What’s the number 1 thing Facebook Page owners struggle with?

Time management.

You’re busy running your business, keeping up with your kids, etc. (Plus looking at cat memes!!)

Sometimes the last thing you have time for is your Facebook page.

Do You Have Just 5 Minutes a Day?

Let’s say you’re a small business running a single Facebook page for your business.

You don’t have a lot of time to deal with your Facebook page, right?

With the plan below, you need just 5 minutes per day, 6 days a week (no Sundays required) to become an amazing Facebook Page Owner.

Monday: Schedule 1 post per day using Post Planner

Trying to figure out what to post on your Facebook page can be hard.

What I see happen on most new pages is they post consistently for a few weeks and then fade away.

The easiest thing to do is use the many available resources inside the Post Planner app to plan out your week.

You can grab a quick status idea from the “Status Ideas Engine” or look for some resources to share in the “Content Source Engine”.

As you’ll see in the video below in 5 minutes I can schedule an entire week’s worth of posts for a page and then move on with my day and week.

Test different times each day to see when you get the best engagement. I would recommend a minimum of one post per day at varying times of day.

My opinion is that there isn’t a “magic” time that works for all pages — so you will need to figure out what’s best for your audience.

There also isn’t a set maximum amount of posts to make per day — even if you hear other Facebook “experts” tell you there is!

Tuesday-Friday: Reply to Comments, Posts and Messages

You’d be surprised how often I run across pages that don’t reply to comments, posts or messages.

It’s one of the top 7 questions I asked to find out if you are a Crappy Fan Page Admin.

Take 5 minutes each morning before you do anything else and check your page for any engagement you need to reply to. Reply to EVERY comment, post or message by using the person’s first name — even if the comment was negative.

You’ll be impressed by how this changes the demeanor of your fans.

Saturday: Check your Insights

I’ll be honest — I hate numbers and stats.

I’m not a numbers guy and I tend to nod off when people start talking numbers. ZZZzzzzzzzzz……

But I know that you can’t determine if you’re a success or failure at something if you don’t measure your results.

I’m personally trying to lose weight and if I don’t at least hop on a scale once in a while I won’t know if my efforts at the gym are working or not.

Running your Facebook page and viewing your insights is the same.

Facebook now offers some very simple insights that make it a breeze to measure your page. Go to your page, open up your insights and see what kind of engagement your posts got.

Take note of the times and days when your posts are getting the most engagement. Then jot it down on a post-it so you can refer to it on Monday when you plan out your posts.

Better yet, since you are planning all of your posts via the Post Planner app (or should be) — you can head to your Insights in Post Planner and see the posting times and days, and the Like Rate, Comment Rate and Click Rate for all your posts!

Right inside the app!!

It even lets you filter by the different post types. Let me show you how easy this is to do in this video below:

By knowing where you’ve been you’ll have a clearer picture as to where you need to go.

The advantage of viewing Insights inside the Post Planner app versus Insights on Facebook is you can see all your pages in one place inside Post Planner.

*Due note that the only insights that will show inside the Post Planner apps are for posts you made via the app itself.

Wrapup

As you can see — by spending just 5 minutes a day on Facebook you can easily crush it with your Facebook page!

And you crushing it is my ultimate goal.

Are you looking for tips to improve your community?

In this article I’ll share 9 tips to improve your Facebook community.

#1: Know Your Voice

Branding is important on social media. Your company should have a “voice” that matches your brand and your company philosophy.

Are you more serious or do you add a little bit of snark in your posts? Do you stick mostly to business or can you be off the wall? Do you like to stir things up or do you remain neutral?

If you are a one-person operation, these decisions may be easy. But if you have multiple employees and possibly multiple people posting to the Facebook Page, you want to have the “voice of the company” communicated clearly to the people who will be managing your Facebook Page.

The voice of the company is important in how comments and community feedback are handled, as well as the day-to-day posting. Consistency in your voice will help your community know what to expect.

#2: Have Access to Visuals

Visual marketing is becoming a vital part of Facebook and all social platforms. The more you can incorporate photos, screenshots and graphics, the richer your Facebook Page will be.

Even if your business isn’t visual, make a plan for how you will add images to your posts. You can use things like:

A screenshot of something you’re demonstrating

An interesting photo with a quote about your niche

An infographic with statistics about your niche

Behind-the-scenes photos from your company events

I like using tools like Snagit, iPiccy or PicMonkey to create or modify images to make them interesting. You can even use PowerPoint to create a slide that you can then export as an image.

#3: Know the Rules

As a community manager, make sure you know Facebook’s policies. Pages can be shut down without warning for violating these policies. Usually it’s very difficult to get your Page restored and you don’t want all that hard work to go down the drain for violating Facebook’s contest terms, for example. Make sure you keep up with the updates to the terms as they do change frequently (see #7).

#4: Know the Industry

If you are managing a Page for someone else, you need to know the industry so you can speak the lingo. It won’t reflect well on the company if you aren’t using the terminology or common acronyms correctly in your posts and follow-up comments.

#5: Recognize Members

A community manager needs to recognize contributors and members and get to know them. If you have a physical location, you can take pictures of your community members and recognize them on your Facebook Page.

Or you can find other ways to recognize your community by featuring them in a post or promoting their business somehow.

#6: Answer Questions Quickly

Promptly respond to posts or questions on your Page to create strong bonds with your community. Even if you don’t know the answer, let them know that you will get back to them. Or point them to a useful resource is another good option.

The good news is you have more options to get notifications when something happens on your Page. If your Page is large, these can get overwhelming, so you may need to set a schedule to check in. To access your notifications, go to Edit Page > Manage Notifications.

#7: Stay on Top of Changes

Facebook changes a lot! There are changes to their official policies and in how things are working at any given moment. Make sure you keep track of Facebook’s official changes by following the Newsroom and the Facebook Marketing Page.

Some other great Facebook Pages to help you stay on top of the news are Mari Smith, Social Identities and Jon Loomer Digital.  And of course, there is always Grandma Mary!

#8: Respond Calmly to Negative Posts

If you get some angry posts for whatever reason on your Page, think before you fire off an angry response. Respond quickly (even if it’s to say we’ll get back to you), but don’t respond in the heat of the moment when you might feel like “telling them off.”

If you have some upset Facebook fans, there could be a good reason. By dealing calmly with the situation, you can hopefully salvage the relationship.

#9: Have Fun

Find some ways to have fun with your community. Have a Facebook “live Q&A chat” time, do a Livestream or even (gasp) go over to a Google+ Hangout.

When you are having fun and sharing with your community, you are all getting to know each other better and everyone wins.

Always be thinking about how you can be a good resource for your communityand create a great experience for your fans. Your Facebook Page will grow and so will your business.

How about you? Are you employing these tactics as a Facebook community manager? What is working for you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Note: This post originally appeared on Social Media Examiner and is reposted with permission.

I’ve added my own images to these quotes for emphasis on the image that was brought to my mind.

Hopefully, you will find a nugget or two of wisdom in this collection of some of the best social media quotes I’ve found.

I have made probably a fairly lame attempt to ensure that these quotes were attributed to the correct source but there has been some effort.  We all know that words are sometimes borrowed.

Note that these photo quotes originally appeared on the Facebook Page of Social Media Examiner as I posted them for discussion each week.  They are reprinted here with permission and are in no particular order.

What do you think?  Any of these quotes that resonate with you?  Share your thoughts and any of your favorite social media quotes in the comments below!

Tweeting, pinning, sharing, responding, creating, following – it’s enough to make you crazy.  Or more crazy than you already are.

I’ve been there.  Some weeks, I’m still there.  Here are 5 strategies to get out of that overwhelm and get back to having fun with social media.
 

1. Step Away.

Take a break. Take the weekend off. You have to recharge.  I have a whole pep talk on just that here:  Take a Break – Grandma’s Orders!

2.  Focus on the Best Platforms for Your Business.

Don’t try and do everything.  Focus on what works for you.  Do you get better traction out of LinkedIn?  Then just do LinkedIn.  Do just one or two things, don’t try and do it all.

3.  Do What You Like.

Don’t worry if people tell you you have to do Twitter or you have to do Pinterest.  Grandma isn’t going to make you eat your spinach and do Google+ if you hate it.  I have seen every platform work well for a variety of businesses.  Make sure you are having fun with it or it’s going to suck the life out of you.

4.  Schedule Ahead.

Nothing like a little planning to make you feel like you have things under control.  Have an editorial calendar.  Spend an hour just figuring out what you are going to do the next week.  You’ll feel so much better.

5.  Get Some Help.

Don’t try and do everything yourself.  Get a virtual assistant to help with some of your tasks.  Even if it’s just a couple hours a month, it’s worth the investment in your business.  Don’t know how to find a good virtual assistant?  I have some great graduates from my Social Media Manager School who can help!  I’ll have them post in the comments below.

So there you have it.  What tips can you share to help get out of social media overwhelm?  Have you been there?  Share in the comments below!  Then get back to having fun with social media – Grandma’s orders!

In this post, you’ll learn three hot tips to help you get the most out of your Facebook Insights.

#1 Find Your Most Popular Content

My favorite way to use Facebook Insights is to find out which posts resonate with my audience.  You can do this on the main page of your Insights.  Click the columns of the Engaged Users and Talking About This to find your most popular content.  The Talking About This column includes people who Like, comment on, or share your post which contributes to your overall People Talking About This score.

The Engaged Users includes the Talking About This number plus anyone who clicks on your post.  That means this number includes your lurkers!  Lurkers are those people who consume your content in some way but don’t officially respond.  Of course, your engaged user scores will be higher for link posts but you can find which links were clicked on.

#2 Watch Your Negative Feedback

You can access your Post-level data by clicking on the numbers in the Reach, Engaged Users, and Talking About This columns.  The numbers are interesting but the one to watch is in the Engaged Users column.  When you click on the number, you can see if any of your fans gave you negative feedback on that post.  Negative feedback includes if someone hides your Page, reports spam, or unlikes your Page from that post.  If you want to know the exact breakdown of the negative feedback, you can download the Post-level data and dig deeper into the stats.

While you can’t worry too much about negative feedback, it’s a good idea to watch what posts irritate your audience.

#3 Watch external referrers and internal traffic

My third favorite area to watch in Facebook insights is on the Reach tab of your Insights.  Click the Reach selection at the top of your insights and scroll down to the area where it shows you the Visits to Your Page section.

From here you can see who is referring traffic to your Facebook Page and see where people are going on your Page.  This information can help you see how effective your external marketing is and how effective each of your tabs are.

For example I can see that Grandma Mary’s most popular tab is the e-mail optin tab created with Heyo (listed here as Fan Page Tab 14).  I highly recommend having a way to connect your fans easily to your e-mail list and having a freebie available on your Page is a great way to accomplish that.

The good news is that you don’t have to monitor this particular tab that often, just check in from time to time to see who your top referrers are and what tabs are performing well.

Hopefully you got some good ideas on how you can quickly monitor your Facebook Insights from this post.  How about you – what do you find useful in Facebook Insights?  Let me know in the comments below!

Have you been running Facebook Ads for your business?  If you are regularly running ads, you may want to consider using the Facebook Power Editor to set up your ads.

I found the Facebook Power Editor a little confusing when I first got started and it still is a bit quirky (as all of Facebook goes) but there are a few good reasons to use Facebook Power Editor:

1. Better targeting of the location of your Ads.  You can target your ad to run only in the News Feed, only on mobile devices, and other variations.
2. Capability to target your e-mail list.  The Custom Audience feature allows you to upload your e-mail list to the Power Editor and then you can do all kinds of interesting things.  You can target an ad to them specifically, you can analyze your e-mail list to find out more about their precise interests, or you can create a similar audience and use them as a “seed”.
3. You can use the Partner Categories to target people according to their buying habits.  Partner Categories are relatively new feature of the Power Editor and you can use some of the “big data” out there to target very specific niches.

Now that you know WHY you should use the Power Editor, follow the steps below to get started with the Power Editor.

Install the Power Editor

Installing the Power Editor is fairly straight forward.  The Power Editor is a Chrome plugin but it also works in Safari (and actually, I find it works better in Safari).

All you need to do is to go to your Facebook Ads area while you are logged in on a Chrome browser.   To get to the Ads area, click the wheel in the upper right corner of Facebook and select Manage Ads. Now you see the Power Editor selection on the left sidebar of the page.

Once you do that, you see some directions on how to get started.  Click the “here” link highlighted in step 2 of the process listed.

You will be prompted to download any ads you have previously run into Power Editor.  The data on these ads will still be available in the regular Ads management area as well.

Creating an Ad in Power Editor

To create a new Ad in Power Editor, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Ads Dashboard area if you are not there already (click the wheel in the upper right corner, select Manage Ads)
2. Click on the Power Editor in the left sidebar.  You now see your Power Editor dashboard.
3. If you want to create an ad that is within an existing campaign you have, click on the campaign name in the left sidebar.
4. If you want to create a new campaign, click the “Campaigns” button at the top of the page, and then click “Create Campaign” and fill in the details of your campaign name, budget, and length.  Once you have filled out the campaign information, navigate back to the Ads area (click Ads at the top of the page) 
5. Click the Create Ad button at the top of the page.  Then you use the Ad area below to fill in the details about the Ad.
6. Fill out the information in each of the sections (Creative & Placements, Audience, and Pricing and Status).  You should have no “Errors” listed and the status of the ad should be “Pending”.  Your final step is to click “Upload” in the upper right corner of the screen.  Your ad will not go into the approval process or start running until you upload it.

Once your ad is approved you will be able to see it in the Facebook Ads Manager area and access the stats there.

How about you?  Have you been wondering how you can get started with the Power Editor?  Or have you had success with the ads you have created through the Power Editor?  Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Do you need to change your Facebook Page name?  Have you been having trouble finding the how you go about changing your Facebook Page name or URL?

Well have no fear, I’ll show you how to exactly how to get this accomplished (even if it looks like you can’t get it done).

First there are two places that you can “name” your Page.  One is the name that appears on your Timeline and that shows up next to every post in the News Feed.

Changing Your Page Name

You may have chosen a name without realizing how this was going to appear.  If your Page is new or if you have less than 200 Likes, you can easily edit your Page name by accessing your Basic Information in your Page Dashboard.

Then you go to your Basic Info and you can easily Edit your name.

But if you are re-branding or you just want to tweak your Page name and you have more than 200 Likes you may have the opportunity to make a change 1 time.  I say “may” because this option sometimes doesn’t appear even if you haven’t changed your Page name at some point in the past.

You may see a Request Change link next to your Name as shown here.

If you don’t see that Request Change link, you are going to have to go to Facebook Help.  Facebook Help is sometimes very difficult to get any response from.  It will be easier to get your name changed if you have a re-brand with a photo of your website or logo to show your rebranding information.

I recommend submitting your request in two places.  The first one is the Help form for Pages here:  https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/164405897002583

I find having a screenshot helps to show your new branding so that Facebook can see that you have made a change.

The second place I recommend submitting a request is to Facebook Ads Help.  Hopefully you are using Facebook Ads from time to time to build your Page and you probably don’t want to advertise your Page if the branding isn’t congruent with your website.

The Ads area seems to be a little more responsive to changes when you tell them that you can’t spend any more money with them until your Facebook  Page name is changed (only do this if you are planning on running an ad campaign).  Submit your request here:  https://www.facebook.com/help/contact?id=615344471812117

We did this when we changed our Page www.facebook.com/TheBestKeynoteSpeakers and it took about a week to get it done.  But you may need to submit your request a couple of times if you don’t hear back after a week or so.  Hope those suggestions help!  (Please note, I cannot help with Page Name Changes – you must go through Facebook to get your Page name changed)

Changing Your Page URL or Website Address

The other thing you can change (but it sometimes is challenging) is your Facebook Page URL.  Your URL is the easy and short web address (like www.facebook.com/GrandmaMaryShow).

If you haven’t set your Username yet, go do that right now – it makes it much easier to tell people about your Page.  But BE CAREFUL – this is more difficult to get changed.  Once you set it, the URL is taken and can’t be “released” even if you delete the Page.

It can’t have any spaces between the letter and I don’t recommend putting things like periods or underscores between the words.  Then when you set it, capitalize the first letter of each word.  Even if someone types in the URL without the capital letters it will still go to the right place.

If you have already set your URL and need to rebrand, you can sometimes request a one-time change as shown  before.

If you don’t have this capability, you will have to go through the same process as outline above with Facebook Help.  I think the URL is as big a deal as making sure your you branding is consistent in your Facebook Page name.  But if your name has changed drastically, then you should get that corrected.

Have you had to change your Page name in the past?  How has it gone for you?  Let me know in the comments (remember I can’t help with actual Facebook Changes, you will need to go to Facebook directly for that.

Could you use a little Facebook automation in your life? Well, help is here.

Facebook allows you to schedule your page posts.

Many people cheered this feature because Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm and other quirks make using third-party tools like HootSuite or SocialOomph for scheduling your posts less desirable than posting manually.

Let’s dig a little deeper and find out some of the nuances of using Facebook scheduled posts.

First, we will give you the steps to schedule your posts and edit them.

#1: How to Schedule Your Posts

Scheduling is easy—just follow these steps:

• Write your post as you normally would. You can attach photos, add links, add YouTube videos, add tags to other pages and events or just include regular text.
  

• In the lower-left corner of your post, click on the clock symbol as shown in the screenshot above. You can now add the year, month, day and time you want the post to go out.
  

Notice that you can also backdate your posts to supplement your Timeline if you wish (more on that later).

You can schedule your post up to 6 months in the future (more months are shown, but if you select more than 6 months out, Facebook won’t accept it). You can schedule the minutes at 00-, 10-, 20-, 30-, 40- or 50-minute marks of the hour. So if you need a post to go out specifically at 2:15 pm, you cannot set it.

• You can also add language and location targeting in your scheduled posts, just like you can in your regular posts. Just click on the Public icon and make the necessary adjustments.

• Once you have everything set, just click the blue Schedule button. Voilà! Now just remember to circle back to your posts later after the scheduled time to watch for follow-up comments!

#2: How to Find and Edit Your Scheduled Posts

To see what you have scheduled and make any changes, just go to your activity log by accessing the admin panel at the top of your page (if you don’t see the admin panel, click the red admin panel button in the upper-right corner), then click Edit Page, and Activity Log. You then see all of your scheduled posts.


If you need to edit your scheduled post, the only thing you can change from here is the time, unfortunately. To edit the text, you must cancel the post and redo your scheduling. To cancel or change the time, mouse over the upper-right corner of the post in the activity log.

#3: You Can’t Schedule Everything

You can schedule links, photos, status updates and videos (although I found scheduling a video to be a bit buggy). You can also schedule a YouTube video link, which will attach as it normally does in your posts.

You can’t schedule some of the other types of posts as you can normally do from the publisher, such as photo albums, posting of events, questions, offers and milestones.

#4: You Can Backdate Your Posts

You can schedule things in the past. I’m not sure why you would want to use the backdating feature other than to fill out your Timeline a bit. But if you have a significant event that you want to post about in the past, I recommend a milestone post instead.

The interesting thing about backdating is that the post does go out into people’s news feed immediately and then is shown at the appropriate place on your Timeline.

#5: Scheduled Posts Won’t be Automatically Tweeted

If you have linked your Twitter account to your Facebook page by setting up www.Facebook.com/Twitter so that everything you post on Facebook gets tweeted (yes, we know that it’s not always a great idea but sometimes it isn’t terrible), be aware that your scheduled posts won’t go out to Twitter.

So if you rely on your Facebook page to supplement your tweets and you move to more scheduled posts, you will have to schedule your tweets with a different tool.

#6: Scheduling Posts Can Bring about More Engagement

What can you expect when you schedule posts? It depends on your baseline right now with your Facebook page—how often you are posting, how engaged your audience is, what you are posting and other factors.

One thing that scheduling can do for you is allow you to post more regularly and increase your posting without spending all day on your Facebook page.

Randi Thompson of How to Market Your Horse Business (and an active member of our Social Networking Clubs) tried an experiment where she upped the number of posts by using scheduled posts on two of her pages.

On her How to Market Your Horse Business page, she went from posting 3 times a day to posting every 3 hours and 5 times a day. Then she had another page, Horse and Rider Awareness, where she was not posting regularly at all. She tried scheduling 3 quality posts per day. Here are her results over a 5-day period.

Now of course this is not a comprehensive study. And this could be done without scheduling posts. But the point is that scheduled posts can make things easier for you so you can batch your work, know that things are being posted at the times you want and you can get on with other parts of your business. I encourage you to try some experiments with scheduled posts on your page and see how things work for you.

And again, make sure you circle back to these posts to follow up on comments!

#7: Scheduled Posts are not Identified or “Punished” in Facebook

When you post from a different scheduling tool such as HootSuite or BufferApp, people can see that you’re posting through a different tool. But Facebook’s scheduled posts are seamless.

Using a different tool to post to Facebook is not all bad. Sometimes it’s much better to save yourself a little time and get the post out with the tool you’re using rather than not post at all.

But Facebook has been known to show posts using third-party tools a little less in the news feed or collapse them. As of this writing, I believe third-party tools are faring well in Facebook. But we all know how Facebook changes.

#8: Scheduled Posts May be Coming to Personal Profiles

The option does appear to schedule a Facebook post on personal profiles, which may be a good thing for people who are using their personal profiles to talk about business. But as of this writing, I could not schedule anything into the future, only for today or in the past.

Not everyone will see big changes by scheduling posts. You still have to deliver engaging Facebook content. But what scheduled posts can do is free up some of your time by allowing you to batch your social media posts into blocks and give you more time to focus on your business.

What are your thoughts? Have you been using scheduled posts? What results have you seen? Tell us in the comments section below!

Note: This post originally appeared on Social Media Examiner and is reposted with permission.

I’ve always loved rule #12 and try to push myself as much as possible.  But it doesn’t mean setting yourself up for failure, it means taking risks.

You know where you are playing safe and it’s time to bite off more than you think you can chew.  It’s a little scary but you have to push past those scary boundaries that you are setting for yourself!  Get out there and do it!  I know you can.

Well that is going to change.  I am committing to my own content calendar starting today.

Take a look at my video to hear my apology and hear what I need from you.  Grandma Mary keeps cutting in so be prepared.

Here is my Editorial Calendar on what I’m going to be posting each week:

• Motivation Monday – a little pep talk from Grandma or some inspiration to get you started every week.  Take a look at Grandma’s other Pep Talks to get the idea.
• Technology Tuesday – an in-depth look at a social media tip or technique to help your business.
• Fun Friday – either an interview, a quick social media tip, or something else that I might be featuring like a new product or event.

But I need your help.  I want to hear about the topics you most need help with in the comments below.  I want to make sure I’m covering what you need.  It can be as specific or as broad as you want.

I have a ton of ideas on what I’m going to be covering but I want to make sure that what I blog about is beneficial to you!  Let me know in the comments below!  And don’t worry – Grandma won’t be singing any more karaoke.