A guide to running a Facebook page

So, you’re ready to start promoting your service on Facebook? Feels a little daunting, right? Where do you even start?

No need to panic; keeping your Facebook Page interesting and engaging to audiences doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ll give you a few pointers on how to get your Page up and running and how to keep it ticking over without it taking over your whole life.

In this pack, we have also included a few technical guides on some of the more finicky aspects of the platform, from assigning admins to how to write good alt-text.

What is Facebook for?

Facebook is a great way for supporters and people that use or might be interested in our services to stay informed about what we have going on or find more information.

It can be great for nurturing relationships with supporters and getting feedback from them.

Its biggest strength is storytelling – you can share stories and updates from your service that deepens understanding of our cause and demonstrates your impact in your specific field or footprint.

Keeping all this in mind is the key to success; try to think about how you are offering value to your audience by sharing fun stories, engaging visuals and not just sharing links to upcoming events or services. You should give at least as much as you ask for.

How often should I post?

The frank answer is, as often as you can!

But the most important thing is consistency. Work out how much time you think you have to dedicate to your Page each week, how many posts that equates to, and stick to that schedule as rigidly as you can. If it’s 10 posts a week, great! If it’s two, that’s fine too.

But try not to post 10 times one week and not post again for the rest of the month. A regular frequency is vital as it helps the FB algorithm work out how to push your content and is easier for audiences to digest.

We’d recommend starting with 2-3 posts per week and see how you get on. Remember to leave yourself a bit of time to respond to comments

When should I post?

In the Meta Suite, you can find suggestions on when to post based you’re the most active times for your audience (you can see where to find this in our guide on the New Facebook Experience included in the pack).

Until you have built up enough of an audience to check this, we’d advise spacing your posts out across a week (for example, on a Tuesday, Wednesday and a Sunday) at either 8am or 6pm.

Remember, you can schedule your posts ahead of time, so you can set them all up on a Monday and get on with other things for the rest of the week (more details on how to do this in our guides).

Once again, don’t post three times in one day and not again for the rest of the week; give your posts and your audience a chance to breathe.

What should I post?

Good and consistent content is vital to keeping your audience active and engaged.

While we obviously encourage you to share links to upcoming events and services, in order to keep your Facebook Page fun and exciting for your followers, we’d recommend posting 1-2 posts a week about what’s going on in your services to demonstrate the joy that Sense brings to the people we support.

These can be:

Longer-form tales

Like this one about Martin.

It gives the audience a more detailed look at how Sense makes a difference.

Medium-length stories

Like this lovely video about Giles.

A few key details to help people understand a bit about the people we support

Little snapshots

A lot of the time, a nice picture and one line is all you need!

Try not to overthink it! If you think a picture is fun, someone else will too. You don’t have to give lots of detail or write loads of copy when just saying, “Mary had a brilliant time at this week’s inclusive dance class,” tells the audience everything they need to know.

Posting on social media

Social media is fun, and your posts should express your personality. But there are a few key things to keep in mind to make sure everyone feels included and can enjoy your content.

As with website content, any images posted on social media should have alt text. This guide to alt text from Accessible Social shows how to add it on different platforms.
When writing hashtags, capitalise the first letter of each word. This is called CamelCase. It helps people and screen readers alike to read hashtags more easily.
Don’t use emojis too much. One per post is fine. Try to use it at the beginning or end of your post, or at least, don’t use it in the middle of a sentence. Don’t repeat emojis, and leave them at their default setting instead of changing the colour or skin tone.
Don’t use alternative characters or cases. These are alternative typefaces that are copied and pasted into social media posts. Many assistive devices can’t read these characters.
Use GIFs sparingly. These should only be used when they significantly add to your post. And remember the alt text!
Don’t add unnecessary formatting to your post, like centre-aligning the text or separating it into columns.

Writing copy for social media

Just like website copy, social media copy should be written in plain English. Ideally, it should be even simpler and more concise. Aim for a reading age of around nine years old.
Be conversational and informal. Read your posts aloud. Does it sound like something you would naturally say to a friend or colleague?
Get your point across quickly. Don’t bury the lede, as people often skim-read on social media.
Don’t write anything in all capital letters, or use capital letters for unnecessary emphasis.
Use punctuation accurately. Don’t use repeat punctuation, or use multiple items of punctuation together (like a question mark and an exclamation mark).

What about photography?

The photos you take on your phone will be perfect!

In fact, you’ll see from some of the above examples, that rougher photography works great. It feels more authentic; it mirrors the kind of content users will see from their friends. Fancy photography is nice, but we prefer to capture the real moments on social media.

And video?

We’d encourage you to share any videos you can. Once again, anything filmed on your phone is ideal. But remember, it’s good to have a nice balance between photography and video. So, don’t feel like you have to upload loads of videos, a couple a month would be more than enough.

We’d also ask, if you are using video, to consider our accessibility guidelines; more on this below.

Responding to comments and inbound messages

We hope you start getting lots of queries and comments soon. It’s important to respond to all of these in a timely manner. Remember to be warm, friendly and social in your tone.

If you spot comments you think are problematic, we’d recommend “hiding” them rather than deleting them. The poster will know if their comment is deleted, in our experience, this can lead to even more negative comments. But if you hide them, the poster can still see their comment even though the rest of your audience can’t.

If you need more advice with a community management issue, please contact the digital team.

Final tips and things to consider

Growing your audience

Remember to encourage all staff, volunteers and partners to share your Facebook Page/invite their friends to give you a follow.
Facebook has a wealth of local community Groups that you can join to promote the Page. Make sure you choose Groups that are relevant to your offer, though! Don’t join the local fishing Group; they’re probably not interested.
If you have a little budget for promotion, a paid follower campaign targeted to your geography could really help give your follower count a leg up. The digital team can support on this if it’s on the cards.

Accessibility

We want our social media to be a real exemplar for accessibility. We’d ask that all your photos are equipped with alt text and videos are captioned. We’ve attached some guidance on alt-text in this pack. If you need help with captioning videos, please speak to the digital team, we can advise on simple methods for captioning.

Consent

Safeguarding is also really important online. So, we expect you to gather and manage consent for any images or stories you post on social media.

Need something to post?

Work with your colleagues in other services, share your content with each other or directly share posts from each other’s pages if you don’t have anything to share this week.
You can also always share content directly from the main charity FB page in a pinch! But please use the “share” button, copy pasting content from other Pages sets off Facebooks spam/fake account alarms!

Other useful guides

A guide on alt-text.

Please let us know if there is anything not covered that you think would be useful. If it would be helpful to you, we’re sure it would be helpful to someone else.

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