Are you missing a trick on Facebook? Do you find yourself searching for the competition to see how well they are performing each month or sporadically? Are you aware that you can “watch” your competitors on Facebook? It’s a fabulous feature and an easy way to quickly compare how well your page is doing in comparison to theirs.

Where is the Page Watch Feature on Facebook?

To access this “Page Watch Feature” go to insights and to the overview page.

Scroll down the Overview page and under your 5 most recent posts section you will see “pages to watch”

Click on the Add Pages button and type in the details of the pages you would like to watch. You can watch up to 6.

You can see the comparison on page likes from the last 7 days. Amount of times you have posted compared to them and the amount of engagement you have had compared to them on your posts.

Use this. Learn from this. Create your social media strategy for the following week from this.  See how you can improve your Facebook marketing. Don’t copy your competitors, be better. This facility may just spur you in to action.  Now I don’t ever expect to overtake Social Media Examiner on likes or Engagement, however percentage wise, I’m not too far behind them on improvement. So what do I need to learn from this report today? I need to create more posts and ensure that these posts are engaging.

Do let me know if this has helped you in any way, and let me know how you get on.

The question as to whether or not a business needs a business page on Facebook is asked to me over and over again and there really is one clear answer … YES

Facebook Business Pages

It’s important to know that there are now 400 Million Global users on Facebook and this figure continues to grow. 37,000,000 of these users are aged 18 – 65+ and live in the UK.  If you trade in the UK there, straight away, you have access to these 37,000,000 people for advertising purposes.

If you trade more locally, for example here in the North East, you can target your advertising and using the same age demographic you will find  1,600,000 people in an 80km radius of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Facebook is a fantastic way to engage with your target audience – because reaching that target is made so easy for you.

How long do people stay on Facebook?

This is quite an amazing one.  Way back when I first started delivering Facebook Workshops in the North East I remember telling people that people spent up to 15 minutes a day, on average, on Facebook – and that was in itself, at the time (about 8 years ago), quite an amazing statistic – a long time for someone to spend on a “website”. Now, however that average time has increased to 55 minutes.  That’s 55 minutes of looking back through a newsfeed, reading posts, searching for people, businesses, products etc.

Did you know that the average person on Facebook has 130 friends, and if someone interacts with your post, that post can potentially reach all of their connections (friends). The act of them liking your post or commenting on your post, is recorded in their friends “tickers” and may appear on their friends newsfeeds too. Now each of these people, spending their 55 minutes per day on Facebook, also happen to “like” and addition 4 new Facebook Business Pages per month.  Let your business be one of their 4!

How do I get more free likes on Facebook?

Well the most important thing you can do is create interesting content. Use media such as video or upload photo’s.  Refrain from using just text only posts. Why? Because they aren’t visual, can appear quite boring, and will be way down on the edgeranker when it comes to the software choosing which posts will be seen.

The best thing you can do is create Engaging Content.  Content that people want to click “like” on or “comment on” or click that share button.

Don’t listen to the moaners!

You will hear people all the time complaining that their organic (free) reach has dropped on Facebook because Facebook want you to pay for every post.  This absolutely is not true.  If you create interesting engaging posts, real content that your audience would really have an interest in and want to engage with, you will see your reach number rocket! And it doesn’t cost a penny.  Just your time and some thought.

North East Facebook Workshops

I deliver Facebook Workshops here at my office on Team Valley and have recently reduced the class size down to 5, so that I can give each individual attendee some really specific coaching. People walk away from the workshops with an excellent understanding of how Facebook actually works – understand that, and you will understand how and what you should post (even when you should post). If after this course you are still struggling with content creating with have a…

Social Media Strategy and Content Workshop

Where we talk about what you can talk about that will be creative and engagement.

If you would like some help, do give me a shout and I’ll be happy to help.  It may not be that Facebook is your main platform, but I would still advise you to have a presence for searchability. You may be better of doing daily posts on your LinkedIn Company profile and just posting once a week on Facebook, but I do believe you still must have that presence so you are not missing out on that huge potential audience.

Where’s my Facebook Business Newsfeed?

I heard this question so many times yesterday, businesses across the North East (well not just the North East but over the whole of Facebook World) were spun in to panic thinking their Facebook Business pages were broken. But no, panic not, new changes have been happening and the mass roll out occurred yesterday.

Latest Facebook Business Page Changes

I’ve created this video, just 5 minutes long, which explains all about the changes and shows you how to access your Facebook business page newsfeed now.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=311&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnortheastsocialmedia%2Fvideos%2F1107124195984651%2F&show_text=false&width=560

Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Live

Mark Zuckerberg hosted an in-person Q&A yesterday in Berlin (February 26th, 2016).

The first question he was asked was about Facebook Live.  Mark confirmed that his goal is to “give the power to broadcast live in everyone’s pocket around the World” and not only is Live available on IOS but as of yesterday Facebook have started to roll it out to Android too! Mark hopes that everyone will have access to Facebook Live in the next month.

Do you think you will use Facebook Live? I love live streaming, and can really see it taking off in the UK. Periscope (Twitter’s live streaming app) is increasing rapidly in popularity and you can see that Facebook Live will go the same way. Why use live streaming? Well it’s real time, it’s what’s happening now. As Mark puts it “Live video is so raw  …. it gives people the ability to express what’s going on without having it to be super curated”. The idea is that you video live, not planned, just sharing exactly what is on your mind, there and then.

I think it’s a great way to connect with your audience. To make them feel that they actually know you! And we all know that we buy from people we know like and trust!

Do you think you will use Facebook Live? Are you already or have you already started streaming on Periscope? I’d love to know what you think about it.

If you haven’t heard Mark’s Q&A session you may like to catch it here

One of the best questions Mark was asked was “If you were the CEO of Twitter what would you do?” – it caused quite a laugh from the audience and Mark’s response was perfect “There is no right way to answer that question!” I thought he got out of that one really well.

Children and Technology

Another question he was asked was “What is the perfect age for kids to start in Technology?”  Facebook state that you have to be a minimum of 13 years old to have a Facebook Account. My kids were a bit younger when they created their accounts – it is, in fact, why I actually got involved in Social Media! My daughters were using Facebook and the boys wanted to, so I thought I should check it out.

I don’t think you can answer a question like that – technology has changed so much and there are some great apps for youngsters to play with which are both fun and educational. When my youngest child started nursery, I’ll never forget a phone call I received from his teachers.  They had to call me in to “fix” their computers. At the age of 4 he had decided that he didn’t like the layout of the school’s computer so he created himself his own user account, decided upon and set his own background image and set the desktop up with the programs he liked best! All this at 4 years old!! And do you know, he picked this up from sitting on my lap, or sitting with his siblings, and watching!

The other memory I remember from Andy being at nursery was the lovely calendar he made one year. He was to write on it what his mum and dad do for a living. His response was “My dad goes to work and builds towers (he was and is a print finisher) and my mum sits at works and eats all day” (mmmmmm no comment).

Have fun playing with technology and Facebook Live or Periscope, and do let me know when you’re streaming so I can pop by and say hi!

Welcome to North East Social Media and my first blog on my new fancy website!  I have been managing social media accounts for client’s, working on their strategies, helping client’s with their SEO and teaching Social Media here in the North East of England for 6 years.

I have trained over 5000 North East businesses in the use of Social Media for raising their profiles, raising brand awareness and increasing both traffic to websites and of course sales. And I have enjoyed every minute of it!

In September last year things changed in an instant! We were an Social Media Management Agency of 4 and one of our fabulous team left to become a full-time Primary Teacher, another left to do a Psychology Doctorate and the third to become a Priest! Which took our Agency back to 1, little old me who managed to get ill in the same month and ended up with septicemia – but that’s another story!

So, whilst recovering I had plenty of time to reflect on my way forward and decided it was time for a change. With the help of my wonderful Coach Karen Rutter that decision has finally been made and…

North East Social Media is born

The thing I love most about my work in Social Media is being able to teach people how to use their own accounts effectively. I have an ability for being able to explain to people how they can use the different platforms for their own purpose, and how to actually use them; create campaigns and strategies so you can actually see results. And this is what I love! Yes I love content creation, and was very happy managing accounts, but I still taught people that Social Media works best in real-time, it works best when accounts are managed in-house rather than being outsourced.

So that is what in intend to do now at North East Social Media Ltd. I am going to concentrate on working with North East businesses, from start-up through to fully established companies, to teach you how you can use Social Media yourself.

Amanda Dixon – North East Social Media

So who am I? My name is Amanda Dixon and I’m a Social Media addict!

The wonderful World of Social Media changes on a daily basis and I love keeping up to date with all the changes, so now that the decision has been made to move forward with teaching North East businesses how to use Social Media themselves, in-house, it will free me up with time to keep studying! Believe me, it’s an absolute necessity!

The plan is to run weekly Social Media courses at our Team Valley office as well as offering 121 bespoke training for those who prefer a private environment and I’ll also be offering packages to work with your team, over a period of time, helping you to create the perfect Social Media Marketing strategy, ensuring the whole team knows how to use the platforms correctly

Huge thanks to both Karen Rutter for helping me sort the thoughts clouding my brain and blocking me from being able to put any of my ideas in to an order and Chrissy Scott of Bag Tree Design who quite simply “got me” and was able to design my logo in a matter of hours and is now working on making this website beautiful for me.

My accounts are all set up now on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and I’m still working on the others so I had better get on. See you soon either in the Real or Virtual World!