04 May How to Kick Ass With Facebook Marketing
How is Facebook marketing working for your small business? If your answer is anything less than, “Great!” then this blog post is for you.
As the first post in our Social Media Marketing for Small Business Series, I figured we’d tackle the world’s largest social media network. Let’s dive in!
How to kick ass with Facebook Marketing
Here’s a list of ten things you can start doing immediately.
1. Make sure it’s right for your business
Take two factors into consideration when deciding if Facebook is right for your business.
One: Always make sure your target market actively uses a social media network before you commit to it. Not everyone uses Facebook. Millennials don’t, but Gen X and Baby Boomers do.
Two: Think about whether or not people search for the information you have to share on Facebook. For example, one of our clients places marketing professionals in temporary and permanent positions. People don’t look for marketing jobs on Facebook – they look on LinkedIn.
2. Experiment ’til you find what works
You never know what’s going to engage your audience ’til you try it. For another client, we found that posting quotes drives crazy high levels of engagement – both organic and paid. The number of shares these types of posts get is mind-blowing, so we’re incredibly happy we gave it a try.
3. Share videos and images over anything else
Do you read your friend’s random text-only post? Maybe. But if it includes a video or image, I’m betting you nearly always do.
People love videos and images – give ‘em what they want! When I started doing Facebook Live a couple of months ago, our reach and engagement took off.
The quotes that I mentioned above? We turn them into images using Canva or the tools baked into Facebook.
4. ADVERTISE
Not shouting, just emphasizing!
Facebook is pay-to-play, period. If you want to reach your audience, put some money into Facebook. It doesn’t have to be a lot – the minimum to boost a post is $5.
Also, use the resources Facebook provides to ensure you succeed. You can find everything you need to know about Facebook ads here. Advertising is key to your success with Facebook marketing.
5. Hone your ad audiences
Setting up ad audiences is really fun, but it can be confusing because you have so many options. Gender, age, and location are important, but you really want to focus on interests and job titles. Those filters will help you target the people who are most likely to buy from you.
You can also target friends and friends of friends – so give that option a try a few times.
6. Monitor comments
If you go through all these great lengths to reach your target market, make sure you’re paying attention to results. When someone leaves a comment, it would look incredibly rude to ignore it and never reply. Talk about a great way to damage your reputation!
You also need to monitor for inappropriate comments. My Facebook Live video last week garnered a lot of ‘em – thankfully, we saw them and quickly hit “delete.”
7. Make it fun
Do you want to go to a party filled with sad, angry, and cranky people? Duh, of course not! So think of your Facebook page as a small party – make it fun so people want to be there (and want to “like” your page).
8. Be useful
Useful can be defined in many ways. What’s important to your audience? What do they care about? What will make their lives happier, better, safer, more fun, more lucrative?
9. Watch your metrics
Go ahead and put a recurring reminder on your calendar to check your Facebook metrics every week or month. Stay on top of things so you can tweak your strategy.
Think about: What posts do people like? What don’t they like? Are they clicking through to your website? Is overall engagement going up?
10. Stay on top of algorithm changes
When you see a significant drop in reach or engagement compared with previous weeks and months, that’s a signal that Facebook made an algorithm change. Unfortunately, they don’t announce them ahead of time. They just happen.
Head on over to Google and do a search for “Facebook algorithm change [month and year].” Read through whatever you find to understand how it’s affecting your Facebook marketing, and make the necessary changes so you can resume your upward progress.
Do you love the Facebook marketing ideas but are beyond frustrated with the results you’ve been getting?
We’re here for you! Contact us today to learn how we can help you use Facebook to reach your business goals.
No Comments