With over 2 billion active daily users, Facebook is notably one of the best platforms to grow your business. While it is free to use, Facebook does encourage a pay to play mentality, but once you’ve built up a fan base you can keep them engaged for free or better yet, convert them to your email list. You can promote your products and services, and you can sell your products to them without marketing costs. You can update your fans to let them know about any special events or deals that your business is running. Facebook is also one of the best platforms to interact and stay in touch with your customers by listening to what they have to say, and responding to their comments. By consistently engaging with your Facebook followers you can let people know what your business is up to. This allows you to stay fresh and relevant, so hopefully when your customer base makes their next purchasing decision, they will think of you and not your competitor.
Whether your business is new to Facebook marketing, or just in need of a refresh, here’s our best tips to help you make the most out of Facebook and make sure you are maximizing your engagement.
Set Up Your Facebook Business Page The Right Way
- Claim a vanity URL by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username
- Choose the correct category for your business
- Get reviews – ask your family and friends first then start asking your customers to give you a review.
- Pick the best picture for your profile photo and create a custom cover that shows what you do, creates an emotional response, and has a clear call to action for your business.
- Complete the about section and use keywords that align with your SEO plan.
Encourage Traffic To Your Facebook Business Page:
- Add the Facebook icon wherever you can – Promote your Facebook page on all marketing, including business cards, signs, email signatures, website,
- Add a Follow Button on your website – Make it easy for your website visitors to Like your page by adding a Follow Button to your website or blog. A Facebook Follow Button is a widget you can add to your website that links people from your website to your Facebook Page.
- Ask people in person – Ask people that come into your store to like your page. You know they already are interested in your business, so why not ask them to like your social media pages? You can even offer them something on the spot (e.g. discount, free item) if they like your page while in the store.
- Ask people online – Have a pop-up box on your website that asks people to like your Facebook page. You can also ask people to like your Facebook page after they have purchased something on your site. The message can be along the lines of “Thanks for your purchase! Like us on Facebook to hear about new products and promotions.”
- Get involved on Facebook – You can post on pages and groups that are related to your industry from your business page. If you offer helpful answers and advice, you may get people to click back to your page and like it.
Promote Your Business On Facebook:
To really boost your page, you need to be human first and promote second. This may sound counterintuitive, but with content marketing at a record high, users are tired of the hard sell. Here’s how you can maximize your Facebook reach in a way that builds a long term following.
Set up a regular posting schedule – Try to post original content at least once a week, but prioritize quality over quantity. Ideally, 3-5 times a week is a good sweet spot.
Monitor when your fans are online and tweak your schedule – once your page has attracted some attention, the Audience Insight tools gather quantitative information about the people who like and visit your page. In fact, Facebook’s highest traffic usually occurs mid-week between 1 to 3 pm which tells us two things — 1) Almost everyone hits that after lunch productivity slump than we think and 2) people are always looking for new content on their newsfeeds.
Provide value – the worst thing you could do for your page is to post any old random quotes or images. Why would your ideal customer care about your post? Is your goal to inform them of your company values, the team behind the brand, how your business can help them, how your business helps the community, and lastly, what can you do for them? The best rule of thumb in marketing is the 80/20 rule. Give away something 80% of the time and then sell 20% of the time. Your “give” message can be knowledge, motivation, a smile, or a laugh, but it shouldn’t be focused on the sale. When you do post your “sales” message they should fun and light.
Share relevant images – This is a great way to show up in user’s news feed organically. By tagging your fans in pictures, you are not only alerting them of the post, but your post is also likely to appear in the news feed of the fan’s friends. People are more likely to “like” and comment on a post of someone they know. So how do you do this? An example would be, If you’re a real estate agent, take a picture of your client in front of their new home and congratulate them on your Facebook page.
Give your fans a laugh – Don’t overthink it; just do something to give your fans a chuckle. Keep their interests in mind and make sure the humor is relevant to your audience, and appropriate for all audiences. Quotes get a lot of shares. People who get a laugh or feel inspired from a post want to share the feeling with others. You can use Canva to create this type of image for free. Include your logo, so if it’s shared by a third party, you are still advertising your business.
Respond to EVERYONE – If your business replies quickly to messages on Facebook, then others will be able to see that your page is active and responsive. Pay attention to the posts that get reactions and comments. Comments generally indicate a higher level of engagement because it takes more time to type a response than to simply hit “Like”. If you receive negative comments, carefully respond that you hear their concerns and invite them to email or call you directly. Don’t delete negative comments or ignore them, address them head on and you’ll build your brand’s trust.
Post native video – Videos on a Facebook user’s newsfeed auto-play, and therefore are very attention grabbing in nature. Have you noticed all those videos of people making delicious looking dishes in fast motion? That type of video could work well if you own a restaurant. You should consider posting a featured video to your page as well. People will connect more with your business if you show them the people behind it all.
Post and share events – Create Facebook events for your next big sale. When events are happening in the community, you can draw attention to those as well. Many businesses fail to leverage events as opportunities to promote their social media page. Creating an event page can increase the turnout for your real-world event because Facebook events make it easy for users to invite friends and see how many people plan to attend.
Ask a question or poll – This is an easy way to get people to comment on your post. Pair the question with a cute picture, and you’ll get people to pause at your post long enough to read the question.
Partner with other local business pages to cross promote – By tagging another business your are reaching their fan base as well as your own. You can encourage fans to tag a friend and you are exponentially increasing the reach of the post too. People will be notified if they are tagged and encouraged to check out your page and products. Moreover, you are spreading brand awareness. By sharing the best content from any source you become the one-stop-shop for the information your buyer personas care about. Once your fans rely on you as their go-to source for information, your Facebook engagement will organically increase because they’ll visit your page when they don’t see your posts in their newsfeed. Sharing others’ content also shows that your brand is helpful, not just going out for the sale.
Use tracking URLs and Facebook insights – You want to establish a routine to see how your posts are doing, how your fan base is growing, and to measure your social media marketing effectiveness. If you have a particular post doing well, consider boosting that post to extend it’s reach.
Tailor your messages to your fan base – Learn more about their demographics, and use that information to reach out to new groups. If your page is attracting more middle-aged women than expected, for example, then you may want to include posts that are particularly relevant for those potential customers.
Success with Facebook marketing doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time. Increasing your Facebook engagement requires the persistence to be active on the platform day after day. Ultimately your goal should be to give value, build a relationship with your fans which in turn then leads them to see you as a valuable resource and eventually buy your product or services. Marketing is all about making consumers want and need what you have, your Facebook Business page is one powerful tool if you use it correctly.
Wieting Design | Social Media Fairfield County CT
Wieting Design is a full-service, graphic and website design agency based in Fairfield County, CT and serving all of Connecticut (CT). We are committed to sharing our experience and expertise in website design, graphic design, social media marketing, search engine marketing (SEO), and video production to help build powerful tools and campaigns that work for your Connecticut business. Whether your objective is to grow your reputation, create client loyalty, drive traffic to your website or set up a marketing strategy, we will adapt our approach to get you the results you need with the services we provide.
