When people think about automation or innovation they are often thinking too big, a massive overhaul of their entire business. I want to encourage people to think small, think about bite sized automation. Innovation is just doing something new, I honestly believe most people should just start with small steps in order to get into the swing of things, then as you see the benefits of those small automations you will get an idea of what fits in your business and what bigger projects you should set your sites on.
We are going to look at using the FAQs in Facebook Business Suite to direct people to your landing pages. We are looking at FAQs because the pre-existing formatting allows you to easily set up a nice-looking button for the enquirer to click on instead of sharing a link which can be long and a bit confusing.
This feature also allows you to literally define the questions that you want people to ask you, which can be useful if you want to direct the conversation towards your business’s strengths. If you are a lawyer or a mediator you probably want to steer away from the questions that people will typically ask (how much will it cost, can I ask a question) unless you have a great answer for that (we have fixed fees, we offer a free 15 minute discovery call).
The point is, you define the questions, which allows you to direct this new lead to the strengths of your business. You might for instance have an FAQ that says, I am separating from my spouse, what do I need to do? This could then lead them to a blog post where you cover off some basic preliminary information and try to guide them towards booking in a consultation with you. In any event the question that you ask depends on your business, this blog post will (below) show you how to put that FAQ into Facebook once you have figured out what questions you want highlighted.
How do I set up automated responses from my Facebook page?
Why am I telling you to turn that off? Mostly because it is annoying and ineffective. Do you like it when you go to a web page and there are pop ups?
Most people are going to realise that you are not actually responding to them, that it is an automated response, and this will not stop them from going and looking elsewhere if they are impatient. Additionally it will not improve the rating that Facebook gives you for how quickly you respond to your questions. Given that you can specifically set up your contact information in a separate part of this I cannot think of many ways to effectively use this feature.
Don’t force data on them that they don’t want unless there is a really specific reason for it, like you are currently running a specific call to action in your Facebook marketing and you can sensibly use this feature to assist.
What do you want this potential user or enquirer to do?
You can literally write the question that they will ask, so what is the goal here? My goal is to allow people to get my latest blog posts or join my mailing list without leaving the Facebook platform, so I am using the FAQs to keep them on Facebook but still connect with them.
I actually went back, after taking this screen shot, and started the question with “Facebook - “
My reasoning is that the FAQs come up as a list and only part of the question is shown in the menu, so I am trying to make it easier for someone to find the information that they are after. If you go to my Facebook business page and send me a message you will see what I am talking about.
You can see where I have inserted the page link and also the button name in the screen shot below.
You can see what this whole thing looks like by heading over to my Facebook page and asking a question (sending me a message). You can interact with it and think about how you want that experience to feel for your new lead.
If you want to get more tips like this you can join my bite sized automation mailing list using the form below.