Facebook Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
1. Post With A Purpose
So you’ve created a business page and would like everyone to know about what you do. You post your work, invite your friends to like and follow your page, but... Nothing seems to work.
No inquiries, comments nor likes… (Just like this one ??) That is okay… it’s okay!
Keep going, keep posting BUT, don’t just post whatever you feel like posting and hope to gain traction. Please, always post with a purpose. Remember why you work? Why you get up every morning and pick up your tools and head out?
Whatever that purpose is, use it and apply it to your activities online and especially your page. Be mindful about what you post and when you post it. Beyond filling the void with noise, every post you make should have a purpose. Know what you want and what to post and why you’re posting it. Not sure what to post? This is where “competitor research” comes in. You’re not supposed to copy them but learn from their method and mistakes. Your Facebook page has a feature called "Insights". After posting for some time, you may or may not get the traction you're looking for. But, almost always, you'll post something that resonates with your target audience.
Look at old topics and posts to see what was the most popular and try to replicate it. And don't forget to think of the action you want someone to take when you post. Again, please post with PURPOSE. Send me a message or let me know in the comments if this helped. ??
2. Optimize your Facebook Page
You can now populate your Facebook Page information in a matter of minutes and it should be a priority. This will help your page show up on search results and in turn, help your next clients find you. Think of it as your SEO on Facebook.
Most often, people use Google to search for local businesses, however, more and more customers are now using Facebook to look for brands or local businesses.
If your customers are on their mobile, they’ll most likely check your page's “about” information, recommendations from customers, lookup address information, find a phone number, etc. Once on your page, they can click through to your website, if you have one, or click to call the number you’ve listed.
Tip: Google Voice, instead of your primary phone number. It’s a trackable number that will help track calls coming from your Facebook Page
3. Use Facebook’s Story Feature
Your story doesn’t have to be news specific. It can be anything from short videos to questions that are engaging. Anything engaging enough to get your target audience’s attention.
It’s a form of Facebook marketing that takes very little time and effort to make and it’s a great way to showcase small businesses culture and very casual way to engage your audience.
It’s a terrific way to get easy-to-digest posts in front of your audience. So go ahead and abuse that feature but please think about the purpose and ask your self if it’s kind or if will help anyone in your audience.
4. Get a Better Cover
A generic cover will fill the space at the top of your page, but Facebook gives you other options. Instead of using a basic logo or a picture of your business, post a video cover. String together a series of short clips from recent events, or video taken of your business, customer interactions, happy employees, etc.
Upload the video as your page’s cover to showcase your brand and the culture of your small business. That’s far more attractive to prospective customers than a static image.
5. Manage Your Time With Planned Content
A content calendar is a great way to manage your time and ensure you have content ready to go live at a scheduled time. It's best to make Facebook posts with a content calendar unless you're piggybacking on a trending topic.
Social media management software now is a thing and you can take advantage of it. Buffer can get you started with this service. With a free plan, you can preload content and set a schedule to post it later. Once set up, the only time you need to go online is to check and respond to follower comments.
6. Include Customer Service in your Facebook Marketing Strategy
Facebook found out that most consumers are willing to pay more for convenience. People don't want the "journey" when it comes to getting what they want, they want it fast and want it "now".
Same is true with engagements. People opt to contact businesses through messenger for convenience and expect a response. Most businesses can use it as a tool to "Wow" their customers with great customer service. Show they have their customer's best interest by offering value and being responsive.
Source: https://web.facebook.com/…/insights/series/messaging-moves-…
7. Go Live On Facebook
Like what Gary Vaynerchuk always says, document! No need for scripts or you'll risk sounding like a robot, brief info. about what it is you'd like to cover should be enough to set it all up. From unboxing of a new tech gadget that you wasted your money on or a product how-to, live coverage of an in-store event or customer testimonials. It can be anything. Anything that your target market can get value out of, put it on live video to get more followers or engagements.
According to Buffer.com - https://buffer.com/library/facebook-video "100 million hours of videos are watched on Facebook every day." and people should be taking advantage of these numbers. Not confident enough yet for live video? You can upload a pre-recorded video. more info on this blog by Mike Speer on Medium - https://medium.com/…/how-to-stream-your-pre-recorded-videos…
This pre-recorded videos can be saved, chopped up and published as part of your Facebook Story or cross-post it on other platforms or pin it on your Facebook business page for your visitor to find later.
8. Post When Fans Are Online
There's a section in your page called Facebook insights where you can get detailed information when your fans are active and engaging. So, it's best to plan your posts early and upload it when your fans are more likely to see it and engage. If your fans are active during the peak hours, your posts will be dead and buried in a busy newsfeed and won't reach your target audience.
A simple trick, post it late at night when it's less busy and that means less active news feed. Since there's not much of activity, there's a better chance active users will see your content once you post it. With that engagement jump, there’s a better chance your content will be sitting in the feed of other followers when they log on in the morning.
9. Post Visual Content
Text-based posts are great (this one included ??) however, live videos are killing it right now. Your other scheduled posts should include even more visual content, from images to video.
Don’t just post links and text-based posts. According to HubSpot, visual content is a requirement for a successful online presence. This is especially true since visual content sees 30x more engagement, and is far more likely to be shared, than any other type of content.
10. Use custom audiences for Ads
You don’t need a huge Facebook marketing budget to run ads. You just need an effective targeting strategy to get your posts in front of the right people. The easiest way to see a higher return on your ad spend is to use custom audiences. There are numerous ways to create custom audiences, and by utilizing a Facebook pixel on your website you can target a range of behaviours.
A few ways you can use custom targeting include building a custom audience based on:
The number of people who watch a video to completion, or partway through. Your page visitors and those who engage as well and visits your website, or certain pages on your site. The friends of people who like and engage with your page. You can either build a custom audience or take the information you have to let Facebook create an audience of people matching interests and behaviours similar to your own customer list and existing audience. In either case, the targeting of your ads and boosted posts will be far more accurate than if you randomly select interests and demographics.
11. Measure your success
No matter your approach to Facebook marketing, make sure you’re measuring the success of your efforts. Take time each week to review your Facebook insights.
Check post and content performance to continually adjust your strategy to determine which actions — like the ones listed above — are most effective in bringing you new customers and improving engagement on your Facebook page. With consistent effort, it won’t take long before customers are finding and choosing your small business over competitors.