Facebook marketing: Features you might have missed

As a digital marketing and social media agency we understandably spend a lot of time keeping up to date with all the latest features in the rapidly changing landscape of the leading social media platforms.

Social media offers our clients and every business a way to effectively communicate and engage with their customers and target audiences. With social media pay per click you can target new customers by their interests and pay to get your business and products out in front of your desired audience.

While there are lots of platforms to choose from such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube there is no argument that Facebook is the biggest. You may prefer Twitter or think LinkedIn is more suitable for business and your industry but there is no denying that with 1.09 billion daily users Facebook is winning by sheer numbers.

Now you probably already have a Facebook profile and a Facebook business page but with such a dynamic platform, that is constantly evolving to deliver the best user experience, it is very easy to miss new features that have been subtly rolled out which could help your Facebook marketing efforts.

Facebook is notorious for rolling out surprise major updates, but it also seems to be regularly adding far more subtle tweaks and abilities for business pages. To make sure you are making the most of what’s out there on Facebook we would like to share a handful of features you might have missed.

Verify Your Facebook Page

You might be thinking surely I have already done this when I confirmed my profile via email and set up a business page. You can have an all singing all dancing Facebook page with great user interaction and even PPC campaigns and still not have officially verified your business page. You cannot be blamed for missing this as it is well hidden within your settings section.

So what is it, where is it and what does it do?

If you look hard you will notice some Facebook Business pages have a grey tick badge and some don’t.

This is a sign it has been fully verified. Verified Facebook pages were rolled out towards the end of last year and are a great way for local businesses to show they are the authentic Facebook representation of their company. Duplicate pages representing a business was a common problem on Facebook. According to Facebook verifying your business page will also help it rank better in search queries.

Facebook Services Tab

Last year Facebook changed the layout of Facebook profiles and pages for mobile. This included more prominent calls to action on mobile and a better layout for the navigation. Many businesses overlooked a third new feature though: The Services Tab.

As you can see from our services tab it is great for businesses to straight away let the Facebook audience know what services they offer at the top of their page. Only certain business types have the option of adding services. If you are able to then the next time you admin logs in they should see this tab. It is only visible to your audience once you will out the necessary information and click publish. Local Businesses and those in the category of Business Services should see the tab and we have also encountered for other businesses like spas. Facebook is also in progress testing another tab for e-commerce businesses. The Shop Tab is being tested as we speak and will hopefully roll out en masse soon. It will enable you to list your products and have users buy without ever leaving your Facebook page without the requirement of a third party app.