Does Your Business Have A Facebook Page?  

Contrary to popular belief, Facebook is not dead. Nor is it a purely sociable platform for old school friends and long distance members. Facebook is a crucial touchpoint in any social media marketing strategy, responsible for creating an engaging advertising outlet where businesses can reach out to their core audience, share updates and new product launches, and drive customers towards the sales funnel of their webpage.

So, does your business already have a Facebook page? Whether the answer is yes or no, this article is going to share some of the benefits of Facebook – and share some of the platform’s best kept secrets that you may not know.

Yes, big businesses can generate big results with their big budgets. That will always be the case and there isn’t much you can do to compete.

But it’s not all about the paid advertising or how much money you can funnel into your efforts – because organic Facebook marketing is just as effective (if not more so as a long term plan).

Paid advertising means putting financial backing behind certain adverts, so that they appear on the feed of a larger group of consumers. Facebook will ask you to identify your demographic through a series of options and you can then track the viewing figures and clicks on your advert. For a short term campaign or a crucial communication, this can be a good option for any size of business – but while big businesses can put money into every ad, small businesses with smaller budgets need to do something a bit different.

But what?

It starts with your business profile – the homepage of your Facebook marketing strategy, and the stepping-stone between any advert you post, and your website. Captive consumers will visit your profile before your website, so the job of your profile page is to convert them and give them all the crucial information they need to take that next step.

This means:

• Making sure all the information is correct, including opening hours, contact information and location settings
• Using high quality imagery, including setting your brand logo as your profile picture and some kind of enticing banner as your cover photo
• Be smart when you set your business Facebook page URL. This should be your business name – easy to find and professional
• Being responsive. This one is particularly crucial for businesses trying to build an effective social media presence – so respond to reviews, questions, comments, and Direct Messages as quickly as you can!

TOP TIP: Regarding that last point, your business profile will automatically update with the amount of time it takes for you to respond to direct communications. So, the longer you leave them unread, the longer that response rate will be.

Content. Competition. Consistency.

When you first start building your Facebook plan, these are the three areas to focus on. What are your competition doing, what kind of content are you going to share on your Facebook profile, and how can you deliver consistent messaging across all your platforms?

A successful Facebook marketing plan is just that – a plan. It means knowing what content your audience want to see, what launches they want to hear about, and how they feel about different topics. Facebook is a great place to tap into conversations within your industry, creating a knowledgeable and credible presence that people choose to revisit. We recommend posting every day or every other day, with a combination of different content – for example one opinion or news piece a week, a couple of content value posts, and one direct marketing post a week.

Competition is key and will also help you find another ‘C’ – your Facebook community. If there’s one piece of advice we could share, it would be to cease trying to reinvent everything from scratch. Find direct competition who are active on Facebook and find out what they do well – then replicate it. Yes, you need to make it your own – but that doesn’t mean you can’t take ideas and replicate their basic structure.

Checking out the competition will also help you to find consumers and active customers within your industry community – with business groups a great way to meet likeminded business owners and learn new ways of reaching out to your core audience.

Facebook is a sociable platform – and should be treated accordingly. Use your Facebook Ads Manager to find out what and where your core demographic are and then target them with your adverts. Join relevant and local groups that will put you in the eyeline of relevant audiences. Boost posts when you have the budget to do so – especially the crucial new product launch and reopening posts.

Most of all, showcase your business and brand as a personable, real, and welcoming community. Social media, and Facebook in particular, is a great platform to throw together business adverts and targeted posts with behind-the-scenes insight and nuggets of personality from within the team and your office – creating credibility and likeability that will appeal to your audience whether they’re looking to buy from you right now or later in the future.

If you’re not already on Facebook, or you’re not optimising your business Facebook profile for maximum engagement and growth, then it’s time to invest some energy in the platform and start to refine your strategy.

So many businesses out there think that social media is a place where they can “just wing it” – not believing that a strategy will prove beneficial in the long run. But as we’ve uncovered in this article, that couldn’t be further from the truth!