Strategies for Facebook Marketing
Step One: Have a game plan
What do you want your Facebook page to accomplish? What would you consider an actionable success? Some marketing articles encourage you to fish for “likes” but this doesn’t always reflect whether or not your audience is really invested in your business. If you have articles, then you may want clicks and shares; if you have a product, you want readers seeing your updates and going off to your site to purchase. So how do you get this to happen?
Step Two: Share relevant and interesting content
We’ve all seen brands that post pictures multiple times a day that have nothing to do with their services. The problem with this type of engagement is that it is very surface- your audience takes away nothing useful about your business. Instead, include updates about your products and services, your current projects, links to news you are in, or articles that reflect your branding. You should also put up pictures or videos when you can, because a visual element goes a long way on social media.
Step Three: It’s all about the timing
Now that you’ve cleaned up your content strategy, you need to think about what works best in regards to post time and frequency. A good rule of thumb is to post when your audience is actually online (Go ahead and look at your Facebook Insights here), but you can play around with the time to test what works best for you. You can also work your brand image into this- for example, one business I follow has an active, go-getter Facebook identity, so it always posts inspirational or motivational stories in the early morning.
In regards to post frequency, make sure you don’t go to the extremes – no posting six times a day, but don’t just drop off of Facebook for months at a time either. If you can interact approximately once a day (or every few days), that is a workable medium.
Step Four: Do unto others…
You want to have engaged followers, so make sure you respond to your community. That is the point of social media after all. You should also consider allowing users to post to your page. It fosters interaction, and you can always set up your page to block offensive content.
If you have followers who share relevant posts with you, feel free to tag them back! The same goes for other businesses you have worked with or you want to give kudos to. Not only will they appreciate it, but Facebook might reward the interaction too. You can also have a Facebook-only promotion to reward your audience.
Step Five: Reuse the oldies but goodies and boost your best content
While it is a good idea to consistently prepare new and relevant content, sometimes you can bring back old but engaging posts. Just make sure you’re not re-posting fairly current stories. Your audience will notice!
Facebook ads are also a good way to promote your business. Make sure you plan them wisely! Don’t go for too broad an audience, and choose interesting and appropriate imagery, not stock photos.
Step Six: Utilize your other social media
If you have other social media profiles, such as Twitter or Pinterest, don’t be afraid to pull that content into your Facebook page. However, do not forget that your Facebook audience may be different from your other audiences and therefore have different wants. The way to find out? Test, test, test… Some content (and even formatting!) may perform better in one place than another.
Step Seven: Test to find out what’s best
Keep track of your progress and what practices work best for your business. Don’t forget to incorporate analytics into your website to see how much traffic comes from your Facebook page as you put together your strategy.
Social media may be a time-consuming, constant learning process, but when used effectively, it can be a wonderful tool for your business. Use our steps to put together (or improve!) your Facebook strategy today!
