Gianna MarcianoSocial MediaHootsuite Presentation PaperMay 14, 20155 Best Practices for New Facebook PagesA few years ago, Facebook decided to revamp their social media platform introducing what is known as the Timeline. Facebook is a great social media network to socialize with friends and family and to stay up-to-date on current events, however, its most current innovation is to use it to promote products and advertise businesses. Using its new layout and taking advantage of its new features can help gain new followers, promote new products, share pictures, and allow consumers develop a trustworthy relationship with companies they love. However, some people may not know how to successfully take advantage of all of the new features Facebook has to offer.In this Hootsuite training module, Taylor Loren, the content coordinator for Hootsuite University, gives great advice on how to best use the features Facebook offers. The five main topics she focuses on are: customizing the cover photo, utilizing pinned posts, highlighting important posts, creating company milestones, and utilizing the apps feature. When talking about customizing the cover photo, Loren talks about grabbing the audiences eye. Something with a lot of color or an image of a new product that is being offered will work perfectly. The companys logo could be nice to use too, since the cover photo is the first thing people are seeing when they go to the businesss page. The cover photo can be changed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to stay fresh and current with what is going on within the company. For example, Kate Spade often uses images of their new products and matches their profile photo to their cover photo. Utilizing pinned posts is also an important feature that should definitely be taken advantage of. This means that any post that is pinned will be located at the top of the Facebook page for a selected period of time. For example, if the company is offering 10% for 1 week, they can choose to pin that post for a week and for those 7 days, the 10% coupon will be located at the top.Highlighting important posts can be very useful for any business trying to promote itself. Highlighting a post allows the post to constantly show up. Doing this will place a small star next to the most and let the company feel assured that it wont disappear in the near future, like some posts tend to do. Creating company milestones includes letting the customers know when important events happen within the company. This allows new followers to see the development and growth of a company be able to learn more about it. Things to include in the milestones can be awards won, new products, new locations/stores opening, and any other achievements. Lastly, the app feature allows perspective and current customers be able to locate the business easily. By making the page an app, in one-click the customers can contact them. If a Facebook user subscribes to any app it can be easily accessed and shared with friends. The subscriber will be notified of any new events, product deals, and promotions to look out for.This instructional module is important because a lot of businesses are still unfamiliar with all of Facebooks features, although they have been out now for a few years. Facebook has so much to offer, but it can be overwhelming to stay up-to-date with everything. This module could be very helpful to someone trying to expand their customer base through social media. According to a scholarly article titled, More Mutter About Clutter: Extending Empirical Generalizations to Facebook, people tend to like pages that have less clutter. They are easy to follow and are more eye-catching. In this article, large companies on Facebook versus small companies are discussed and it was found that larger companies tend to have more posts and clutter which is why people tend to follow smaller companies they like on Facebook (Nelson-Field, 187). In the Hootsuite discussion, Loren mentions to keep it clutter-free and simplistic. In the About Me section, she says to only use 1 or 2 sentences. In the scholarly article, The Impact of Online Advertising through Facebook on Stimulation Seekers, Daniel Davis and several other authors discuss the complications with advertising on Facebook. He mentions that a lot of advertisements on Facebook go overlooked because of how much else is going on in the News Feed (Davis, 8). In order to remain eye-catching, Loren explains to use images of new products, stay up to date, and get the audience to want to follow the page exclusively. According to another article, FACEBOOK ADS: WHAT WORKS. WHAT DOESN'T, the dos and donts of Facebook are examined. The article states that although it seems like common sense, a lot of Facebook advertising pages forget to include the company name, photos, address, and basic contact info (Creamer,1). To solve this problem, Loren explains in the Hootsuite module to make it clear how your customers can contact you and share a map with your location so everyone knows exactly where you are located.In popular press, Facebook is obviously one of the most common social media networks that people know of. Since most people use it for personal reasons, it is a great way for companies to get the Average Joes attention. According to Forbes, the most important feature to have on an advertising page is a Call-to-action, which Loren agrees, too. This means that the consumer can easily reach the company if needed. The buttons include: Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Book Now, and Download. (Rampton, Forbes.com) There are also a button that says Contact Us, which I personally use.According to the New York Times, in 2014, Facebook was considered the #2 digital advertising platform in the world. This is amazing; Im sure Mark Zuckerberg could have not even imagined how far this brand would have become. Loren pushes the fact that in order to be successful at promoting a business, the features should 100% be taken advantage of. In order to get a big following social media is the most important source of connecting to your potential customers 24/7. Involving customers is SO important. In a recent article from Time Magazine, new ways of advertising were discussed. Not only will there be business pages, but also moving images, movies, and other creative designs to get ads promoted. The article shows images of how Facebook has changed over the years and we can only assume it will continue to do so.Overall, Loren made very valid points about advertising on Facebook. Although the video was a little outdated, I am sure her advice would still be relevant in the overly competitive society that we live in. In order to remain successful, I think it is important for businesses to stay up-to-date with new features that social media platforms are providing and try to use them to their fullest capability.

ReferencesCreamer, Matthew (2012). FACEBOOK ADS: WHAT WORKS. WHAT DOESN'T. Advertising Age, 83(20), 2-41.Davis, Daniel (2009) The Impact of Online Advertising through Facebook on Stimulation Seekers National Communication Association. 1-39.Goel, Vindu (2014). With New Ad Platform, Facebook Opens Gates to its Vault of User Date,http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/businessLuckerson, Viktor (2015). Watch the Hypnotic New Ads That Are About to Take OverFacebook, http://time.com/3705008/facebook-video-ads-cinemgraphs/Nelson-Field, et al (2013). More Mutter About Clutter: Extending Empirical Generalizations to Facebook. Journal of Advertising Research., 53(2), 186-191.Rampton, John (2014). 7 Hidden Features of Facebook Ads, http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2014/11/13/7-hidden-features-of-facebook-ads/