Facebook is the king of social media with over 2 billion people connected through the service. Facebook started as a place where individuals could connect with people and has morphed into a place where businesses can engage with customers and bring through new clients. Today we’ll be looking at how to market on Facebook to help you get the most out of Facebook business marketing.
What is Facebook Marketing?
The simple answer to the question of “what is Facebook marketing?” is that it’s any kind of marketing done through Facebook. The great thing about marketing with Facebook is that there are plenty of options. You can do good old fashioned paid promotions, create groups within pages, hold livestreams, run sales, and do so much more. There are even plenty of free Facebook marketing options.
1. Create a Great Facebook Business Page
The first step of knowing how to do Facebook marketing is to have a Facebook Business Page. Creating a page for your business gives you a great marketing tool and it’s completely free. Pages are like profiles for businesses where you can share links, talk about your products and services, and otherwise connect with users. Customize the page and make it a true extension of your business.
The Facebook business page gives you a great chance to develop a brand identity and showcase the human element of your business. Facebook lets you be a bit more casual than a website. Feel free to joke around with customers and crack wise a little more than you would in the office.
The point is to think about what your audience wants and give it to them. Share links, images, videos, and anything else connected to your business that the audience would enjoy. Offer up a mixture of humor, information, and store/business updates.
2. Buying Ads
Facebook Ads will always be a key part of Facebook business marketing. Facebook ads are more commonly called Marketplace Ads and can be found to the side of the main website. These ads include a headline, copy, imagery, and a link.
Including Facebook Ads as part of your overall Facebook marketing strategy can help to steer traffic to your company’s website. Facebook goes very in-depth with their advertising, letting you target specific demographics, set an ideal budget, and test/improve ads based on their performance.
Getting more “Likes” on your content through Facebook ads pays dividends down the line. Once someone likes your page, they become a follower and your posts will appear in their news feed. In turn, more people come to your page and interact with your brand, creating mutually beneficial relationships and converting people into customers.
3. Facebook Contests
Facebook contests and promotions are a free to low cost (depending on the prize) way to get people involved with your brand and build awareness. Offer something to customers to encourage their participation and generate some buzz around your company and Facebook page.
Please keep in mind that you can’t host a giveaway directly through Facebook. Due to Facebook’s rules, you can’t ask people to like a post/page or leave a comment to enter the giveaway. You have to use another app to create the contest and then link to it through Facebook.
There are lots of great tools to host Facebook contests, including Shortstack and Pagemodo. Choose a prize, pick a platform, and get the masses involved with an interesting take on marketing with Facebook.
4. Promoted Posts
Facebook promoted posts are similar to Facebook Ads, but with a bit of a twist. With a promoted post, you can pay Facebook to have an individual post show up for a number of users. Paying to have a post be promoted is a great way to boost the reach and impressions of an individual post and is worth considering for important things.
Some businesses wonder why they should pay to have a post promoted and put in front of other users anyway. They believe if someone has already liked their page then they should see the post on their feed. This would only be true in the event that someone is plugged into Facebook and refreshing their feed every second. There’s a good chance that your post will be overtaken by other posts from friends, family, and other businesses.
Facebook Promoted Posts mean that no one misses out on the post because they weren’t around when it was made. Promoted posts also give you the chance to put your posts in front of friends of followers to increase its reach.
5. Take Advantage of Friends of Followers
Promoted posts aren’t the only way to reach friends of followers. People are likely going to buy something or use a service if someone else they know has. Social media like Facebook has effectively become the new word-of-mouth. It’s how people share what they do with others. Existing customers and fans are the biggest advocates you could have, and Facebook marketing is the way to reach — and leverage — them.
People can see how their friends on Facebook have interacted with your page. They’ll see your page and could be interested in following it themselves. Polls and questions are another way to be noticed by friends of fans. Create polls asking questions that people want to answer and they’ll share them with their friends so everyone can get involved.
Another clever way to leverage friends of followers is to encourage users to “Check In” when they visit your business. You can offer users a small discount for checking in to encourage them to do it. When they check in to your business it appears in their news feeds. Their friends will see that they visited you and will want to check your business out. There are lots of great ways to take advantage of the sharing nature of Facebook with Facebook business marketing.
6. Have a Regular Presence
An important part of knowing how to do Facebook marketing is knowing how to maintain a regular presence on the platform. It’s not enough to just have a Facebook Page, you need to be posting and updating it regularly. At the very least you should aim to post multiple days within a week to establish a connection to your fans. Tap into trending topics if you need post ideas.
The important thing is to post high quality content. Share some photos and videos of what happens behind the scenes. Highlight members of staff and have them show off products and services. Be transparent and show off some great quality content to customers. Don’t be afraid to run a few polls to find out what kind of information users would like to see from you. Facebook Insights can also take some of the guesswork out of things by showing how certain kinds of posts perform.
Don’t forget to take advantage of Facebook Messenger too. Messenger allows you to connect with people and take advantage of marketing with Facebook Messenger. Talk to customers about their complaints and queries and offer direct customer support through Facebook to boost your presence and generate some goodwill.
Conclusion
Marketing with Facebook doesn’t have to be difficult. There’s a ton of options available to business owners, including a range of free and low-cost options. Try out some different ideas and see which marketing strategy works best for your business. Connect with fans through a Facebook business page, run ads, create sponsored posts, and do some creative marketing with Facebook Messenger. The possibilities are practically endless.
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