Facebook Marketing

Executive DirectorBusiness & FinanceLeave a Comment

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Getting the most from your Facebook Business Page

Marketing on Facebook is easy in the sense that it’s free (we’ll talk paid ads later) and you can do it as soon as you’ve created your page, but getting results is a bit more difficult. I want to highlight a few things that I think are relevant and intentional when it comes to self-promotion on Facebook.

 

Branding Consistency

Your fans, followers and customers should be able to easily identify your company’s social media outlets because you’re consistent. This should be followed as a rule of thumb for all social identities your company maintains (i.e. Instagram, Twitter, Google+, etc.). What I’m saying here is, you have a logo, you like it, you thought it was cool enough to be your logo now put that thing everywhere!

  • Your logo should be somewhere near the top of your website, it should be your profile picture for Facebook as well!
  • You should have a color pallet that is also specific to your business and the visual design nerd in me wants you to know and utilize a specific 2-3 fonts! (This may just be a pet peeve of mine, but if I notice it someone else probably does too!)

You do not have 382 fonts pre-installed on your computer with a challenge to use everyone in your marketing! Your fonts and color scheme should also flow from your website to your printed materials and into your cover photos on Facebook.

Enough of the visual consistency, what about your brand connectivity?

You should have a link to and from everything!! If you have a website and various social media profiles I should be able to find all of them from each other! Your Facebook page should have your website link filled in and tested to ensure proper functionality. Furthermore, your Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Blog should also have corresponding tabs linking users to all of them on your Facebook page. Subsequently, your website should list and link to all social media and blogs as well. You following me!? It’s like we’re playing 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon but everyone is Kevin Bacon!!

Organic Growth

Organic growth, isn’t a reference to anything you may be adding to your products, dinner recipes or front lawn, I’m talking the natural way you build your ‘likes’. Facebook knows and tracks EVERYTHING and by doing so ranks you against every other page people follow. Your rank and interactions matter the better your scored the more people you will reach (even if they already like you).

Your first line of advertising and interaction with members should be easiest, because these should be the people who liked your page simply because they know and support you. That’s right Mom, Dad, Grandma no matter how embarrassing it may be when they ask you questions on your wall instead of through direct messaging, they’re doing you a favor!! Respond back to them on your wall! Trust me it matters, you will ultimately be asking them to share your posts and encourage their friends to like your page too! These interactions with your new fans matters to Facebook, because unlike your grandmother, Facebook does not care how you know her it simply cares about who she likes(your business) and whether or not you respond to your “fans” in a timely manner, and if she shares your stuff frequently, likes your posts and interacts with your page. The more back and forth you can generate on your page the higher your score is to Facebook. This encourages Facebook to not limit your views because to it you’re someone who is relevant and enjoyed by your followers.

Overlapping point one and two for a second, you should be promoting your Facebook presence everywhere and should be encouraging people to like your page everywhere you go! Organic growth is really the key to looking like a golden child to the Facebook algorithm. Printed materials should list the Social outlets you are on, and should use some sort of call to action(Like Us, Follow Us, etc…) to encourage fandom!

Customers & Messaging

The first thing you should have done when you were in the planning phase of creating your business is identifying your target market. Depending on how specific you got with that description will hopefully make it easy for you to label your customer based on their defining characteristics like age, sex, income, hobbies etc. With a mental image in place of the perfect customer for your business, you need to speak to that person, speak like that person and relate to that person. Follow this practice whenever you are delivering a message to your audience.

People want to be able to relate to your products and feel like you relate to them as an individual. So keep a few simple things in mind when communicating:

  • Highlight and speak to your customers about how your product is going to benefit them.
  • You’re a small business, act like it! People want you to be relate-able, give behind the scenes that are professional and still relevant to your business and audience. Avoid over-sharing personal information on your business page, no one cares what your kids/cats are doing(sorry!).
  • Encourage customer feedback in the form of product usage photos, pioneer a #hashtag of your own and use it always. Tell your customers to use it too, it’s easy to search for you that way!
  • Choose a time to post and try to stick to it. This will require some trial and error and would really be the best idea to use an app to help you scheduling posts. (Hootsuite, Buffer)
  • Over-or-Under Whelm – Avoid flooding your fans news feed with multiple posts consecutively and also, being forgotten about because your last post is a stagnant 3 week old ad.
  • Pay Attention – Utilize the Facebook analytics to track your posts reach and success. Figure out what works and doesn’t work. Recommendations are to use visuals and open ended questions to encourage feedback. More trial and error!

This certainly isn’t everything you need to do in order to create a successful social media presence and ultimately a successful business, but these will definitely get you headed in the right direction.

 

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