Not only is testing websites and apps important, but web usability testing can also contribute to your achievements greatly, especially if you strive to reach prospective customers on the web.
Since around 30% of their online time users spend on social sites, you are more likely to engage them in your business there. Therefore, it has become critical for a proficient company not only to have a Facebook page but also to ensure that it is user-friendly.
Let’s see what exactly you should test on a Facebook page and how to do that.
- Content It is known that users deny too obvious commercial posts and they are more likely to like the content if it is presented in a friendship-driven manner. To strike the optimum balance is critical to retain your popularity with users. The easiest way to do this is usually by showing your prospective posts to certain people and asking their opinion about them. To give you some guidelines, let’s consider the results of recent researches. What drives user appeal to companies’ pages on Facebook is a chance for discount in 40% cases and a wish to give the brand their support similarly in 40% cases. Neither less importance is that number one reason for “unliking” the page is too frequent posting.
- Advertisements You may wonder about the effectiveness of your add on Facebook. This is usually done by applying statistics and analytic tools, but they don’t provide you any solutions to the problems they state. Instead it is again more efficient to ask a tester to run some simple tests on your add. For that, make a screenshot of a Facebook page and paste your add into the sidebar of it or wherever you want. Make several variations and send them to a tester. After the tester looks at each for a couple of seconds, ask him about his personal impression of your add or find out which of the adds appealed to him the most and what factors contributed to this in his opinion.
- Discoverability To hold user attention you have only several seconds on average. And how much do you have if it is hard to find your company on the site? Probably you’ll have none. That’s why you’ve got to be always easily found. To achieve high discoverability take care about social links of your company on you website, blog and newsletters. Test different entry points that users may try to enter on Facebook. Use existing Facebook SEO tips to increase your chances to be found.
- Brand Impression Facebook sets a challenge for companies with well-designed brands to restrict the interface of their Facebook page to only available Facebook templates. Here you cannot express your individuality as brightly as on your site. To be recognized and distinguished among other thousand pages, ask testers to test the impression of your Facebook-based brand giving answers to the following questions. What tone or design differences can they notice on your Facebook page against your website? Does it match the company’s site? What impression of the company does it convey etc.?
- Applications Many brands increased their Facebook presence by means of developing apps on that platform. To test these there’s a helpful Managing Your Development Cycle page which provides a set of testing instructions and good tools for testing apps. Using them you can test your app avoiding intrusion into your Facebook activity as well as involve users into the process of usability testing and use specially provided face accounts for secure testing.
- Mobile Responsiveness Let 819 million mobile Internet users visit your Facebook page across different handheld devices every month and boost your subscriber numbers significantly by making your page compatible with mobiles. Since the demands of mobile users may differ from the needs of PC users, make sure you’ve fixed all possible UX problems that is possible to do with Facebook tests as well.
I ought to mention that testing of your Facebook page should be executed on a regular basis. Updates to your site are introduced under your close watch, though you may easily miss some significant modifications on Facebook site that will lead to your customer loss.
Again, there are so many trends to attract your users springing monthly, that you need to always keep your finger on pulse and be ready to satisfy their demands and upgrade your page accordingly as well as your site. Be on the crest of a Facebook wave using the above-mentioned usability techniques and let your business thrive!
