When taking on small business clients, often the company is ready to expand in all directions with social media. They need to improve their Facebook presence, add an Instagram, Twitter and YouTube channel to the mix. They’ve read the articles, they know the benefits of social media. While each of those platforms has a strong audience and a great appeal, one of the biggest mistakes a small business can make is spreading itself TOO thin, and losing the reliability of their audience.

When you are thinking of social media, the first objective should be to be reliable and consistent on one platform before you add a second or third. Plus, 78% of consumers say that a company’s social media posts influence their buying decisions. If your consumers spend most of their time on Facebook, and you post maybe once a week because you’re also trying to fill up Instagram & Twitter, you could be losing critical time with your audience, and that means critical income for your small business.

Before going on to a different social media site, make sure your Facebook business page is up and active and providing valuable content to your users. As the graphic above references, you want your content to inspire, amuse, unite, or give something to your audience. Below are a few tips to building a great Facebook business page, and you can find more great information on this Hubspot article as well.

The most important step for any business page is to create their vanity URL. Your Facebook URL should be easy to find, and searchable. This can be done once you’ve got 25 or more likes on your page. If you’re not sure how to do this, check out this link. It’s very easy to follow, and this name change helps improve your SEO and will make it easier to have your customers find and tag your page.

The next important step is mixing up the variety of posts. Once you’ve checked your content and make sure it fits into one of the categories illustrated above, you need to branch into a variety of content. In order to get your posts seen in the Facebook algorithm, you need a variety of text posts, photo posts, video content, and links. Facebook allows you to schedule posts ahead of time, so taking a day or two to plan what you want to post over the next month, will allow your page to have consistent, branded posts to draw in your potential buyers.

Most important of all, know your company’s brand and your core audience. Even with the best Facebook page, and beautiful posts, if you’re not speaking to your ideal client, you are wasting time. Make sure to take time to understand the details that make up your customer!