Facebook Marketing 101: Tips on Harnessing its Power
We know all of you are using Facebook effectively for your business, but we want to make sure you are using it to its maximum potential. This post provides simple ways to increase engagement and interaction on your Facebook page as well as explain a few services Facebook provides for businesses.
Yes, Facebook is a social media platform that provides a space for happy birthday wishes and posting photos of your pets, but it is so much more than that. If used to its maximum potential, Facebook has the ability to increase business clientele while maintaining and growing relationships with current customers.
Social media is one of the most convenient and effective ways to foster relationships with clients by engaging with them and proving credibility and transparency. According to Social Media Today, “52 percent of enterprise brands say social media is the top driver for relationship building and brand management.”
Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at the numbers:
- 1.15 billion people are on Facebook
- 1.13 trillion total Facebook likes
- There are more than 2 billion connections between local businesses and customers on Facebook
- 70 percent of monthly Facebook users are engaged and connected to a local business
- In an average week there are 645 million views on local business FB pages and over 13 million comments on them
These numbers prove that there are many people to reach on Facebook and that they are actively engaging with local businesses. Keep reading to find out how to connect with your customers, discover insights of your Facebook page, and target new audiences.
Engage Don’t Impose
Although Facebook provides the means to communicate with customers, there is a difference between informing your customers and actually engaging with them. When posting statuses on your business page, keep them short and sweet and post things that evoke a response. Just as in your personal life, no one wants to read a long and drawn-out status. According to social media expert, Soldsie, fill in the blank statuses are likely to receive nine times more responses than statement statuses. In addition, statuses that ask a specific question are 100 times more likely to get a response than a statement post. People want to interact and engage and providing them the outlet to do that easily creates an environment of sharing.
Timing is Everything
In addition to posting engaging statuses, make sure you are posting at times when your key audience will be online. Statuses can easily be unseen or overlooked if your audience is preoccupied or busy when they are posted. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and see when you would be more likely to be on Facebook if you were them. For example, if you audience is moms of young children do not post in the early morning because they will likely be getting their kids ready and off to school. Alternatively, if your audience is young adults they would be more effectively reached in the mornings than on weekend nights. Understand your audience and base the timing of your posts off of that.
Do It Right!
You know it is important to engage audiences and reach them at the best times but how do you keep up that two-way communication?
We have some suggestions:
- Use photos and videos. In your personal life it is much more exciting to view an image or video than to read a lengthy status. The same holds true with businesses.
- Post photos or videos that are funny, quirky, or reference something current. People bond over mutual adoration or understanding of something.
- Maintain communication with customers by liking their comments, statuses and photos
- Respond to any direct comments or messages
Insights and Ads
Now that we have company and customer relationship building covered, let’s dive into more of what Facebook can do for your business. One of the most effective tools Facebook provides is Facebook Insights. An article by Mashable, a tech news source, explains that this tool provides businesses with user and interaction insights. The most effective interactions to pay attention to are: Monthly fan size growth, average number of likes and comments, unlikes, demographics, pageviews, mentions and tab views, referrers, and impressions. Each of these insights give businesses a better idea of who is looking and engaging on their page, when they are and why. This information can help businesses learn what they are doing well and not so well and adjust to ensure increased engagement and effective interactions.
Facebook can even be used as an advertisement tool for businesses. Any company that has a Facebook page automatically has the ability to create advertisements to increase awareness and gain new customers. Social media design company, Pagemondo, explains that advertising on Facebook is extremely simple and effective. The advertisements are effective because they reach a huge span of people and are able to be tailored to target specific audiences. By utilizing Facebook Insights, businesses are able to discover exactly which demographics and interest groups to target their advertisements to. Facebook offers text or visual advertisements which are both effective, but visual ads are eight times more likely to get clicked on than text. These visual advertisements are also mobile friendly, allowing mobile and desktop users to be reached simultaneously. As you can see, advertising with Facebook is a highly effective method for businesses to reach their customers and gain more awareness.
Takeaways
- Facebook is the perfect channel for maintaining client relationships and gathering new business
- Utilize engaging and entertaining content
- Foster a space for two-way communication by responding to and interacting with customers on Facebook page
- Use Facebook Insights to learn more about who is interacting on your page and what they like and don’t like
- Facebook Ads help attract new clients and are able to be targeted to certain groups of people
Up your Facebook game today and see the immense impact it can have on the success of your business.