Facebook Best Practices

Facebook Best Practices

Facebook is utilized by UC Davis to reach a broad audience, specifically parents and alumni, by sharing photos, videos and news stories related to university events, alumni relations and student life.

Sign up for Meta Business Manager.

Meta Business Manager allows you to create and manage multiple assets such as a Facebook page, Instagram account, audience list or product catalog, all in one place. You can control user access and permissions for everyone who works on your accounts, pages and apps, and maintain ownership of all your assets. Without MetaBusiness Manager, it’s difficult to separate a personal Facebook profile from the business assets that they control. To sign up, follow these steps:

  1. Go to business.facebook.com/create and select “Create Account.”
  2. Enter your name and confirm your identity with Facebook login credentials.
  3. Follow the prompts to create your business account.

Do not create a dummy account. 

Don’t permit your staff to create fake or dummy Facebook accounts to manage your organization’s page, even if they want to keep their personal profiles separate from your page and business manager. Fake personal profiles with a shared login for all staff are strictly against Meta's terms of service and you run the risk of having the account flagged, closed and access to your business page removed. 

Be consistent.

Post with regular frequency throughout the week, aiming for at least once every 2-3 days. One of the most common questions we get asked is if there is an optimal time of day and week to post. The answer depends on your audience’s behaviors. Use the Meta Business Suite to find what days of the week and times of the day get the most impressions and engagements for your specific account. 

Know the specs.

Ideal posts keep the copy between 180 to 280 characters. Use images that are at least 1080 pixels wide for image sizes and also for shared link images. Ideal video length is between 60-90 seconds.

Utilize platform formatting.

Posts with images or videos tend to outperform posts without. Utilize Facebook as a platform that allows for organic link clicks. In-feed links help to direct your audience to other resources and can boost your website traffic if the links are organization-based.

Take advantage of unique features.

There are some things you can do with Facebook that you just can’t do anywhere else.

  • Events - Use Facebook Events to generate traction around activities that you anticipate at least 50 people to attend. 
  • Messenger - Utilize Facebook Messenger to automate instant replies, welcome greetings or responses outside of business hours. 
  • Groups - Use Facebook Groups to unite audience members by a common interest or need and connect them directly to the information that is pertinent to them. 
  • Live - Leverage Facebook Live to cover live events, Q&As with experts and anything else that you think your audience would respond well to in real-time.

Leverage the Stories format.

Though not a feature unique to Facebook, Stories are still an important way to connect with your audience. If your Instagram and Facebook accounts are linked, you can post your Stories directly to Facebook from Instagram. Keep in mind, some of the Instagram story features may not work on Facebook. 

Facebook Accessibility Best Practices

When posting on Facebook, key accessibility areas to consider are: graphics, image and video descriptions, alternative text, video captioning and post copy. 

Image Accessibility  

Graphics: General guidelines

Image description: General guidelines

  • Place at the bottom of the post copy, separated by a line break.
  • If posting several images, include descriptions of all images in order.

Alt text: General guidelines 

  • Add alt text when posting natively or from your management platform, or edit the alt text after you post.
  • How to add alt text to Facebook posts: Facebook Help

See Instagram Story guidelines for Facebook Story best practices.

Video Accessibility

Captioning: General guidelines

  • Facebook allows for all types of video captioning.
  • If possible, opt for closed captions uploaded with an .SRT file. However, burned in (open) captions are a good practice as well. 
  • How to add .SRT captions to Facebook videos: Meta captioning help

Video description: General guidelines

  • Place at the bottom of the post copy, separated by a line break.

Post copy: General guidelines 

Resources: Facebook Help