Whether you believe it or not, the truth is almost everybody uses Facebook. While many people claim that the younger generation's -- teenagers, mostly -- aren't on it the social media platform, most people at least have an account. And, while young people may not be as active on Facebook, they are using other services by Facebook. Think of Instagram, for one! That’s why Facebook is a really valuable tool for businesses to use to connect with their audience. Because whomever your audience is, they’re likely on Facebook!
We want to help you find success in using Facebook to grow your audience and capture leads. So today, we’re going to dive into some formulas you can use for your Facebook pages.
First off, every business should have a page. Facebook has become a source of information for people to find out more about your business. If you don’t have a page people will wonder what’s wrong with you, and it really discredits your legitimacy. They expect to find you on Facebook.
The very first (and obvious) thing you have to do is to create your business page, and secondly, make sure your profile is completely filled out.
While Facebook is increasingly relevant and important to your business, some of the rules have changed, and they will continue to change in the upcoming years.
The very first thing is how people see your business once they have liked it. People are living on their newsfeed. This means the only businesses and posts they see are the ones that are being updated -- and often. By now, most people have liked more than 100 pages. That’s a lot of posts! Because Facebook is so much more crowded, you have to be reaching out to your audience's newsfeed, preferably multiple times a day. Bare minimum? Once a day. That’s how you actually get people to see your business.
How to be successful on Facebook
The goal of social media success is to increase your post reach. The average reach of a post reaches 10 percent of your audience. So how can you increase that?
Because people have so much stuff in their newsfeed, you need to come up with a strategy of great content.
There are a couple kinds of great content you should incorporate: attraction and engagement
Attraction and engagement kind of go hand in hands. Remember, it is a social network, so be social! Social posts come from your own page sharing others' content, making sure they are fun or a resource that is educationally rich. They could be image or video driven because visuals do very well on Facebook. These are your engaging posts. They are more likely to get a like or comment, and Facebook, in turn, shows them more of the same content.
Another way you can do this is to post things that are a little more personal. People love seeing the little pieces that make up your business culture and will be more engaged in the post. Again, this helps them see more of your content, so later down the road, they’ll be more likely to see it.
A way to do this is to follow NOW Marketing’s 4 E’s rule:
- Engaging
- Expert Knowledge
- Entertaining
- Educating
While social media is a great way to market and build your business, while growing leads and customers, again, it is relationship building and social, first and foremost. You cannot focus on simply selling, but instead, on the content you can put out that will grow that relationship. Your sales will come later.
So, when writing content you want to sound natural. Our 4 E rule helps you do this. Essentially, you are building a trust and rapport with your audience, who will then be more likely to go to your business when they are ready to buy. By the way, you don't have to write a post every day. Take an hour of time and work in 30 day periods. That way you can schedule posts to go out.
Using Advertisements to boost your audience
While organic reach is great, ads are important too. While Facebook is not completely a pay-to-play platform, you do have to use some paid advertisements. Basically, it’s putting gasoline on what is already out there.
There are three basic ad types:
- Boosted post (easiest)
- Ad manager (getting more complicated)
- Power editor (most complicated)
The best part about Facebook ads is that you can create your own custom audience type (or two or three!). That way, you’re making sure that you are reaching who you really want to. Facebook uses the demographics setup by user profiles themselves so that you can directly target who you want to see your post. Ads aren’t terribly expensive either! You can spend a dollar a day and still get connected to the audience you want.
If you’re just getting into using advertisements, we recommend you start with boosted posts. They are the easiest to do, and it’s a great way to test ads out. If you have a little budget and want to maximize the money you spent, try boosting a post or two.
When you’re creating ads, remember that visuals attract. The carousel ads are popular, and we’ve been using them in our posts to increase their engagement. Additionally, video ads are a great way to get people to pay attention. However, be warned when using images that Facebook does not allow you to have more the 20 percent of the image covered in text. It will dock you and disable your ad, and it’s very picky. One of our images got dinged for text in the background!
If you use these tools, and continue to learn more about Facebook and how it can help your business grow relationship and dedicated followers, we’re positive you’ll see success and growth in your business!
Join us next week on Tuesday at 4 p.m. EST on #MagnetMarketers for our next session.
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