Tactics – Hit & Run Commenting, Ads, and More

Now you know the kind of content that typically performs very well.

The next question is how you go about posting that content for maximum effectiveness.

What type of posts work well and how do you reach the most people possible??

Creating a Facebook Page?

The first and most important step is to come up with your own Facebook page. This Facebook page is what’s going to represent your brand on? Facebook and it’s what you will be posting with. Of course, you can just use your personal Facebook account, but make sure you’ll not end up with a muddled company image.?

Having a Facebook page gives you certain advantages.? This will allow you to gain followers for instance without them being ‘friends’? whose posts fill up your homepage.

Facebook pages give you the option to use advertising later down the line. We’ll look at this in more detail later but this can be a fantastic way to build your followers even more and even to generate direct sales. Your Facebook page is a? powerful tool, so make sure you spend time on it.?

Some pointers:

? Make sure you have a good logo for your business and website. If you don’t have one already, make one. You can later use this to tie together all of your disparate social media channels and business endeavors and that way all your other efforts will boost each other in a highly synergistic manner.?

? Likewise, ensure that you have a large crisp cover page that is clearly connected to your branding.?

? Add a link to let people easily follow you on Facebook to your website. If you have a blog for instance, then have a link to your? Facebook page right along the top and with each post. This way,? people who find your site and enjoy it can subscribe for subsequent updates and you’ll be able to bring them back to your website time and again.?

Posting to Your Own Page?

A lot of your time on Facebook is going to be spent just posting on your own page.

Remember this: a completely ‘dead’ Facebook page that is like a ghost town is worse than having no Facebook page at all. So keep it active, even if that means just the occasional ‘hit and run’ post.?

The best practice is to dedicate and block some time each month to generic informative post-scheduling, and when you have an update, share that as well. The tool I loved using personally is SocialChamp before I created my own software. This allowed me to schedule posts and see comments from the same platform.

Another benefit of posting is that it shows that there are real people behind your brand and that your company is approachable and interactive. This will give people a lot of confidence when they’re thinking of buying from you for instance.?

Note as well that you can automate the process of commenting and posting.

One way to do this is to use the amazing IFTTT. IFTTT can be found at IFTTT.com and is an acronym of ‘If This, Then That’. The general idea here is that you link accounts and connect ‘triggers’ to ‘actions’. So for instance, you can use this to post automatically to your account when you upload some new content, or you can use it to respond to people’s comments. You can even set something up to allow yourself to text a? number that will lead to comments being uploaded on your Facebook page.? One more use for IFTTT is to link your Facebook , and Twitter (x) accounts.? This way, anything you post on Twitter/ (X) can automatically be added to your? Facebook page, which will in turn mean that you spend less time on your social media to keep it looking highly active.?

Another popular, well-known tool here is ‘Buffer’ and this can be used interchangeably with ‘HootSuite’. Both of these tools have options to? ‘queue’ posts to your Facebook page and this then means that you can set aside a day to write lots of posts and then have them post regularly at set times during the day.

This saves a lot of time overall and it ensures that your social media pages will never appear to be very quiet and abandoned.? What’s more, it’s very useful for going on holiday.?

Use these simple ‘hit and run’ posting tactics and you can keep your? Facebook page alive and share interesting content and value for your followers. At the same time, you’ll consistently be sending more people to your external pages with the hopes of potentially converting.?

Hit and Run Comments and Posts?

Another way to get a lot of attention for your posts is to post to other pages and groups. Here you have a large audience of people who are interested in the same thing and this gives you the perfect place to market to.

This way, you can choose who sees your content based on their interests and you can benefit from all the hard work that the creator of that page or group has already done.?

You’ll find that most Facebook pages are built for promotional purposes by their creators. As such, you often won’t be able to add your own content there unless you first become an administrator – which requires permission from the owner.?

Instead, then, look for and join groups. This way, you’ll be able to take part in the discussion and this will often include the ability to post links if you so wish.?

Finding Facebook Groups?

The question then is how do you go about finding new groups?

One way to do this is with the simple search tool on Facebook. Just click on the search bar at the top (which says ‘Search for people, places, and things’) and then?start typing the name of your niche. Have a? website/business in the fitness niche? Then just search ‘fitness’ and see what comes up. Likewise, you can also pick topics that are within your niche, for instance, if your topic is ‘fitness’ then you might pick ‘the gym’ or? ‘running’. If your niche is writing, then you might pick ‘fantasy writing’.?

Big groups have the advantage of having a wider reach and helping your content to get seen by more people but smaller ones have the advantage of keeping your content at the top longer. The best call is to try some of both.?

And don’t be afraid to try out groups that are only distantly related to your topic – this is a great way to branch out and attract new audiences. For instance, if your topic is ‘parkour’ or ‘free running’ then you can also promote that in a group about martial arts as the two have similar roots.? You could even write an article specifically on ‘parkour as a martial art’ or? ‘the influence of martial arts in parkour’.

Melding two vaguely related topics together also happens to be a great way to come up with ideas for new,? original content.?

Another method you can use is to try Facebook’s grid search.? Llook along the left-hand menu of your newsfeed:

• New groups are groups you’ve been recently added to but you can also see local groups (useful for local businesses),
• ‘suggested groups’ (useful for finding things within your niche) ?
• ‘friends’ groups’. Friends’ groups are surprisingly useful because it lets you see the groups your friends are in. As such, you’ll be able to find places where you can likely post without getting deleted. If you’re University alumni for instance, you may be able to find clubs and societies you once belonged to? – and this gives you an excellent platform for promoting your stuff.

Don’t be afraid to promote to your friends!?

Finally, one more trick is to consider looking at the existing fans and members of your current page or group and then seeing which groups they are members of. This is a powerful strategy because it shows you where interests cross over. In other words, if you’re already seeing people migrate from those groups, chances are you may be able to find more recruits there.?

Posting to Groups?

So, find a Facebook group that is somewhat relevant to your niche or industry, come up with some somewhat relevant content, and post it there.? Simple! If you create an article on Bruce Lee and share it with a martial arts group, then in theory you can get thousands of new visitors… instantly.?

The only problem is that you’ll probably get deleted…?

So instead of being purely promotional and out for yourself – think of ways you can give back to these communities.

Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge, your expertise, and your value. Only once you have built up a trust should you post your very best content there. Don’t overdo it and make sure you give more than you take. Business is all about offering value and Facebook is no different!?

Outreaching to Other Facebook Pages and Cross-Promoting One of the most popular concepts in digital marketing at the moment is something called ‘influencer marketing’. The way this works is simple:? instead of building a huge audience over time that you will be able to share your content to in the future, the aim is instead to simply find an existing large audience and then to share with them. This way, you leapfrog all the time and effort spent building and get straight to the profit! The person who can give you that route to the market is called the ‘influencer’, hence influencer marketing.?

On Facebook, this largely means finding the owner of successful Facebook pages and groups and getting them to promote you on your behalf. The good news is that it’s relatively easy to start this process seeing as? Facebook lets you find the group owners quickly and message them. The hard part is convincing them to post for you.?

So then, make sure that you have something to offer! Often that will mean offering some money but it can also mean offering to post to your network in exchange for them posting to theirs.

If you’re lucky and you find the right page owner, you may even find they’re willing to post your content for free. Make something tailor-made for them and they will often agree to share it if it’s genuinely good and interesting.

Unfortunately, a lot of pages and groups won’t allow ‘non-administrators’ to post which presents something of an obstacle. You can join some groups which will then allow you to share your content and some pages do allow anyone to post. In most cases though, you’d have more luck trying a similar strategy on Quora or on Reddit.?

So what can you do instead, you can simply comment on pictures and images as a one-off and then use this to increase awareness of your page and even get likes. Remember: every time someone sees your brand that will be free exposure for you and this is a great way to increase your visibility. So even if you’re looking for active comment sections and just engaging in a discussion, that’s all good stuff and it can lead to likes. Visit a? popular page and look at the comments on some of their images – you’ll see that they can sometimes have hundreds of likes themselves! Find a? Facebook page about Jackie Chan, post a picture of you with him, or a? meme featuring him, or a popular quote – and you might find it drives more people to your page.?

This is something a lot of people forget with Facebook. Not everything that you do has to be outwardly ‘promotional’. Sometimes, it’s actually more effective just to join in with the discussion, answer questions and let the likes come naturally.? Just remember to act ‘in character’ for your brand and to post things that will be helpful and interesting, or that will help to demonstrate your expertise, knowledge, or entertainment value. You can try and make direct sales or gain traffic from comments on other people’s pages but it’s likely to just result in your comment getting deleted and you baned.

Few tips on using Facebook Advertising?

Another big strategy for generating income from Facebook or for building your brand awareness is to use Facebook Ads. ?

Your Facebook Page will have an ‘organic reach’ of about? 1-2%. What does that mean?

It means that if you have 100 followers on? Facebook, only one or two of them will see what you post each time you post. If you have 1,000, you’ll get 10-20 views for anything you post.?

Of course, your followers can see your content if they visit your Facebook page. But as far as content appearing in the newsfeed goes, only that small proportion is going to see what you’re uploading unless you do something extra to promote it.

This is where Facebook advertising comes in, which effectively allows you to extend that reach to everyone in your list of followers and further.?

Facebook ads can take multiple forms, they can appear as ‘Page Posts’,? they can appear as promotions for your page (to increase comments), they can appear as pictures and they can appear as videos. If you’re selling products, it’s also now possible to have a multi-item advert that will show off your items in a carousel-type display.?

The great thing about Facebook ads is that they let you target your audience specifically based on their age, sex, location, interests, job description, marital status, and more. This way, you aren’t wasting money on adverts shown to people who aren’t likely to have any interest in what you’re selling.?

Better yet, Facebook ads can be ‘CPC’. That stands for ‘Cost Per Click’? and effectively means that you only pay out when someone actually clicks on your ads. So if your advert is completely ineffective at getting people to click, you won’t be charged anything at all.?

Using something called ‘CPA’ (cost per action) you can create a scenario where you’re only charged when a click results in a? particular action. For instance, this might mean that you only pay for people who actually like your page.

You can also use Facebook promotions and only pay when someone redeems a promotional voucher. This way you almost guarantee your ROI and you know you’re going to get tangible results from your efforts.

The best way to manage Facebook is by using natural posts and adverts together synergistically. Build your Facebook page with posts and ads and then use that page to fuel more posts and ads…?

(I dedicate a whole article to this topic in the serial)

Letting Your Fans Do the Work?

And don’t forget that you are not the only one who can post content to? Facebook. We’ve already seen the type of content that can get re-shared and remember when people comment on your posts or like them, that also means they’ll get seen by that person’s network.

Each time someone likes or comments on your posts, it opens it up to a larger audience and creates the opportunity for more comments, likes, and shares. This is how content can potentially go viral.?

But that’s not the only way you can leverage your fan base and get them to do the work for you. Also effective is to encourage them to share your content directly from your blog or website. Here, you just need to add social sharing buttons to your posts and that way people who enjoy the content can show it to their friends and this is great for getting your old content to keep giving back. This way, even if you don’t have a large Facebook page yet, you can still benefit from a post potentially going viral on Facebook!?