In today’s digital world, it’s essential for businesses to have a visible online presence. In other words, you need to market your business so that people know about it and can find you easily. And one of the most effective ways of doing this is by using social media sites like Facebook as a marketing tool.
As of this writing, Facebook has over 2 billion users worldwide, which makes it one of the most popular social networking sites in existence today. It’s also an extremely useful platform for businesses looking to market their products and services. But how exactly does Facebook help your business?
And what sort of marketing strategies should you adopt if you want to see positive results from your efforts? Keep reading to find out more…
The world of marketing is changing. It’s no longer about big advertising campaigns but about smaller and more frequent interactions with your customers. These changes have opened new opportunities for brands, especially those willing to experiment with new trends and techniques.
Social media has become one of the most important tools for businesses to achieve visibility, drive brand awareness, and increase sales. These days almost everyone is on Facebook, so it makes sense that marketers are turning their attention there.
After all, businesses can create branded pages, post updates, send friend requests to target audiences, and much more — all for free! But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy marketing strategy; in fact, it can be quite challenging unless you understand how to use it effectively as a marketing channel. In this article we explore 16 important things you need to know about Facebook marketing.
1. Facebook is a Branding Tool
Facebook is a branding tool first and marketing tool second. That means that if you’re trying to use Facebook for marketing but ignoring the branding aspect, you’ll likely see limited results. It’s important that you create a page that’s consistent with your company’s branding. For example, if you sell children’s toys, don’t create a page for teens — even if you think teens would like it.
Teens want to see things that are relevant to them and are less likely to pay attention to content for a group of people they aren’t a part of. It’s also important to note that you don’t have to be a big brand to have a branded Facebook page. If you have a small business, you can create a page for it and promote it just as well as a large company.
If you do decide to create a page, make sure your page name (not your company name) is identical to your page URL. This way, when people search for you, they’ll find your page right away.
2. Facebook is a Customer Service Tool
Did you know that almost 70% of people expect companies to respond to their inquiries via social media? This means that, given the fact that most people are on Facebook, there’s a good chance your customers will browse through their newsfeeds and see your posts.
A lot of businesses mistakenly think that Facebook marketing is about selling — it’s not. Instead, it’s about providing value to your customers and helping them solve their problems.
If someone leaves a comment on your post or sends you a message asking for clarification or assistance with your product, you should respond as soon as possible. If you don’t have the resources to respond to customer inquiries, you should at least create an automated system to let people know that you’ve seen their message and will respond to them as soon as possible.
3. Facebook is a Marketing Tool
The fact that Facebook is such a large network makes it a great marketing tool. While it’s true that you can use it to provide customer service and interact with your fans, you should use it primarily for marketing activities.
There are tons of ways you can market your business on Facebook, but the key is ensuring that you’re posting high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. Don’t forget to create a strategy, too; you can’t just post whatever you want at any time! One way to market your business is by creating lead gen forms and posts.
Create a post that informs your followers of a product or service promotion, then include a call-to-action that prompts people to sign up for something.
4. Facebook is a Lead Generation Tool
We mentioned lead generation above, but it’s worth mentioning again. Facebook is a great tool for lead generation, as it collects lots of data about its users and allows you to nurture leads with tools like lead ads.
If you have a product or service that lends itself to online sales, such as online courses, software, or SaaS, Facebook is a great option for generating leads. If you don’t want to pay for leads, but you want to gather leads that you can follow up with later, you can use something called an “offer wall.”
Lead walls are similar to ad walls and allow you to offer your followers something in exchange for their email address. Be careful, though — Facebook will shut down your wall if you don’t have enough people signing up for your offer within a certain period of time.
5. Facebook is a Analytics Tool
Facebook provides a ton of data about your followers, allowing you to gain valuable insight into who your customers are and what they want. This data can help you to create better content, which can in turn lead to more sales.
You can use Facebook Insights to examine your followers’ demographics, interests, and the type of content they like to see. You can also use it to examine your fan growth and track your progress. If you want to understand your followers better and make your Facebook marketing strategy more effective, you need to make sure you’re using Facebook Insights.
6. Know your customer
Before you dive in, take some time to get to know your customer. What are their pain points? What are their interests? What type of content do they typically engage with? This way you can create Facebook posts that are highly relevant to your target audience and will likely get their attention.
Remember, you want your customers to feel like you understand them so that you can build trust with them. Once you’ve established a trusting relationship with your followers, they’ll be more likely to engage with your posts and purchase from you.
7. Build a community
It’s great to provide valuable content that educates your followers and solves their problems, but you also need to build a community around your brand. Share relevant, fun content that makes followers feel like they’re part of something bigger. Share interesting facts and information, as well as behind-the-scenes photos and videos.
Try to avoid posting any promotional content unless it’s super interesting. If you do decide to post something promotional, be sure to mix it in with other non-promotional content to avoid sounding like a salesperson.
8. Use visual content
Visual content is the most engaging type of content you can share on Facebook. If you want your posts to get the most attention, you should focus on creating visual content. This means that you should use images in your posts whenever possible, and you should also repurpose visual content from other sources.
Use images in your blog posts, too. Writing a blog post and then adding an image to it will likely increase its visibility. You can also use image editing software to create visual content from scratch.
9. Be Careful with Your Targeting
Before you start targeting people on Facebook, make sure you know who you’re targeting. This means that you shouldn’t just choose a bunch of random people to like your page and friend request — you should choose people who would be interested in your brand.
You have the option of targeting people by location, age, interests, and educational background. Make sure you’re targeting people who are likely to engage with your content. It won’t do you any good to spend time targeting people who are unlikely to like your posts.
10. Facebook is Good for Customer Acquisition
It’s important to understand that while Facebook is a great place to engage with your current customers, it’s also a great place to find new customers. By creating highly targeted ads that promote your products or services, you can drive traffic to your website and encourage new customers to purchase from you.
If you want to drive more customers to your website and increase sales, you should start creating Facebook ads. Facebook ads can be challenging to create if you don’t have experience with them, so you may want to hire a marketing agency or contractor to manage them for you.
11. Audience Research is Key
Every marketing campaign starts with strategy. You need to know who you’re talking to, where you can find them, and what you should be saying. On other social media platforms, there are various tools for this, but Facebook is a bit different. With Facebook, it all starts with your customer segments.
Then, you need to find where they are hanging out online (which we’ll talk more about below), and then you can start engaging with them. You can’t just start posting to your page. You need to do some research first.
You need to look at your competitors and see who their audience is. You need to find out where your potential customers are already spending time on Facebook. Then, you can start to create content that resonates with these people.
12. Test and Learn
You probably know that you should be testing different types of posts on Facebook. You might also know that you can A/B test these posts to see what works best. But what might not be as clear is that these tests should be applied across your entire marketing strategy. Almost everything that you do, from the type of content you create to the type of audience you focus on, should be the subject of a test.
You need to be open to the idea that what you’re doing might not work, and that you might need to pivot. The goal is to find out what works best, so you can focus on that, and then scale up. When you’re starting out, you don’t know what will work best. You can’t know what your ideal customer looks like. You don’t know the best type of content to create. So, you need to test and learn.
13. Leverage Influencers
Influencers are people who have a large following on social media. They are typically celebrities and other high-profile individuals who have a significant online presence. Many of these people have millions of followers, so partnering with them can be very beneficial for your brand.
You can approach these influencers with a proposal to create sponsored posts. This is a type of promotional content that is paid for by a third party. It’s become a very common practice amongst marketers. It’s estimated that almost 80% of influencers use sponsored posts.
Sponsored posts allow you to tap into the engagement and authority of influencers without the high cost of traditional advertising. In fact, the average cost per thousand impressions is around $3.70 for a Facebook post.
Whereas, the average cost per thousand impressions of a sponsored post is around $1.80. You can also use Facebook as a way to find influencers to collaborate with. You can use the Graph Search tool to look for pages that have many fans. Then, you can reach out to them to see if they’re interested in working with you.
14. Facebook Is Bigger Than You Think
When you’re setting up your Facebook page, you might think that the goal should be to get as many likes as possible. But in fact, that’s not the case. The number of likes on your page doesn’t actually tell you anything.
It doesn’t mean that you have a high-quality audience, and it doesn’t mean that they’re engaging with your posts. Most large pages on Facebook have millions of fans, but the engagement rate for these pages is extremely low. Whereas, smaller pages have fewer fans but high engagement rates.
The number of likes on a page is meaningless. What you should be focused on instead is the number of people who like, comment on, or share your posts. These numbers are a much better indicator of the quality of your audience.
15. Facebook Is About Quality, Not Quantity
Getting a lot of fans is great, but it’s not enough. You need to focus on getting the right fans. This is something that many marketers forget. They’re so focused on the numbers that they don’t even care who’s engaging with their posts. You want to be attracting the right people to your page.
You want to be attracting people who are interested in what you have to offer. This is the only way to build a genuine relationship with your audience and get them to purchase your products. So, how do you go about attracting the right people to your page? Well, the first thing to do is to create great content.
You need to create posts that are interesting and engaging to your ideal audience. You can use Facebook’s insights to see what people are liking and sharing. That way, you can create posts that are relevant to your target audience.
16. It’s About Finding the Right Audience, Not a Big One
Having a large following is great, but if you’re not engaging with them, it’s not worth much. You need to be posting relevant, interesting content on a regular basis. If you’re not doing this, you’re not going to get anywhere. You need to find a way to engage with your followers on a regular basis.
You can do this by creating daily or weekly posts. You can also do this by replying to comments and posts, and by sending friend requests to your page fans. You can also use paid services like Boost posts or Boost Posts to get your posts in front of more people. You also need to be engaging with your audience outside of Facebook.
This means that you need to be active on other social media platforms. You also need to be engaging on niche forums and other online communities where your target audience hangs out.
Facebook Marketing for Beginners
There are many similarities between Facebook and other social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. So, if you’re new to marketing on Facebook, you might find that you’re able to use what you’ve learned on other platforms. As we mentioned above, you need to be posting engaging content on a regular basis. You need to be creating posts that grab people’s attention.
You also need to be posting when your audience is online. This varies depending on your niche, but you can use Facebook’s insights to find out when people are most likely to be on the platform. You also need to be using the insights section on Facebook to learn more about your audience. This includes their interests, demographics, and more.
Benefits of using facebook for business
- Improve Brand Visibility – With the algorithm change, Facebook is now showing more brand pages in people’s feeds. This means more visibility for your business.
- Drive Traffic – Facebook is the most visited site on the internet. With an engaged audience and a strong presence on Facebook, you’re able to direct a lot of traffic back to your site.
- Increase Customer Engagement – People are more likely to respond and engage with your brand if they see you on Facebook. This makes the customer experience better, which leads to higher conversions.
- Get Customer Feedback – Facebook offers many ways to collect customer feedback. This can help you improve your business strategy and provide better products and services.
Facebook Marketing Tips
These tips will help you get the most out of your Facebook marketing strategy. – Define Your Target Audience: The first step of any good marketing strategy is to identify your ideal customer.
- Create a Strong and Engaging Page: You can’t just have a page; you need to engage with your audience and provide value.
- Post Regularly: You need to be posting on a regular basis to remain relevant in your audience’s mind.
- Post on Different Days and Times: Just because you found success with a post on one day doesn’t mean that it will work on another
Conclusion
Now that you know what Facebook is and what it can do for your business, you should be more prepared to create a strategy and execute it successfully. Remember, Facebook isn’t right for every business, but it’s a great fit for many. If you want to improve your brand awareness, conversions, and sales, Facebook is a powerful tool that you can’t afford to ignore.