You can recognize this Facebook authorship markup on content found in your News Feed as there’s a linked name attached to it. This gives you the ability to potentially follow the author or page who created it.

This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to set up Facebook Authorship on your WordPress website.

See Also: How to Embed Native Facebook Videos on your Website

Learn more by watching the short tutorial video below.

Video Tutorial

Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SMMsubscribe

How to Add Facebook Authorship to WordPress

Now before you can set up Facebook authorship on your WordPress you’ll quickly need to modify your Facebook profile settings allowing you to be followed.

To do so, access your Facebook profile settings and locate the Followers option and make sure that it’s set to everyone.

Next access your Wordpress dashboard and make sure that you’ve added your Facebook profile URL to your admin contact information section found within your user profile settings.

Now you’ll want to add the correct open graph meta tags to your website.

The best method I’ve found for this is to use the free WordPress SEO tool plugin by Yoast. If you’re familiar with WordPress you’ll know how to find and install new plugins.

Now all you need to do is navigate to the Social option within the plugin and select the Facebook tab and check the box that says “Add open graph meta data to your site” and save the changes.

Finally, you’ll want to confirm authorship has been established by using Facebook’s debugger tool.

Just copy and paste an existing post URL from your site to see.

If done correctly, the debugger tool will populate how your post will look and you’ll be able to recognize the authorship format.

If it doesn’t work the first time, keep refreshing the debugger search as it may take some time for Facebook to recognize the tag has been recently added.

Takeaway

We all leverage Facebook as a powerful way to distribute and amplify our published content. By adding Facebook open graph meta tags to your site and establishing Facebook authorship you’ll have the opportunity to gain valuable followers which could be seen as important when building your personal brand.

How do you feel about being able to be “followed” by the general public? Would it stop you from adding authorship? Can you see any other benefits of adding Facebook authorship to your site? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.

The post How to Add Facebook Authorship to your WordPress Site appeared first on Social Media Tutorials by Jacob Curtis.

Basically, Facebook is looking for your additional input when posting content to your Page to help its News Feed algorithm. Fun!

However, unlike the Interest Targeting, the tags in Audience Optimization help a post reach the most relevant subset of a publisher’s audience without restricting reach.

Sounds like fun!

This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to use Facebook Audience Optimization for Posts.

Keep in mind, if you don’t see the option and you’re page has less than 5000 fans, you’ll first need to manually enable the Facebook Audience Optimization tool in your Page settings.

Also, this feature is currently only available to english speaking Pages.

See Also: How to Change your Facebook News Feed Settings.

Learn more by watching the short tutorial video below.

Video Tutorial

Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SMMsubscribe

Advice for using Facebook Audience Optimization

When targeting your audience, try to avoid selecting the most general, top-level categories like “Shopping and Fashion” and “Technology.” These are usually too broad to connect with highly engaged audiences.

When possible, narrow down to subtopics found under those categories like “Beauty, ” “Fashion accessories”, and “consumer electronics”.

Now, You can get extremely granular in the amount of tag targeting. Take time to explore all the options and develop content strategies based on your top performing tags seen in the new insights provided.

The goal is to define an audience, not to list keywords. And while you can’t create custom tags, you can always use related terms as a workaround when certain tags are not available.

If you’re feeling stuck about what to tag, think about the classic “who, what, where, when, why and how” elements of the story as a starting place.

Finally, once you’ve chosen a few, use the suggested tags feature to find other relevant options to include. Facebook even provides a huge resource of tagging best practices that can be found here.

How to Use Audience Restrictions

Wrapping up, the Audience restriction feature gives you the option to limit the visibility of certain posts across Facebook by specifying which audiences would not find a post relevant. This can be filtered based on things like a users location, language, age or gender.

You may already this option as it’s an existing feature that can now be used alongside preferred audience options.

Takeaway

It’s a noisy world out there on Facebook and while Facebook has developed a powerful algorithm for delivering relevancy to what’s in your News Feed , they could always use the help of publisher input when categorizing your posts.

Especially considering adding targeting will no longer limit the reach of your Page as the featured once did before, I suggest spending some time targeting content to the right people and see what kind of results you get. Facebook also helps you refine what’s working by providing new insights of which tags were most engaged with after the post has been published.

Have you activated Facebook Audience Optimization or Restrictions to your content? Have you found any success? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.

The post How to Use Facebook’s NEW Audience Optimization for Targeting Posts appeared first on Social Media Tutorials by Jacob Curtis.

Basically, local businesses with the best Facebook reviews and ratings (amongst other speculated factors) will rank higher when a user performs a search using their new Professional Services finder.

This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to use Facebook Professional Services to find local businesses.

Keep in mind, while this is obviously important for acquiring new local customers, this new search feature could also be used by people looking to visit your city or town.

See Also: How to Verify Your Local Business Page on Facebook

Learn more by watching the short tutorial video below.

Video Tutorial

Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SMMsubscribe

How to Use Facebook Professional Services

To search for local businesses with the best Facebook reviews and ratings, navigate to https://www.facebook.com/services/ .

From here, you’ll have the ability to input your search if you already know what you’re looking for and Facebook should automatically recognize the location you’re searching from.

You can also scroll down to see the most popular business or organization categories. Businesses in the categories listed below should really pay attention to this update:

• Plumber
• Spa, Beauty & Personal Care
• Event Planning
• Pet Services
• Medical and Heath
• Arts & Marketing
• Automotive
• Business Services

Finally, below the showcased categories you’ll see a complete list of all local business categories you can choose from.

Now once you’ve performed a search or clicked-though a listed category, Facebook will populate a list of local businesses in your area with the highest ratings or reviews (amongst other factors), an interactive map, and each listings latest review including reviews from your friends.

Other Possible Ranking Factors

This new search feature was quietly rolled out in December 2015 and Facebook hasn’t mentioned other factors that may increase your Facebook Professional Services search ranking. Here’s a few of my ideas:

• Proximity to your location
• Engagement rate
• Amount of fans
• How complete business information is
• Facebook page message response time
• Amount of reviews from your friends
• Competition in area

Takeaway

Facebook has a load of review and ranking data compiled since Pages were first launched and I’m sure they’d love if members began using their search feature when shopping as opposed to other search engines, Google reviews or Yelp.

So it’s a good time to make sure your Pages’s category, phone number and business address are correct. Also don’t be afraid to solicit and take reviews seriously.

I’d also suggest verifying your local business page with a grey check mark and proactive marketers should also consider requesting a Facebook bluetooth beacon to install at their location.

How does your local business Page rank on Facebook? What other factors do you think will determine rankings? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.

The post How to use Facebook Professional Services Finder appeared first on Social Media Tutorials by Jacob Curtis.

While this isn’t to be confused with the blue check verification badge seen on profiles or pages of celebrities or major brands, applying to get your local business verified still has its benefits. 

This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to verify your local business page on Facebook.

Keep in mind, this feature only works for Facebook Pages who are set up as a local business and are only (currently) available for business Pages in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

See Also: How to Submit your Facebook Fan Page for Verification

Learn more by watching the short tutorial video below.

Video Tutorial

Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SMMsubscribe

How Verify Your Local Business Page on Facebook

Unlike applying for a blue verification badge, verifying your local business page can be done from within your page settings.

From here, locate the Page Verification option. If you don’t see it, make sure your page is set up as a local business. 

Submitting your Local Business Page for Verification

After selecting to verify your page you’ll have two options in submitting your request to Facebook.

• Verifying by phone call will allow Facebook to contact you with an automated phone call where you’ll be given a 4-digital code to complete the request online.
• Verifying through documents will let you upload a photo of an official business document like a tax file or business license to submit for verification. 

Takeaway

Verified local business Pages show up higher in search results which can attract more visitors and look more legitimate which can help convert those visitors into fans.

You supposedly get early access to new features too not to mention you can rest at easy knowing there’s no impostor pages representing you the platform.

It takes bout 3-4 days once you’ve submitted your local business page for verification, and once accepted, you should see the grey check mark badge next to your business name.

Does your local business  have a Facebook Page? Have you seen any other benefits of verifying your local business Page? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.

The post How to Verify Your Local Business Page on Facebook appeared first on Social Media Tutorials by Jacob Curtis.