By Suzan Bibisi
Communications Director
Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chambéry
LinkedIn Learning Recommendation: Marketing on Facebook (Course by: Megan Adams)
I chose the Marketing on Facebook course because, while I know how to post and schedule posts, it is all intuitive and self-taught, and I want to make sure I am using my time and energy wisely, so I sought best practices from this course.
At the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambéry, I am a multi-hyphenate: serving as fundraiser, communications staff and social media marketer/communicator. I’ve done all three jobs in the past, but have usually hired social media professionals to do the actual work on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, while I supervised, offered concepts and gave final approval.
Now, I do it myself and need to know what the tools are and how to use them if I’m to be successful at cultivating new, younger supporters through social media, and retaining those longtime donors who use social media. I also want social media to give us a fresh, immediate presence so that we are relevant.
I am starting with Facebook and will see whether there is a need to branch out into the other platforms. I created a new Facebook page and am now seeking to grow “fans” and increase “likes” and to use this tool to the utmost.
This nearly three-hour course (with quizzes and a final exam) gave me a refresher in what I already knew: how to create a page and user name, post photos and videos, schedule posts, delete posts and ban inappropriate users—or at least delete their comments—and respond immediately to comments, either live or with a canned response, and to not only respond on the page but also respond privately by sending a comment through messenger.
Posting tips I liked: like Twitter, it’s best to keep FB posts to 250 or so characters, before the break. And also like Twitter, the more compelling your photos and videos, the more clicks you’re likely to get. Use that “call to action button” when you can to drive Facebook friends to visit your website, like your page or donate.
Most helpful: how to find the analytics, how to use them to determine who your fans are and what they like and don’t like and how to fine-tune posts for the best engagement. This section was in depth and most helpful for me. I learned there are many ways in which to parse our audience to find out what works and what doesn’t. The INSIGHTS tab is your friend for all that.
Small tip: I was motivated to use the “milestone” feature (which I had never previously used), which just stays on your own page and doesn’t end up in anyone’s news feed, but does lend depth and legitimacy to your page. The information on a milestone just adds more interest to the page. It’s a quick and easy step to add quality to the page.
Tip on images: the course described the differences between a photo album, slide show and carousel, which I found helpful, especially since I had not used the carousel feature for photos and videos.
Facebook Live: there was a snapshot tutorial on how to use Facebook live. For me, it was too short. I would need to further investigate how it works before trying it. But it was a reminder that it’s an option, which I rarely think of in my job here.
Merge two pages: we at Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambéry now have two Facebook pages, one created by me and one by my predecessor. I learned from this course how to merge the two. That was very helpful.
Recommend: for someone like me, a self-taught, learn-as-you-go social media marketer, this course was informative.
It went by pretty quickly, even though it was almost three hours! I plan to put some of the recommendations into practice and go back and review what I’ve learned once I am more familiar with the advanced usages.
By the way, I passed the quizzes and the final exam and printed myself a certificate!