Have you ever seen a recipe, a funny photo, an article you want to read but just don’t have the time on Facebook and wished you could save it for later? Well, you actually can. Turns out not many people know about this function, but users have the ability to go in and create Facebook collections of items. Facebook will be rolling out new capabilities soon that will allow users to make those collections public. Not sure how that might benefit your business? Read on.

What Are Facebook Collections?

Facebook Collections are just that – a collection of items that users have saved to a list. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run across a recipe or an article that I wanted to save for later but couldn’t. You don’t always have the time to read the articles or make the recipes the moment they cross your timeline. Enter Facebook Collections.

The feature allows users to do content curation in real-time, to save items they want to view later. And soon, they’ll let you share those lists with yourself, contributors to your lists/collections, friends or even to make them publicly available so anyone can see them.

How to Save Content to a Collection

Let’s say you come across a really interesting article written by one of your favorite bloggers (is it me?!) and you want to save the article to read it later. How would you go about doing this? Well, it’s simple. See those three dots in the top right corner of the post? If you click on that you’ll see an option to “save link” or “save video, photo, etc.” depending on the type of content.

Once you’ve clicked on the save link, you’ll see the option at the top of the post to either view your saved items or to add the post to a collection. If you click “add to a collection” you’ll have the ability to save it to a collection you’ve already created or to create a new collection.

Alternatively, if you wanted to create the collection and then save items to it later you can go to www.facebook.com/saved to create new collections as well as view, edit and delete current collections. Another option to access your collections is to click on “Saved” on the left side menu on your Facebook newsfeed.

How Facebook Collections Can Benefit Businesses

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Facebook offers businesses the ability to advertise in their collections. However, until they’ve formally released the ability to make the collections public, there’s not much we can do but wait and start getting our content set up.

So, how can your company benefit from this feature? Exposure. There are a couple of directions that you could take to really maximize your social media marketing on Facebook. First, consider working with a social media influencer to include your product, services, blog posts, etc. in their collections that they push out to their large followings. Second, work with community leaders on being included in any resources for local services, events, etc. to ensure your information is included in any collections they release. Finally, create your own content and once the ability to push the collection public is released, share, share, share.

If you’re a real estate agent, this feature could be extremely beneficial to your social media marketing efforts. Create a list with some articles on your website offering tips on home buying, facts, statistics, photos of property listings, videos, etc. The trick to this, like most of your content, is to not be full salesy. Include information that will make people want to take notice of your collection. Provide information they’ll find useful outside of just selling to them.

And this could really work for most industries. Financial advisors could put together a collection of items to help provide resources to those looking to prepare for retirement or even one for investment strategies, historical information, current events, etc. Again, provide information, photos, videos, etc. in your collections that will make users want to view and engage with your collections.

Experimental Phase

As of right now, Facebook is only testing the new sharing options (ability to share with the public) with a selected group of users in the United States. However, I think it’s safe to say this is something worth keeping an eye on as it holds a lot of potential for reaching new audiences. Start getting your collections ready and when the ability is released to the rest of Facebook’s users, you can be ready to dominate the competition.

Social Media Marketing for Businesses

When it comes to running a successful business, not everyone will have the time to be able to conduct effective social media marketing. If you find yourself in that position, reach out to our team of experts today. Pendragon Consulting can help you create an effective social media strategy and content calendar to realize maximize your company’s social presence. Get in touch today by sending us a secure message via our website or by calling 443-343-2313.