How small businesses can benefit from Facebook marketing with Facebook for Business !
1.37 Billion daily active users
2.006 Billion monthly users
$10 Billion in Quarterly revenue
$4.8 Billion in quarterly profit (as of Nov17, Source TechCrunch)
Do these numbers catch your attention?
They sure did ours!
With over a billion users, Facebook is a juggernaut with enormous reach. Whether you’re a small business owner or a multinational, you just cannot afford to miss being absent on this platform. It would almost be like how Nokia missed the smartphone bandwagon. And that’s no exaggeration.
You need to find more than just friends on Facebook. It’s only imperative.
Facebook has used its popularity to its advantage- it has come out with robust features that make it quite adaptable for different businesses. It’s time you used Facebook for business advantage. The answer is Facebook marketing.
Let me get this clear: No, Facebook marketing isn’t “so yester-year” or “dead”, I kind of agree with Neil Patel who talks about how it’s the marketers who misfire or goof up campaigns and blame the platform. It’s human and natural.
Its of paramount importance to know who to target, when and how with what proposition!!
And the best part is that its super easy to setup and experiment with to see if it works for you or not.
There are essentially 2 ways to use Facebook for marketing- advertisements and pages. If it wasn’t obvious, they require entirely different strategies.
· Facebook pages are like profiles allowing users to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ your page.
· Advertisements on the other hand would redirect to your site urging them purchase your product or service.
Facebook Pages:
The aim of Facebook pages is branding — Brand interaction, Brand recall and Making the brand more accessible.
Let’s begin with Facebook marketing hacks for pages.
1. Getting the basic layout right
-Profile picture should always be your logo. They identify your page based on your profile picture. It’s imperative that you keep it consistent.
-Cover photo takes a lot more space on your page. Have something catchy, artsy and attractive that communicates what your company does.
-Give all the necessary contact information in the ‘About’ section
-Allow a team to manage your social media. You could also divide page roles such as — admin, editor, advertiser on Facebook
-It’s also a good idea to get your page verified (you can apply for this in your general settings tab). It will surely make you look a lot more credible.
2. Be responsive, very -
At the core of Facebook marketing is customer (potential) engagement. The more engaged you are, the more Facebook puts your page on users’ news feed. This has seen to be the single most important thing for digital marketing success. Engage in the comments section, have engaging posts that push people to comment and most definitely, reply to all messages.
3. Making posts engaging-
Do not spam your audience.
Choose a posting frequency that works best for likes and comments.Ideally 1–2 times a day is good.
You could use the option to schedule posts for better consistency.Use technology like Hootsuite or Buffer for the scheduling.
Questions, contests, photos and videos are seen to be the most engaging by far.
Use features like highlighted and pinned posts to keep an important post on the top as you continue with other posts in regular intervals.
4. Share testimonials-
Sharing how your customers feel works wonders through a personal medium like this. They are likelier to resonate with its authenticity.
5. Facebook insights-
This is your holy grail to understand what’s working and what’s not. This tab will track your reach, engagement, likes, clicks and shares.
6. Call to Action (CTA)-
One of the biggest reservations to the efficacy of social media marketing is translating popularity to actual sales. The CTA tab on your page allows you to urge people to actually do something. This could be to purchase something, make a donation etc.
Facebook advertising:
Facebook is the next best alternative to Google AdWords — and cheaper!
Anddddddd, there are five types to choose from:
· Inside the news feed on desktop
· Inside the news feed on mobile
· Right-hand sidebar on desktop
· Audience network on mobile
· On Instagram
I will cover each of these types in detail in subsequent blogs but here’s what I’d like to leave you with for now:
While you slowly build your audience through pages, there’s also a quicker, more targeted way to advertise. Most businesses that use ads though, already have a Facebook page.
1. Choose your objectives carefully
Plan your CTAs. What do you want to gain out of this ad? More people to install your app, engage with your brand, watch your video, generate leads? Are you planning to expand your reach or bring in awareness? Pick your objectives on Facebook before designing your ad.
CTAs could be like:
· Page Likes
· Learn More
· Sign Up
· Contact Us
· Apply Now
· Shop now
2. Using the right visual
The ad should be almost entirely visual. No one is going to be interrupted from what they were already doing by unnecessary text. The visual should convey a feeling. Have contrasting colors, keep the images as minimalistic (otherwise catchy) as possible.
3. Picking the best optimization
Most people tend to choose the optimization option on Facebook in line with the goals of the ad. It’s quite the paradox, but this is not too successful. Optimize the ad to get more clicks to your site at the first try. Shift to your objectives after this is achieved.
I’m sure by now you must’ve had at least one thought on how “This looks easy” or “this doesn't look too tough”. Indeed.
Facebook ads are easy to implement and the intuitive design helps first-timers to figure it out super quick. Try with smaller budgets in the beginning — $ 10 would also do ! after some hit and trials in the first few days you're sure to figure it out for yourself on what works and what doesn't for your awesome business.
