Quick & Dirty Facebook Marketing Tips: Messaging for Small Business Owners
Retail life is crazy – you’ve got a million things to do and constantly monitoring your Facebook marketing, let alone messaging, is likely a low priority. But now more than ever, users are expecting social media to be a quick source for customer service. You might want to think twice about how you prioritize your social media management (and inboxes).
Did you know that 70 percent of users expect a response from brands and 53 percent want a response within the hour (according to Sprout Social)? This might seem difficult to some of you, but Facebook is a friend to social media marketing, not a foe. Which is why they’ve made it easier than ever to respond to messages. Keep reading to learn more about the social media tools Facebook has added for your benefit.
The gist of Instant Replies
By turning on Instant Replies business owners can set up a canned message response of up to 250 characters. It that can be personalized with a user’s first and last name, website URL, phone number and address. This simple response lets your customers know that you’re momentarily busy, but that you’ll reply at your soonest availability. This can mean the difference between a happy customer versus an angry one (and one that might vent about it on your wall). Turning on “Instant Replies” is pretty simple and can be done by following the steps in this Facebook article.
A few things to know about Instant Replies:
- They have no affect on your response rate or response time
- They are sent to all users who message your Page for the first time
- They will not be sent if your messaging status is set to “Away”
What to do outside of business hours
Like we said, Facebook understands your busy life and that you aren’t always open. That’s why they provide you the option to set your messaging status as “Away”. The best bonus to this feature is that by setting your status to “Away”, your response time won’t take a hit. Setting this up is as simple as checking a few boxes and creating an “auto-response” message.
Why your Page’s response time matters
Have you ever had to sit on hold while trying to press the pound key or a whole bunch of zeroes just to talk to someone, well think of your Page’s response time in this way. As we mentioned earlier, most users want a response within the hour. In Facebook’s attempt to get brands to respond quicker, they now display your response rate and time right there at the top of your page.
Pro Tip: Want to Earn the “Very Responsive to Messages” badge? Have both a response rate of 90% and a response time of 15 minutes within the last seven days. You will then have this at the top of your Page.
It should also be noted that your response time will only be visible on your Page if you visit it at least once a week and answer 90% or more of your messages. In your settings, you can choose to have your response time updated automatically (like the images shown above) or you can choose an option that you think best represents your response rate.
First impressions with Facebook messages
In your messaging settings, you have the option to create a Messenger Greeting. This is what people will see the first time they open a conversation with you on Messenger. You can use this to help people understand how to interact with you. As soon as users click the message button on your page this is what will be in the chat box before they even start typing a message to you.
Facebook Marketing Tip: We recommend setting this up to be a happy and helpful greeting. Use the “first name” tag field to make it seem personal to every user. See our example in the images below.
You can easily set up any of these messaging options up for your Page. The easiest way to do it is from a desktop computer. Make sure you are actively “managing” the Page you want to change the settings on (not your personal account). Then click “Settings”, located just above your cover photo. Then click “Messaging” in the menu on the left. From there, you’ll find everything we just covered. As always, if you have more questions about Facebook marketing feel free to chat us or email us at help@boutiquewindow.com. Get even more retail marketing tips and tricks by heading back to our blog.