More than 10 years after it was launched, Facebook remains the most popular social media site – 72% of online adults are Facebook users, amounting to 62% of all American adults. And even though growth on the site has largely plateaued (new users aren’t signing up at the same rate they used to) you can still use Facebook to grow your blog’s audience and make connections as a brand.
The first step is to create a Facebook page for your blog. You’ll then need to make sure that your Facebook social links are connected to that page’s URL. Before we go over how to use Facebook as a Page let’s talk about why you want to do this.
First, it allows you to connect with your audience without letting your audience see your personal Facebook account. Not to sound paranoid but stranger danger can be real and as a blogger you are putting yourself out there as a public figure and having a little separation is a good thing. For example you should share photos and tag your family members in posts on your personal page but on your blog’s business page you’d just share a picture without tagging anyone.
Second, using Facebook as your page lets you make connections with other brands – as your brand. This way the brand sees interactions from “Windy City Bloggers” not “Erin Bassett” and while I like to think that my name carries weight, I know that WCBC’s weight is much heavier!
Third, sharing posts as your brand to your blog’s Facebook page helps to strengthen the whole concept of your brand to your audience. We advocate for an 80/20 balance on social media – 80% promotion of other’s work or general content and 20% promotion of your own work (or sales). This helps your audience to understand that while you are a creator of content you are also an appreciator of content. Sharing work that you find inspiring or work by your friends makes you a resource for high quality content from across the web. Your readers will start to expect this from you and may start to visit your page first, and spend more time on it, because they know you’re sharing things they want to see.
The benefits continue because building a well-rounded brand is important to succeeding in the crowded blog-o-sphere but let’s get into how to use Facebook as a Page in one simple step.
Change the Facebook User
Navigate to the top menu bar (the blue one) and on the right hand side there is a mini profile picture & your name, the home button and then 5 icons. You’ll want to click on the last icon (the downward facing arrow). That drop down menu will reveal all of the pages you are an administrator of. I’m an admin on 3 pages – my blog’s page, an organization I help fundraise for and WCBC’s page.
Then select the page you want to use Facebook as and it redirects you to that page but notice that the mini profile picture & name have changed.
Use Facebook as Usual
You can hit “home” on the menu and you’ll be directed to a newsfeed. The posts that are compiled here are from people and pages that you’ve liked as a brand so you can curate a newsfeed of the content that you will want to share with your readers on your page!
And since you are now logged in as your brand you can like, comment on and share posts as your brand! Really, just use Facebook as usual and you’ll be building a stronger brand!
Quick note: we are using Google Chrome as our internet browser but the icons should be the same and in the same place across browsers.
Sharing to Your Page from the Facebook Mobile App
Scheduling posts is an important part of managing your social media. But if you are using the Facebook app on your mobile device you can share content to your page on the fly! To do so, tap “share” then select “Write Post”. At the top of the next screen it reads “Your Timeline” then “Tap to Change” and select the page to share it to. You then have the chance to add a comment to the post.
You still can’t comment and like as a page on the mobile app but sharing content to your page on the go is a way to add a content mix to your Blog’s Facebook page.
Hopefully these tips help you to build out your Facebook presence. It is an excellent tool for connecting with your current readers and reaching out to new ones!
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