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6 New Facebook Page Features Your Business Needs to Know About in 2017

By Andrew Macarthy

Source: SocialMedia Today

 

With 2017 now in full swing, are you doing all you can to optimize your Facebook marketing strategy? A whole slew of new features were rolled between the end of last year and now – and there are some that you really can’t afford to miss.

In this post, I’ll highlight six new Facebook features that every brand needs to consider right now.

1. Posting best practices for 2017

As always, the “what marketing strategy works best?” question for Facebook success has no single, definitive answer, but using the latest research, it is possible to notice trends that could give you a leg-up on the competition.

For example BuzzSumo’s review of 800 million Facebook posts curated during 2016 highlighted some of the following tips:

• Be brief – Posts containing less than 50 characters were found to be the most engaging.
• Post off-peak – Posts shared when then the News Feed is less busy receive more engagement, on average.
• Use video – Video posts (live or recorded) receive more shares than all other post types.
• Ask questions – Questions got more likes than all other post types.

  

  2. Optimize your cover photo for desktop and mobile

  Facebook displays Page cover photos at 820 x 312 pixels on desktop, and 640 x 360 pixels on smartphones. This means (rather confusingly) that cover photos can appear differently on desktop and mobile.

  To ensure any text on your cover photo also displays on mobile (i.e. is not obscured or cropped), create an invisible buffer of 134 pixels either side and feature the text in the middle – the remaining 560 pixels. Jon Loomer’s infographic spells it out clearly below:

  

  3. Setup Holiday and Custom Reminders

  I usually recommend all businesses plan and schedule content in advance, but if you’re one of those people who tends to post to Facebook on the fly, you might want want setup Reminders to make sure you don’t miss out on special dates.

  Reminders will notify you about upcoming holidays, or you can setup your own by day and time.

  As per Facebook:

  “We can remind you to update your page on days that are important to you. Regular posts build visitor trust and engagement, and reminders can make it easier to follow a posting schedule.”

  

  To set a reminder, visit your Page settings and click “Reminders” from the left-hand menu.

 

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