information that you can look up online about what works best on Facebook in general. However, you won’t know what’s best for your company until you actually put some content out there and see what happens. Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the data that you can pull from your company’s Facebook Page:

• Followers
• Likes
• Comments
• Messages
• Video views
• Post shares
• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Employer

As you can see, there’s a lot to take in. Some of these will be more helpful than others, but ultimately your Facebook Page data can help you to make real world decisions. For example, you might notice that your video posts perform really well as ads and garner a lot of booked appointments. On the other hand, you may learn that people are more likely to reshare inspirational quotes than other posts.

Both of these are great data points and give you immediate information about whether or not your Facebook Page is helping your business or not. Other data points, such as total number of Page or Post Likes, can be less important. These are sometimes referred to as “Vanity Numbers”, because they look good, but they don’t typically equate to sales or leads.

Facebook Works for Small Businesses

With all of this new information, you might be feeling both well-informed and a bit overwhelmed. You’re not alone! Small business owners often feel like there’s just too much to take in regarding social media, much less mastery of it all, especially with everything else they have going on.

Thankfully, there is help. The small businesses that see the most success on social media platforms like Facebook are the ones that have a strategic plan and implement it effectively. The answer is to hire a professional marketing team that gets to know you and your company, your organization’s aspirations and goals, and can put together a tailored system to make it happen for you.

Here at Cut Throat Marketing, we know Facebook inside and out. Whether you want to run organic posts or paid ads, or some combination of both, we’ve got you covered. We can set up your Facebook Page for you properly and get you up and running quickly from day one. It’s time to put Facebook to work for you. It’s time to get Cut Throat. Give us a call or email to get started today.