Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well, so that you could grow your own business accordingly?

Facebook has a free feature, available to all Facebook Brand pages, that might as well be a magic wand. Yet so few brands are taking advantage of this simple, powerful and important feature.

So let’s dig into Facebook’s “Pages To Watch.”

Afterward, we’ll cover some other helpful and free tools you should be using to keep tabs on your competitors across the internet, including mailing lists, other social channels and the almighty Google Alerts.

​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well, so that you could grow your own business accordingly? Facebook has a free feature, available to all Facebook Brand pages, that might as well be a magic wand. Yet so few brands are taking advantage of this simple, powerful and important feature. So let’s dig in to Facebook’s “Pages To Watch.” Afterwards, we’ll cover some other helpful and free tools you should be using to keep tabs on your competitors across the internet. But first up: Pages to Watch.

To access this great feature, go to your brand’s Facebook page. At the top, you will see a menu bar including the following  items: Page, Inbox, Notifications and then Insights. Click there. If you haven’t been to your insights yet, you are missing out on a ton of valuable information. We’ll do some more deep dives into Facebook Insights down the road. But for now, let’s just stick to this particular tool.

Once you’ve clicked Insights, you’ll be on the “overview” page. Scroll down to the bottom and you should see a section called “pages to watch.”

If you have never been there before, chances are Facebook has auto-populated the section with pages they think you might want to watch. If they guessed right, great. If not, simply hover over the number on the left and you can delete it from your list.

To add new pages, click the option to “add pages.”

Once you have your pages set up, you’ll see some very basic data: the name of the page, it’s total page Likes, the percent it grew from last week, how many times they posted this week and what their engagement this week has been. None of those data points are all that useful. BUT, if you click on the name of any of the pages, something interesting happens.

Facebook opens up a pop-up box and shows you that page’s top content from the past week. Top content in this case means that it had the highest combination of reach and engagement of anything that page posted this past week. And you can scroll down and see all of their content from the week, ordered by how popular it was for their audience.

Quite a feature, right?!

Bear in mind, when you follow a page, they have no way of knowing you are doing so. So if you want to know what is working for your competitors, without having to continuously go back to their page and scroll through their feed, you can just pop on over here every couple of days and easily keep tabs on them.

If you see that several of your competitors are sharing an article or a meme and it is resonating with their audiences… well don’t steal their content. But definitely do be inspired by it!

The content that is working for your competitors will probably also work for you. Follow along, learn, and create your own content accordingly.

And here’s the thing, while of course you should be watching your competitors, don’t limit yourself to them. Follow influencers in your field, relevant journalists or publications, even high value customers if you they are using brand pages.

Figure out who’s success you most want to track, and then spend a few minutes setting up your Facebook Pages to Watch. It will be an amazing tool you can use indefinitely moving forward.

While we’re on the topic of tracking your competitors, influencers, high-value customers and the like, let’s cover a few ways to do so outside of Facebook.

First of all, if the people you want to follow have public mailing lists, sign up! There’s no better way to know what they are excited about, then to see what they are sharing with the people they care about most. It probably goes without saying, but you might not want to use your company or organization’s branded email to sign up for a competitor’s email list. So use your gmail address, or create something new specifically for this purpose. While it might seem weird to be on their list, don’t forget, unless they are limiting sign-up (and this is important: don’t lie in any way to get on their list!) they know that their list is public. And chances are, if you have an   email, they’re on it! As far as influencers and relevant journalists go, you can use your branded email or not. Your call.

In episode two of this podcast, we covered the power and the importance of twitter lists. Twitter lists are a great way to follow relevant accounts. And you can use private lists to do so under-the-radar, even if your brand isn’t using Twitter as an outreach and communications tool. Go back and listen to that episode for more.

There are also plenty of third party tools out there that will track keyword mentions and send you alerts when those keywords pop up online. Some are free, most are not. But one powerful one that is free is google alerts. If you haven’t set up google alerts yet, you should do so immediately.

To do so go to google.com/alerts. Once there you can put in some relevant keywords and let google know that you want to receive email alerts whenever those words are used online. It’s important to know that google alerts don’t track content from social media platforms, so don’t expect to see Facebook or Twitter mentions on there.

But if someone mentions you or your brand in a blog post, or on their website, Google will usually catch it and send you an alert.

And here’s the thing, you can select if you want google to send you an alert as a mention happens, or to instead send you a daily or weekly digest of all mentions. For your brand, you should get those alerts as they happen. Unless people are talking about your brand numerous times a day, you want to know you’ve been mentioned as soon as possible. But if you also want to use them to track competitors, industry keywords, influencers and the like, you might not need them rolling in as they happen and you can opt to receive those alerts as part of a daily or even weekly round-up. The choice is yours.

One other cool thing you can do with google alerts is set them up for high value clients so that if that client gets an award or someone writes a story about them, you can be amongst the first to reach out and congratulate them. Alternately, you can let them know if you find something problematic that they might want to deal with

The tools are out there for you to keep tabs on the internet. The set up is relatively simple and the rewards can be immense.

So I’ll finish this episode with the same question I started it with: Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well? Turns out, you do! You just have to take a moment and set it up.

Social media can be an overwhelming place, especially when you feel like you don't speak the language.

You’re scrolling through your social channels and you see a bunch of random letters tacked together — TIL, FWIW, IMHO — it can be hard to even know where to start.

So in this episode we cover a list of social media acronyms you should know. This list is neither meant to be exhaustive nor fully up-to-date (since internet language is constantly evolving!).

But in the meantime, you should probably know all of these acronyms if you want to keep up with your customers and your audience.

• AFAIK
• AMA
• BTW
• DM/PM
• FF
• FTW
• FWIW
• HT or H/T
• IIRC
• ICYMI
• IDK
• IRL
• MT
• NSFW
• PT
• ROFL
• SMH
• TBT/FBF
• TL;DR
• TFTF
• TFW
• TIL
• YMMV

Any we missed? Tweet them at us using #StepUpYourSocial. In the meantime, HTH (Hope This Helps!).

NOTE: This list was modified from a previous blog post I wrote which you can find here.

​​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Social media can feel like an overwhelming place, especially if you feel like you don’t speak the language. You’re scrolling through your social channels and you see a bunch of random letters tacked together — TIL, FWIW, IMHO — it can be hard to even know where to start.

So I put together a list of social media acronyms you should know. This list is modified from a blog post I wrote a while back which you can find at bit.ly/suys-acronyms. This list is neither meant to be exhaustive nor fully up-to-date (since internet language is constantly evolving!). But in the meantime, you should probably know all of these acronyms if you want to keep up with your customers and your audience.

If you come across any others you aren’t sure about, Google can almost always provide an answer pretty quickly. But if you find yourself stumped, feel free to reach out on Twitter, Facebook (I’m at Reverbal Communications) or drop me an email at suys@reverbalcommunications.com and I’ll see if I can’t offer an assist.

Without further ado, here are some social media acronyms that you should know:

• Let’s start with some obvious, but important ones that seem to confuse even pretty apt social media users: IG - Instagram, FB - Facebook, LI - LinkedIn and YT - YouTube
  
  
• AFAIK — As far as I know
  
  
• AMA — Ask Me Anything

Someone might say: “I work with celebrities. AMA.” The idea is that they know something—or do or have done something—interesting and they are ready to answer your questions. It’s an acronym mostly associated with reddit, but it pops up now and then on other platforms.

• BTW — By the way, also pronounced b-t-dubs
  
  
• DM — Direct Message

Also known as PM, primate message. A DM is more private than a tweet or a post. Although, like everything else on the internet, it’s not completely private! Remember Anthony Weiner and his privates? That story started because he thought he was DMing someone, but he was actually tweeting it. Just as important, even if he had in fact DMed it, someone else would still have had the pic and could have shared it. Which in fact wound up happening to Weiner as well. Here’s a good rule of the thumb: if you don’t want it to be public, don’t write it down (and for the love of god don’t take a picture of it!!!). But if you want to chat a bit more prviately, slide on over to those DMs.

• FF — Follow Friday

If you follow someone you really like, you can give them a nice shoutout using #FF and in the process tell your audience that they should also be following this person. For example: #FF @ReverbalC if you want to #StepUpYourSocial.

• FTW — For The Win
  
  
• FWIW — For What It's Worth
  
  
• HT or H/T — Hat Tip (or Heard Through)

Find something interesting/funny/cool online and want to share it, but don’t want to retweet or share the original post? Instead you can create your own post to share it. But you still want to give credit to the person who shared it with you. Add an HT and then you are giving them their much deserved cred.

• IIRC — If I recall correctly
  
  
• IM(H)O — In My (Humble) Opinion

It’s always important to differentiate between facts and opinions. IMHO.

• ICYMI — In Case You Missed It

This one is important. Some news breaks and you post it online. A few days later, you want to make sure that as many people as possible saw it. Reposting it straight can feel a bit awkward though. But if you add ICYMI, you are letting people know that you are re-flagging the story as noteworthy. A great acronym for re-amplifying stories you think are important.

• IDK — I Don’t Know
  
  
• IRL — In Real Life

As opposed to, you know, on the internet.

• MT — Modified Tweet

This one is Twitter specific, and it’s waaay less relevant today now that Twitter has changed how we quote tweets. But sometimes you will still see it. Essentially, if you want to quote someone else’s tweet, but need to edit it for length or to fix a typo (NOT to change their meaning), you would add MT to your tweet. You are letting people know that you are sharing a modified version of someone else's tweet.

• NSFW — Not Suitable For Work

Be on the look out for this one before clicking on any links at work, or in front of your kids.

• PT — Previous Tweet

Since Twitter added the ability to easily thread tweets, this is another acronym that’s all but irrelevant. But it’s still a good one to understand should you happen to come across it. When someone adds #PT to a tweet, they are letting you know that their current tweet is referring to their previous one.

• ROFL — Rolling On the Floor Laughing

A step up (or is it down?) from LOL (which of course is Laughing Out Loud).

• RT — Retweet
  
  
• SMH — Shaking My Head

Disappointment of the briefest variety.

• TBT — Throwback Thursday

Share a pic of yourself (or someone/something else) from back in the day on any Thursday and tag it #TBT and you have just joined in on Throwback Thursday. It’s a popular form of social media nostalgia. There's also #FBF (Flash Back Friday). Same idea, different day.

• TL;DR — Too Long; Didn’t Read

Sometimes I’ll read an article and think it’s great. But I know that most people don’t have time to get through the whole thing. So I can share it online with a TL;DR and a brief summation. For those who want to read the whole thing, great! For those who don’t have time, they can quickly get the gist and move on.

• TFW — That Feeling When

I recently bought a copy of a Jay Baer book online. When it arrived, I opened it up and it turned out, he had autographed it. So I shared it online with a
TFW you open a book and find the author’s signature in it.” In other words, it’s a nice feeling that everyone knows and you are currently enjoying. Lean into it!

• TIL — Today I learned

As in, TIL a whole bunch of new social media acronyms. I’m now officially ready to Step Up My Social

• YMMV — Your mileage may vary

This one is a bit obscure, but I’ve seen it a lot especially in Facebook Groups where folks are there to learn and to teach. When you add a YMMV to your post you are clarifying that something worked for you but that you aren’t sure it will work for everyone else.

• TFTF — Thanks For The Follow

This is what I might say (or at the very least think ) after you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Any that I missed? Share them on Facebook or Twitter using the #StepUpYourSocial. In the meantime, HTH (Hope This Helps)!

There are 5 keywords that, when used in a post on Facebook, automatically limit your post's reach. Facebook has labeled the tactic in question as "Engagement Bait."

While Engagement Bait first started being penalized in the Facebook algorithm over a year ago, Facebook just recently began applying their penalties to video content, as well as to text.​

In this episode, we cover the what, the why and the how of Engagement Bait, as well as some tips for avoiding it.

​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Here in Madison, there’s a music venue that used to run this really clever ongoing campaign — they would give away a free pair of tickets to an upcoming concert. To enter, all you had to do was tag the person you would bring with you in the comments if you won. Then they randomly selected one lucky responder to nab a free pair of tickets to the show.


But really, the biggest winner in this contest was the venue.


The contest cost them 2 concert tickets, but hundreds of people were identifying and promoting the shows directly to their friends. And not just any friends, but the friends they most thought would want to go to the show. So while two people got to go for free, hundreds of potential fans were being tagged by friends and notified that a show they might be excited about was right around the corner.


And not only that, the Facebook algorithm would have been going nuts seeing all of this organic engagement the venue’s page was generating. Every time someone tagged a friend, they were micro-targeting one person, but also telling Facebook that this content was hot and they should show it to lots more people. As far as the venue was concerned, this was a win/win.


And all it cost them was a pair of concert tickets!


I used to see this tactic employed on my Facebook feed all the time. You probably did too. And then one day, it just stopped.


That’s because in late 2017, Facebook labeled this type of content as “engagement bait.” And they started penalizing it in the algorithm.


Because Facebook can’t actually know your intention when you share a post, they defined engagement bait pretty broadly as simply any post that mentions one of the 5 following words:


Like
Vote
Comment
Tag
Share


It didn’t matter the context, using one of these words simply caused Facebook to devalue your content in the algorithm. Meaning they literally showed your post to fewer people.


As a marketer, this might be annoying. As a user though, you can probably understand why they did this.


While I loved that the concert venue was giving away tickets (I even won a pair once!) the tactic of asking people to tag their friends can get get to be pretty spammy. Like this post if your an Aries doesn’t do much to create meaningful conversations or connections online.


When Facebook first announced the new rules around Engagement Bait, they only applied to the text in your post. Then they updated it to also apply to text in the comments (as lots of clever marketers would simply make their engagement request in the first comment rather than in the post itself).


And now, Facebook has finally made the final jump — they will also demote content that uses engagement bait words (like, vote comment, tag and share) within the audio of a video.


While this might seem frustrating, just remember, it is genuinely in Facebook’s interest that you enjoy the content you, and everyone else, sees in their feed. If not, you, and everyone else, will stop logging in. And then there will be no one to market too anyway!


You can still encourage engagement, you just can’t do so using 5 key words. Don’t ask people to “respond in the comments.” Just ask your question. Your users know how to respond. And don’t ask for the like — create content they will like without being prodded.


Of course you can ignore these rules all you want. But Facebook ultimately decides how many people will see your posts. So ignoring their rules means limiting your own reach. The choice is clear as far as I’m concerned.


Engagement is great! Engagement bait — not so much.

You start a new Facebook brand page. It's only natural to invite everyone you know to like the page.

The problem is, you're actually hurting your page's future growth when you invite people who like you — but don't care about your brand — to like your Facebook brand page.




​In this episode:
• We dive into the Facebook algorithm
• Talk about the difference between "good" and "bad" likes
• Cover helpful tips to grow your page with the right audience
• The importance of using a brand page for your page (as opposed to a personal account)
• And a whole lot more

​​​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

If you run ads on Facebook without first building quality audiences, it's like you're standing in the street, throwing expensive flyers in the air, and hoping for the best.

Facebook offers you the opportunity to microtarget based on tons of different factors.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of microtargeting.

We will also cover the three different Facebook advertising audience types:
• Custom
• Lookalike and
• Saved

​We'll cover what they are, how to build them, and why you should be using them to run ads on Facebook.

If you enjoy this this podcast, please consider reviewing it on iTunes. Thanks for tuning in! 

​​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

"Stories" are the Facebook response to Snapchat — fun, quirky bits of content that disappear after 24 hours.

Throughout the Facebook Universe — WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, people are currently sharing over a billion stories every day!

Instagram Stories alone has over 400 million daily active users — more than twice as many as Snapchat.

Stories have all kinds of fun and interesting capabilities built directly into the platform. 

In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we cover the what, the when and the how of Stories along with a bunch of tips, tricks and fun things you should try.

Listen today and let us know if you have any questions, or anything to add to the conversation around this fun topic!

​​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

That's right! I've started a podcast. 

It's called Step Up Your Social and it's intended to provide quick, actionable tips to help you master your social media. I plan on making these all "flash episodes," around 10 minutes long or less.

That way you can hop in, learn something quick and get right back to work!

Have a topic you want to hear me cover? Drop it in the comments, tweet it at me, or use the hashtag #StepUpYourSocial.

In the inaugural episode, I discuss the difference between crossposting your comments and autoposting them.

One of those is good, the other is very, very bad.

Give a listen. And then get right back to telling your story!

​
​Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Ever wanted to spice up your Facebook post, but didn't know how?
​
With a Facebook Note, you can add a cover photo, as well as pictures and GIFs throughout your posts.

You can also format your text with bold and italics, bullet and numbered lists, hyperlinks and much more.

So instead of just another boring picture, your post can look like this:

Once you’ve saved a few items, you can then build collections, to make it even easier to navigate your favorite material. ​

So you might have Saved Facebook folders for digital tips, family pics, funny videos, recipes, articles to read later… the options are endless!​

I’d love to hear from you about how you think you might use this feature. Share them in the comments or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.

I always say that the only constant in social media is change. I don’t write to tell you every time any little thing changes on a social channel — if I did you’d hear from me literally dozens of times per week. But not every update is worthy of a blog post or an email. 

Recently though, a few exciting updates have rolled out that are worth sharing.

Instagram Hashtags
You can now “follow” a hashtag on Instagram, just like you would follow an account.

Once you follow a hashtag, Instagram will include top posts using it directly into your feed.​

To follow a hashtag, simply search for it on Instagram.

​Then click “follow.”

Twitter Threads
I'm very excited about this update, although it’s a bit hard to follow Twitter’s logic. They recently doubled the character length for tweets from 140-280, thus making threads, and therefore this update, much less relevant. But they're not irrelevant, so it’s still an exciting update.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of threads, check out this blog post where I explain what they are and how they work (along with a bunch of other fun Twitter tricks and tips).

Before, when you created a tweet thread, you had to keep responding to previous tweets. Which is fine, but can be clunky. If you don't reply to the most recent tweet in your thread, they get out of order and your thread becomes hard to follow. It can take a few moments for your tweet to post, meaning you have to sit tight with your thoughts, waiting for it to catch up.

Now if you want to create a tweet thread, simply start typing your tweet. Below, next to the “tweet” button, you will see a plus. Click it and Twitter will open up another tweet for you. Keep going until you are finished and then you can send them all as a single unit.

BIG IMPROVEMENT, ​even if it's a little less relevant that it might have been a few months ago.

Facebook Stories
Facebook Stories aren’t new, but they have pretty much been getting ignored. Stories were Facebook’s response to Snapchat. They are small pieces of content — pictures, short videos or text — that disappear after 24 hours.

They have all the fun Snapchat-style filters built in, along with a lot of other fun tools. Spend a few minutes in there and you will find tons of fun toys. And they are updated regularly.

While Stories aren't new, what is new is that they are now available to Brand Pages. (Until recently, only personal pages could create Stories.)

To access Facebook Stories for a Brand Page, you can use the new Facebook Creator app. Or, open the Facebook app on your phone or tablet (currently, Stories only work via mobile), and go to your Brand Page. Underneath where you it lets you “write something,” click “create story.”

Once you have finished creating your tiny, disappearing masterpiece, add it to your Story. ​

When Facebook Live first came out, I’ll admit it — I was daunted. ​

I’m supposed to go to stream live to the world without the opportunity for a second take? Ummm, no thanks!

I had to worry about sound, lighting, my "script," distractions in the background... It was daunting.

But here’s the thing — Facebook Live is a hugely important tool in your digital toolkit. I regularly work with clients who go Live on Facebook for the first time and find that their videos reach more people that like their page! (300% reach — yes please!!!)

We know that people watch Live videos 3x longer than videos that aren’t live. And that they engage with them 10x more than regular videos!

So yeah, apprehension aside — Facebook Live videos get people watching and engaging.

Before I ever went Live on Facebook for the world to see, I came up with a hack that allowed me to ease my way into the otherwise scary world of live streaming.

And here’s the thing: It’s so simple, you’re going to laugh.

Before going Live for an audience via my brand page, I went Live via my personal page with my privacy settings adjusted to “Only me.”

This meant I could practice being on camera, see how the video looked on my computer, hear the sound, play with the awesome built-in filters, and a whole lot else, knowing that I’d be the only to see my first take.

So here’s the step-by-step breakdown.

Open up Facebook on your smartphone. Where you would say "What's on your mind, choose "Live." 

If that option isn't there, then just click into the post and then click on the camera icon below.

You will then get a list of options. Choose "Live Video."

Once you have done that, directly underneath your name, you will see a dropdown menu that has likely defaulted to either “Public” or Friends.”

Click on it and you will get a list of privacy setting options. 

Select "Only me."

Now when you go live, the only person who can see your video is you. ​

On Friday night, I went to see a Grammy winning bluegrass legend wow his crowd with songs spanning his 40+ year career.​

Because I’m both a bluegrass nerd and a social media nerd, I streamed one of his songs via Facebook Live.

It was late on a weekend night and it didn’t get a lot of views in real time. But over the next 36 hours or so, it was watched a few dozen times. (And now I can go back and rewatch the band anytime I want on my personal Facebook page!) But truth be told, by Sunday night, I wasn’t thinking about the video anymore than I was about the drive to and from the show.

But then Monday morning, something interesting happened — my video was “liked” by the bluegrass legend it featured.

Now let’s be clear: I don’t think that this artist liked the post himself (although he might have). More likely it was a member of his marketing or management team.

But the notification that he had liked my video popped up, and I have to be honest — I got excited. Like, more excited than I probably should have.

I work in social media for a living. I know how this works. I know he probably has some marketing agency liking positive mentions of him online. But you know what: it still got its intended effect out of me!

Having him like my video felt like getting a high five or a quick hello from a bluegrass legend.

Does that handshake mean that we are suddenly best friends? Of course not.

Does it mean I can suddenly shred on the mandolin like he can? I wish!

Am I still excited enough that I immediately want to tell all my friends about it? Yup.

Liking that post cost him literally nothing (save for whatever he’s paying his agency to manage his social media—but that’s a story for another post). Yet it added to my excitement about the show.

Social media serves many roles, not least of which is customer service and community relations.

Think about yourself as a movie star. When you walk down the street, people recognize you. You can't stop and have lunch with every fan. You can’t even stop and take a picture with them all or you’d never get anywhere. But you can nod and smile to everyone who waves at you.

That’s what a "like" or a "favorite" is on social media — it’s a head nod from a celebrity. It doesn’t suddenly make you best friends or ensure that they will buy your product/go see your next movie/buy your upcoming album. But it shows the fans that you are real, and that you respect them as people, not just as consumers. And it only takes as much time to create that connection as you need to give a single click of your mouse or tap on your phone.

If you see a celebrity on the street, and you wave at them, you are going to tell your friends one of two stories:

“Oh my goodness, I just say this famous person on State Street. It was so cool!”

*** OR ***

“I just saw this famous person on State Street. He was kind of a jerk.”

You’re the celebrity. Which would you prefer?

Facebook makes it easy to invite those who like your content to like your page. Check out this simple trick and start growing your page today!

Ever wonder what your partners, competitors or market leaders are doing well on Facebook? Guess what? Facebook has you covered!

You can actually set up “Pages to Watch” and then track both their weekly progress and their top posts of the week. If you haven’t already set up this functionality, fear not—it’s easy!

First go to your Facebook brand page (you might call it a business page). Then at the top menu, go to your insights.

In the left-hand menu, you will be in Overview by default. This section will give you top-line info on your page, show you analytics for your most recent five posts and, if you scroll down, allow you to watch any pages you have setup to watch.

Bear in mind that Facebook offers these free tools (and MANY others) on a tiered system. Your page must have at least 35 likes in order for you to access your insights in the first place and it must have at least 100 likes to unlock the pages to watch feature. So if you don’t see these options, fret not. You’ll get there! And when you do, you have plenty of great new tools to look forward to.

Assuming you can see “Add Pages,” type in a page and select “+Watch Page.”

Once selected, it will show up in your Pages to Watch section.

Right off the bat, you’ll see the pages total page likes, their percent change from last week, how many posts they did this week and their engagement this week.

If you click on them within your list, you’ll get a list of their most popular posts from this week.

It’s worth pointing out, none of the information you are seeing in this section is private. You could see all of this by heading to their page and looking through their posts, seeing their comments, shares and reactions and tracking their page like growth on your own. But if you have many competitors, it can be a lot of trouble to keep up with all of them.

This functionality puts every page you want to follow in one easy-to-access place and shows you their weekly growth and engagement. And Facebook will include you in the list, so you can see how your own page compares.

As far as seeing their top content of the week, while this too is nothing private or hidden, it is a good practice to see what is working well for others in your field. There won’t be any state secrets revealed, but it will help you see what is getting people excited in your field on any given week.

So set yours up, and share anything interesting or exciting you learn in the comments, or on social. Follow and chat with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Happy page-watching!

Facebook is nothing if not dynamic. Understand how part of its functionality works today, and tomorrow you’ll notice that it’s changed. A week later, it may have changed yet again.

The goal shouldn’t be to KNOW everything about how the platform works, rather to spend enough time with it that you know how to grow and adapt with it.

Recently, Facebook made a change to how it displays a brand’s response time and it added an option to send instant replies to messages you receive through your Facebook page.

Both concepts are easy, and worth taking a moment to understand.

The Change: Response Time
Until very recently, Facebook published to your page how long it takes you to respond to  messages you receive through your brand page. It might say a few minutes, an hour or a day. It also publishes your response rate.

Pro-tip: Even if you are going to respond to someone through another medium (phone, email...), respond to their initial message to let them know. For example: “Thanks for writing, I’m calling now.” It’s quick, easy, not at all awkward, and it allows you to maintain a 100% response rate on your page even when communicating through other methods.

While Facebook still publishes your response rate, they made a major shift regarding your response time. It used to be something you couldn’t edit or control (save for responding quicker to messages in the future). It was a report for your customers on the speediness of your response time. No more. Now, it is a tool that allows you to let people know how long they should expect you to take to return their message.

If you have someone working on your social media full-time, it should take you less than an hour. Or maybe even just a few minutes. Let people know that. But if it’s just you and Facebook is one of 1000 things you are managing, you can now let people know that it might take you a day to respond.

The set up is easy.

Go to your Facebook brand page. Directly below your avatar, you will notice a section that shares things like how many followers you have, how many have checked in with you and the like. The very first thing in that section will be your response rate and your response time.

To edit it, go to your page's Settings (located in top right hand corner of your page). Then click on Messaging in the left-hand menu.

From here, simply pick your (reasonable) time frame.

Pro tip: Be honest here, both for your own sake and for that of your customer. If it’s going to take you a day to respond, don’t say you will respond within an hour. Set up expectations that you can meet, and then work hard to meet them.

So that is the change Facebook made. But they also recently made a fairly substantial addition to their brand messenger.

The New Option: Instant Replies
You can now set up Instant Replies that will automatically be sent to anyone who writes to your brand through Facebook.

Let’s say you rarely check your Facebook messages, but you live in Gmail. Send an instant reply telling people that you’ll be in touch soon, but if they want a quicker response, they should email you as well. Or provide a phone number they can call. Or let them know you will be in touch, and send them to your website to shop/learn/take action in the meantime.

We can’t control how people choose to reach out to us. But with this new functionality, we have yet another tool in our toolkit to ensure happy customers and seamless customer service.

Not sure what to put in your Instant Reply? Drop me a line and let's figure it out together!

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about the fact that I’m nearing 1000 followers on Twitter (!!!).  After writing the post, I started sharing it through social media. While posting it to Facebook, I chose to run it with three pictures. The first was the graphic I had made, proclaiming this exciting achievement. The second was a Twitter logo. The third was my own logo.

I linked the graphic (the first pic) and my logo directly to my blog post, outlining both the announcement and the free audits I was giving out to celebrate. But I also wanted a way to drive traffic straight to my Twitter page. That’s where the second pic comes in.

Let’s walk through this.

When you input a link into a Facebook post, Facebook will automatically go and scrape any pictures it can find on the page you are sharing and auto-populate them in your post. You can then run your post with all of them, some of them, or none of them. Generally speaking, you always want to leave one (or more) of these pics in place, or replace them correctly (more on this in a minute). By doing so, you ensure that a click on the picture will lead—not to an enlarged version of the picture, but—directly to the site you are linking. If your goal is link clicks, ensure that as many actions as possible deliver that result.

So let’s start at the top. Copy the link you want to share and paste it into your Facebook page. If possible, Facebook will populate one or more graphics to accompany your post.

Notice underneath the post, there will be several thumbnails, with small numbers in blue boxes in the top right corner.

By clicking the blue boxes, you can turn on and off these different pictures. Any picture with a number will show up in your post. You can also rearrange the order in which they are shown by simply dragging them into the order you prefer.

Notice the right-most box with the plus (+) in it? THAT is how you should add additional or replacement pictures to your post. Adding them in any other (and there are several) will sever the relationship between your picture and your link. Which is bad, unless that is your goal. (But if it is, why are you using a link in the post in the first place?!)

You can post up to five pictures with your post. These can be things Facebook pulls from the link, pictures you add in, or some combination therein. Unless you specify otherwise, all of those pictures, when clicked on, will lead to your original link.

But if you want each picture to lead to a different landing page, you can do that as well. And setting that up is easy.

First, choose which pics you want to be associated with the post. Then scroll over the picture (not the thumbnail) and you will notice a link icon appears.

When you click that link button, you will get a popup box:

From there, you can input any link you want. You can do that for each picture associated with your post. They each stand alone.

So check out the post I shared yesterday and try clicking around. You’ll notice that the first and third images take you to my blog post and the second image (the Twitter icon) will take you straight to my Twitter page.

Let me know if you need any help. Or share your own success stories using multiple links in a Facebook post.

Facebook runs using an amazing algorithm. It analyzes all of the information is how about you (where you live, what kinds of posts you like, where you check in and literally thousands of other pieces of information) and then it works hard to show you content that it thinks you will like.

Even when it comes to paid content, Facebook is working hard to show you things it thinks you'll like.

Before you call BS on this, think about. It makes sense for two reasons. The first is that if you are constantly seeing spam on your page, you are going to spend less time on the platform. That's bad for Facebook. The second is that Facebook genuinely wants businesses and brands using their ads to be successful. If they are successful, they’ll spend more money on Facebook ads. So Facebook will be more successful. Pretty simple formula.

But how does Facebook decide what kind of content (especially ads!) it is going to show you?

Interesting, Facebook will actually share the list of keywords they have associated with you, for the purpose of ad targeting.

Want to see your list? Click here.

Warning: some of these might seem spot on. Others might seem ridiculous. No joke, here are just a few of the words associated with my account: Tattoos (I have none), Beauty Salons (never been to one), Cosmetics (never use them), Golf (never played), Gardening (maybe one day, but not yet!). And so on.

Buzzfeed reporters, who did quite a bit of digging into this, had some particularly interesting topics emerge:

• Hans Zimmer
• Broccoli
• Cucumber
• Vegetable Oil
• Egg
• Adventure
• Try
• Panic
• Away from family
• Away from hometown
• Planking (fad)
• Nonsense
• Types of Business entity
• Dundee United F.C. *(a small Scottish soccer team)
• Gray wolf
• Mammal
• Frog
• Miracle
• Man
• birth without fear
• White
• Tins and shades
• Black culture
• System of a Down discography
• Bark (sound)
• Bee
• Vulture (animal)
• Technology late adopters
• First baseman
• Professional wrestling holds
• Gratitude
• Oriental Orthodoxy
• Crying
• Time *(under the “Travel, Places, and Events” section)
• Victory
• Meme
• Emotion
• Housemate-based Households
• Relationship status: single
• Fun
• Tunic
• Lorry driver
• Rings of Saturn
• Human
• Toilet

Toilet!?!? Maybe that's some poo reporter covering the plumbing beat. But I doubt it.

If you want to clean yours up, you can click the X next to any item you would rather not be targeted for. (Professional wrestling holds anyone?)

Quick note: you can delete all. But Facebook will just repopulate them. So you're probably better off just editing and cultivating your list so that at least when you see ads, they will be somewhat relevant to you.

Want an easy way to shut down all ads on Facebook? It's simple: Delete your account. ;)

Right, didn’t think so. In the meantime, sit back, relax and let those toilet ads come rolling in!

Share any of your absurd targeted keywords in the comments on online using the hashtag #NotMyKeywords. Be sure to tag Reverbal Communications on Facebook or Twitter. Can't wait to see what Facebook thinks you are into!

There’s so much more to Facebook than knowing how to post a picture or respond to a comment. Here are just a few of the (FREE!) things that you can do with your Facebook page:

• See what day of the week/time of the day your page is most engaged with
• Set up filters so that certain words (including profanity) can’t be posted to your page
• Block trolls (people who go online just to cause trouble) from commenting on your page
• Find out where your audience lives, broken down by country, state, even city
• Learn demographic information about your Facebook audience (age, gender, language)
• Schedule posts to run at a later date (or even an earlier one)
• Track what is going well on Facebook for your partners (and for your competitors!)
• See which websites are driving traffic to your Facebook page
• Create lookalike audiences (audiences of people similar to your current followers) and then market directly to them
• Run Facebook ads to:
  • Your email list
  • People visited one page on your website, but not another
  • People that watched a specific percentage of one of your videos
  • People in a certain location: ranging from a one-mile radius to a metro-area, or a state to the entire country
  • People based on their interests and other pages they like
  • People based on their age, gender and language spoken
• And much, much more.

I can teach you and your team to use all these tools and many more. 

I can train you on the Facebook front end, analytics, Stories, Groups, Events, Live and Facebook Ads.

I’ve worked with local, statewide and national political campaigns, nonprofits, small businesses, bands, artists, authors, journalists and many others who were ready to become Facebook Ninjas.
​ 

I also train people to become Super Twitterers, Instagram Champions and more.  
Learn more about how we might work together.

A little while back, Facebook added a new feature for brand pages: the call-to-action. It is a simple button, next to “Like” on your cover photo.

Setup is extremely simple. Go to any brand page for which you are an admin. If you have not yet set one up, you will see this:

When you click the button, you will get this pop-up:

Click where it says to “Choose a Button" and you will see this dropdown box:

These are your options. Facebook does not allow you to create your own, one of these will have to do. If you aren’t sure what to select, I’d recommend using "Contact Us" (as do they—it’s the default). You can add in a url and then when people click the call-to-action, they will be taken directly to your page.

Rather than sending people to your contact page though, I’d send them to a page that does a better job of introducing yourself. They are only one click away from your contact page (or at least they should be!) and in the meantime you are better off introducing them to your brand via your homepage (or your blog/about us/services page...) then sending them to a contact us page that puts all of the onus on them.

Once the call-to-action is setup, it is extremely easy to edit. If you are an admin and you go to the page, you will see the call-to-action button. Click on it, and rather than it taking you somewhere, it will offer you this dropdown menu:

You can edit, test or delete it, view insights or promote it (pay to let people know it exists). You can see insights for it just to the right of your cover photo.

Don’t expect to see much traffic from it. It won’t be a driver, but it will give people an option to quickly and easily from your Facebook page to your site.

Just as important, to the (even remotely) trained eye, not having it will stand out as a red flag (why isn’t this brand page using all of the resources at their disposal?).

Click “Contact Us” (or whichever option you selected) and Facebook will offer up some very basic analytics.

The whole process should take less than two minutes. So heed this call-to-action and set one up today!

Ever bump into an old friend and have them admonish you for not returning their Facebook message?

Maybe you were busy and forgot to respond. Maybe you were busy and willfully didn’t respond. Or maybe, Facebook sent their message to your spam folder and you never saw it in the first place!

Facebook has a spam folder. If you don’t know about it, you might be missing some important mail. That, and a lot of invites to events you were probably going to skip anyway.

If you get mail from a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend, it will go to your inbox. Everything else will wind up in your “other” folder.

The good news is that checking this folder is easy. After clicking “messages” in the top left of your Facebook homepage, look at the very top left of the new screen. “Inbox” will be highlighted. Right next to that is a tab titled “other.” Click it and you will see messages you never realized you got, dating all the way back to 2010.

Most of these messages will in fact be junk. But if you have been fuming for years that one of your college friends invited everyone but you to a holiday party back in 2011, you might very well wind up owing that person a mental apology for all those mean thoughts.

See anyone in your “other” folder who doesn’t belong there? Move their message to your inbox and Facebook promises that their mail will no longer be siphoned off, into the abyss of a folder you didn’t even realize existed.

Any truly great surprises awaiting you in your “other” folder? Share them in the comments or tweet them with the hashtag #SurprisesInMyOtherFolder

Say it ten times: "if it didn't happen on social media, it didn't happen."
Then say it a few more times, just for good measure. Make sure it's fully ingrained.
Then incorporate this simple lesson into your digital strategy.
If it didn't happen on social media, it didn't happen.