Facebook is so much more than just a social networking site. For businesses, it can be an extremely potent promotion tool. Statistics reveal that around 95% of Australians have a Facebook account, making it among the most visible and relevant marketing platforms.
However, most businesses don’t see the full benefits of Facebook as they don’t understand or employ the right tactics. Here’s how you can use Facebook effectively to elevate your business.
1. Advertising
Facebook has by far the best and most visible advertising system of all social media channels. To see any meaningful results, you will have to pay – but the returns can be worth it. The thing that makes this form of advertising so attractive is its flexibility. The ads can be run across every device format and any connection speed. Plus, you can target specific demographics so that your business will be shown to those most likely to be interested. There are different advertising packages to accommodate a range of budgets.
You should see Facebook advertising as a necessary investment for your business. Setting aside a monthly budget for this is a sound idea, as it will yield results.
2. Engagement
With such a huge army of users, Facebook is a goldmine for engagement. But while there is certainly a market waiting to be reached, simply promoting your products isn’t enough.
Asking questions of your followers is a fantastic way to increase your engagement levels. Back-and-forth dialogue builds trust between you and your consumers and adds a feeling of involvement to their experience; things that will help convert them to paying customers.
Though not every person you engage with will buy product from you, some will – the more you engage, the more likely you are to convert people into customers. Even those who don’t become customers will still be left with positive opinions that they may share with others who could buy from you.
Other ways to increase engagement include sharing interesting content like blog posts on relevant topics to your industry, crowdsourcing for answers, uploading photos and videos and hosting giveaway contests. The timing of your posts is also important – you can use Facebook analytics to view the time of day your posts are most popular and plan future updates accordingly.
3. Cross platform promotion
You can also use your Facebook page to promote content from your other social media channels, growing your visibility in the process. You can select to automatically include posts from any joined accounts like Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. This can help move the discussions from Facebook to other mediums and expose your business to a whole new demographic in the process.
What businesses does Facebook benefit?
Facebook is truly a one-size fits all platform – there’s no business type that will benefit most. Anyone can succeed on Facebook: the key is finding a content approach that is relevant to your industry and captures the attention of your followers. As mentioned previously, you can utilise cross platform promotion to project the sites you’re most comfortable and successful with onto Facebook.
Like anything though, perfecting the art of Facebook marketing takes time. Don’t be disgruntled if your investment doesn’t rake in thousands of followers and new customers within the first week. Keep at it, continue engaging with the fans you do have, post fresh and engaging content regularly, and soon enough, the rewards will come.
If you would like to find out more about how we manage targeted Facebook campaigns get in touch today.