As a PR agency specializing in lifestyle and food PR, we provide insights into our work and show how we design and manage our clients’ social media pages such as Facebook as part of digital PR.
As well as the omnipresent Instagram, Facebook continues to play an important role in social media marketing. Due to its large user pool, Facebook is an essential part of an omnichannel marketing concept. It offers an excellent opportunity for many clients to present their companies. This applies to press relations in the food & beverage sector as well as lifestyle PR or hotel PR. An additional plus: the diverse content possibilities such as text, image or video. As a food & beverage and lifestyle agency, we show how we tap into Facebook’s full potential. For more information about how social media can further your own business, please contact our digital PR agency.
Basics – the optimal Facebook presence
First things first: we only use professional Facebook company pages, as they offer significantly more features than profile pages. Also, users usually find companies through their channel names on social media. Therefore, in most cases it’s recommended not to deviate too much from that. Same goes for the channel title, it should contain a catchword relating to the client’s business area. For our F&B or lifestyle clients that means less is more, so that we’re able to put the core message into a nutshell. For example, our own channel name is simply “Gourmet Connection”, our channel title” PR agency”.
“A picture is worth more than a thousand words”
For increasing a brand’s recognition value, the profile and cover images should be chosen carefully. For many companies their logo is suitable as a profile picture, smaller businesses often use photos of their managing directors, restaurant owners or hoteliers, as this creates a personal connection. On the other hand, images of flagship products are also a good idea. The cover image allows for even more creativity, it offers space for company values in corporate design, a short video about the corporate philosophy, staff or product portraits.
In nutshell: basic information
Besides the channel name and picture, the info section is the second thing Facebook followers usually look at. Essential components for a successful company profile are…
- Imprint: mandatory in the business sector
- Contact details: particularly restaurants or hotels should include opening hours, their phone numbers and email addresses for reservation requests
- Brief description: describes a company’s business using relevant keywords
- Keywords: the right keywords increase the Google ranking, consequently a page with thematically relevant keywords gets better results in Google searches and is easier to find; this is of upmost importance, especially if the consumer doesn’t know the company
- Uncomplicated access: as a PR agency for food, travel and lifestyle, we use a short description and meaningful keywords – this way anyone can easily access our clients’ Facebook pages
- Other channels: in the info section we link to our clients’ other channels such as Instagram, Pinterest or LinkedIn and include the website URL
Verification: is it really necessary?
Many large Facebook pages have a blue check mark next to their channel names. This indicates that the page has been officially verified. How and why? The small tick confirms the page’s authenticity, identifying the actual person or company as valid. Verification is a quality feature for businesses they can request from Facebook. This feature is especially useful if there are several Facebook pages with similar names, for example due to the creation of fan pages. The verification makes it easy for users to identify an official page. In addition, the verification catapults the page towards a top position in Google searches, thus increasing the page’s.
The supreme discipline – offering subscribers added value
Facebook proposes exciting options for personalizing a company’s image. Our clients come from many different backgrounds – some sell products, others services –, and having the option to include opening hours, menus or special offers is important. As a PR agency for food & beverage, travel and lifestyle, we want to make the best out of our clients’ social pages, which is possible through increasing user interaction. We all know the classic Like button, but Facebook is able to do much more. For generating traffic, you can add call-to-action buttons such as “Contact us” or “Learn more”. Particularly interesting for F&B digital PR are the “Show menu” or “Shop” buttons.
After putting in place the Facebook page’s basic framework, the key is to upload relevant content. In order to meet this task, it’s important to have a close look at the target group. As a PR agency, we always have the target group in mind when developing content. A great tool in digital PR is Business Suite Insights, in which Facebook offers an interesting statistics feature that allows us to gain an overview of the people associating with the company page. It delivers information on demographic data such as age or gender and also informs us of users’ interests and places of residence. Keeping this in mind, we continuously adapt our content to the current target group. This enables us to attract more followers with similar profiles for our clients. For more information about narrowing down audiences check out our blog post on personas.
Digital PR services
Last but not least: we always keep an eye on follower interactions. What kind of content do the users like? What do they comment on and share? What gets the most attention, videos, photos or links? What about important KPIs? Post optimization also plays a vital part in increasing the subscriber engagement and therefore traffic.
Social media management offers a variety of ways to represent businesses. Building and maintaining a social page takes time, patience and commitment, but it’s worth the effort. Do you need support regarding your digital brand positioning or content development on social media? Our experienced agency team is ready to assist you with food PR, wine PR and lifestyle PR. Contact us here.