Facebook Hacks, Tricks and Features You Probably Didn’t Know About

With 1.18 billion daily active users as of September 2016, Facebook is an excellent place to establish a formidable presence for your brand. But with so many users sharing so much content, you will need whatever competitive advantage you can get to stand out from the crowd.

Join us on a magic carpet ride into the wonderful and (surprisingly) exciting world of Facebook hacks for business

Facebook hacks for Page and profile

You wouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but you might judge a business. Your brand’s Facebook cover photo and profile picture are the first things a prospective customer sees. If the photos are blurry, boring, or inappropriate, there’s little to entice a Facebook user to click on your page.

Read on for a few exceptional Facebook hacks to spice up your presence on the platform.

1. Perfect your profile

Much like getting dressed in the morning, creating a great Facebook profile requires a sense of style. A well-coordinated Facebook profile picture and cover photo can grab your audience’s attention and demonstrate your professionalism.

Tricked Out Timeline is a neat tool you can use to design matching cover and profile photos. Choose a high-quality photo for the best results.

Here’s an example of a merged profile and cover photo made using the Tricked Out Timeline tool:

What once was a single photo of a man skiing down a mountain, is now a visually appealing and compatible profile picture and cover photo. This Facebook hack tool allows you to download both photos in the correct sizes for the platform.

2. Up the quality of your content by enabling HD photo and video uploads

Let’s say your business has a fun office team building event. You want to share the photos from the special day with your audience so they can see the wonders of your lively and relatable team. But when you upload the photos and videos to Facebook from your phone, the quality is horrendous. That can be fixed.

By adjusting a few settings in your Facebook account, you can enable the HD upload and easily share high-quality images and video on your profile.

Image via Modcloth on Facebook.

How to do it:

1. Open the Facebook application on your phone and select the menu symbol in the lower corner
2. Within the menu, select Settings
3. Within the resulting pop-up menu, select Account Settings
4. Scroll down and select Videos and Photos
5. Turn on the Upload HD feature for Photo and Video settings

Uploading high-quality photos and videos is a Facebook hack that can help your brand put your very best foot forward. No more grainy videos of trust falls for you.

3. Drive more traffic, leads, and sales with call-to-action buttons

Call-to-action buttons link to any destination on or off Facebook that aligns with a business’s goals. Perhaps Facebook users will be inspired by your compelling photos and videos to book a room at your bed and breakfast. Or maybe they have questions and need a straightforward way to contact your business.

With call-to-action buttons you can give your audience an easy way to do any of the following:

• Book Now
• Contact Us
• Call Now
• Use App
• Play Game
• Shop Now
• Sign Up
• Watch Video

If you hope to raise money for your non-profit organization, you may also have the option of adding a “Donate” button.

How to add a call-to-action button on your Page that directs people to your website:

1. Go to your Page’s cover photo and click + Add a Button
2. Choose your call-to-action, and enter the URL for your website.
3. Click Create
4. You can choose from different call-to-action buttons, if you’re creating a local business ad or if you’re creating a lead ad

How to add a call-to-action button to your Page that directs people to your app:

1. Go to your Page’s cover photo and click Create Call to Action
2. Choose a call-to-action
3. Add a website URL
4. Click on the toggle below Set up a Link to an App?
5. Below iOS Setting, if you leave Website in the dropdown menu, people will be directed to your website—to direct people using an iPhone or iPad to your app, click the dropdown menu and select App Add an App Link (you’ll also have the option to add a Website or App Store Link)
6. Below Android Setting, if you leave Website in the dropdown menu, people will be directed to your website—to direct people using an Android to your app, click the dropdown and choose App Add an App Link (you’ll also have the option to add a Package Name and a Website or Play Store Link)
7. Click Create

Once you’ve created a call-to-action button, you can track the number of people who have clicked on the button to make sure that the feature is driving traffic the way you planned.

4. Manage Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram messages from one inbox

Facebook now offers one unified inbox to help you simplify your customer service experience over social media.

If you actively manage communications for your business across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, you can save time with the updated inbox by responding to all inquiries within a single app. You’ll be able to quickly scan all three channels for new updates and avoid the potential fallout from waiting too long to respond.

5. Set up auto responses for common customer inquiries

If your business receives a high volume of daily messages, or if you have entire teams dedicated to online customer service, the Facebook Messenger Platform or Facebook Marketing Partners features might be a good option for you to manage customer interactions.

With Messenger Platform, you can build customized automated experiences to communicate with large numbers of customers. With Facebook Marketing Partners, you can handle the flow of incoming communications by chatting live with your customers.

6. View your business’ interaction history with any Facebook user

As opposed to the complete anonymity of a phone call, when someone interacts with your business through Facebook Messenger, you can view their profile to learn a bit more about who they are and shape your response accordingly.

You can determine whether you are dealing with a regular user of your service or a potential new customer, someone local, or an interested visitor.

Image via Facebook for Business.

To do this, simply tap the person’s name to see their profile, as well as their previous interactions with your business.

7. Use Facebook’s Request Recommendations features to encourage engagement

Facebook offers a variety of interesting features for businesses that encourage users to engage. Depending on what service your brand offers, you may be able to make use of the following Facebook hacks.

How to order food

If you own a restaurant, customers can now order food from you directly from your Facebook Page. If you use Delivery.com or Slice to facilitate service, you can create a Start Order button users can act on after being enticed by your delicious-looking photos.

How to request an appointment

For local businesses that require appointments booked in advance—such as spas and salons—customers can now request a time via the business’ Facebook Page and view their entire slate of services and offerings. You can get back to them on Messenger to confirm the appointment.

How to get a quote

Some local business Pages, such as insurance companies, will now have a Get Quote button at the top of their Page that lets users easily and quickly request a quote from the business.

Facebook photo and video hacks

Sometimes a two-dimensional photo just doesn’t cut the mustard. A 360-degree photo or video can really give your marketing strategy an extra special something.

Perhaps you’re a realtor trying to sell a home. You can give your potential buyers a 360 video tour of the kitchen to generate leads. Maybe you sell snowboards. What could be cooler than a 360 photo from a mountain top?

8. Easily share 360 degree photos

Last year Facebook updated their tools so you can now easily share 360 photos. Simply take a panorama with your phone or capture a 360-degree photo using a 360 photo app or 360 camera, and then post it on Facebook as you would a normal photo. Facebook then converts it to an engaging 360 photo that people can explore, similar to how people experience 360 videos on Facebook.

9. Capture sound from all angles with spatial audio

What the heck is spatial audio you say? Spatial audio is basically 3D sound for 360 videos. It’s an immersive audio experience meant to replicate how humans hear sound in real life, but delivered over headphones. Pretty neat, right?

As audiences move around in a 360 video, the sound moves around with them, creating the effect of feeling like they are really there. If audio is of the essence for your product, you can learn how to the create spatial audio.

Facebook Live hacks

Facebook Live is Facebook’s live-streaming video functionality. Users can broadcast Live videos using their smartphones. It’s available to all Pages and profiles on Facebook for iOS, Android, and the Facebook Mentions app.

Additionally, Live broadcasts can be streamed in Facebook groups and events. Check out our Facebook Live Video: The Complete Guide to Live-Streaming for Business to learn more.

Here are a few Facebook Live hacks you may not have heard before.

10. Add special effects to your Facebook Live broadcasts

You can make your Facebook Live video look professional and multi-layered using the latest technology. If you have a savvy developer or publisher on your team, you can use this Facebook hack to take full advantage of Facebook’s API (application program interface).

The Facebook Live API enables you to build video streams that mix multiple video and audio sources and introduce special effects. Publishers can get started with the Live API by contacting one of Facebook’s Media Solutions partners.

11. Enable real-time Reactions on Facebook Live

According to initial Facebook data, people comment 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos. Your business can use that feedback to tailor your content specifically to your audience.

With this Facebook hack, viewers can see their reactions animate right on top of the video. They can select icons representing Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry, and the Live Reactions appear in real time and disappear quickly so broadcasters and other viewers can get a sense of how people are feeling at different points during the live video.

Facebook compares the feature to hearing a crowd applaud and cheer. If you can’t imagine how your business might utilize this tool, check out our 7 Tips for Marketing a Boring Business to get the juices flowing.

Facebook Messenger Hacks

Facebook Messenger may seem like a tool that is only for personal use, but businesses are finding that it’s a great way to build relationships with their customers as well. Facebook Pages alone receive nearly 5 billion comments, messages, and visitor posts combined every month.

12. Sell to customers directly using Payments

One of the the most recent and helpful Facebook hacks the platform has added is payments through Messenger. Your business can now sell products and services directly to customers in the chat app. Customers can pick out what they want and check out within the Facebook Messenger app.

Your team’s clever developers can get more details on the Messenger Blog.

Facebook advertising hacks

Wherever your customers are—at home, out with friends, at work, at the gym, on a roller coaster—you can make them an offer they can’t refuse with these Facebook advertising hacks for business.

13. Entice readers with Facebook offer claim ads

Offering a discount or promotion is a wonderful way to get your audience’s attention and encourage them to take action. Your brand can use Facebook offer claim ads, to create and share awesome discounts and promotions for your business.

People who claim in-store offers receive a barcode or QR code that can be pulled up on their mobile device at checkout. People who claim an online offer receive a discount code and are sent to your website to shop. They can use the offer code at checkout to redeem the value.

14. Use Offer Tracking to measure results

Facebook provides several measurement tools for tracking the effectiveness of your offers and promotions. You can track how many people visit a store location after seeing a Facebook campaign, to confirm that the marketing effort you’re putting in is working as it should.

Your team can optimize ad creative, delivery and targeting based on store visits and see results across individual stores or regions to get the most out of your Facebook campaigns.