Facebook Marketing Step-by-Step Read online

  Facebook allows you to create a separate page for your business. This means that you can create a page and send links to all your target audience to motivate them to subscribe to your page. This is quite different from a regular profile you create because you cannot “friend” anyone here. People merely need to follow your page.

  The goal of a Facebook page for your business is to give you a place where you can provide your customers with information about your products, product descriptions, and any other promotional activities. It will also allow you to interact with customers and consumers and to actively engage your audience in your business.

  Creating a page for your business is easy, but there are several steps to follow:

  Step one: The very first step of the process is to visit facebook.com/pages/create. Once you click on the link, you will be directed to a page where you can start creating a Facebook page.

  Step two: It is important that you carefully fill out all the fields displayed on the screen. Try not to leave too much information blank. You will need to select the type of business, add a profile picture, write a short description of the business, create a username, and fill in the details in the “About” section.

  Filling out the details carefully while creating your Facebook page can make all the difference between a good and a mediocre page. It is important to take your time when creating the page to ensure that the information you publish is accurate. Including the correct details, such as address and phone number, will make it easier for potential clients to find your page.

  Step three: Choose the right category for your business so people can easily find it. You must consider all the different business options offered. These can range from a local business, artist, band or celebrity, brand or product, company or organization/institution, entertainment, or any other cause or community. Go through these options and carefully select one that suits your needs. By doing this, you can ensure that other users can find your page easily.

  Step four: The next step is to create a URL, which is the identifying web address for your page. It is a good idea to include your business name in the URL you create so that the users immediately know where they are being directed when they see the link. You need to make finding your page as easy possible if you want to make the most of marketing on Facebook. The simple way to do this is by selecting the right URL and adding the appropriate information.

  Step five: Now that you have created your page, it is time to start actively using it. Take some time to publish posts or pictures relevant to your business. For example, if you are a restaurateur, you can upload the menu to the page, post pictures of the food items, inform the users about all the different dishes you serve at the restaurant, and tell them about your special menu. Making this information easily accessible to your followers will encourage them to continue following the page, and it may even prompt them to take advantage of what you’re offering.

  Step six: After following the above steps, your Facebook page will be ready to share with a wider audience. Before inviting others to like and follow the page, be sure to check your information to make sure everything is correct. Make any needed changes to make sure your page is as professional as possible. You should also ask a few friends and family members to look at the page and suggest any changes you may need to make. Once everything is done, and you make the necessary changes, you can send invitations to other users. This is as simple as clicking on the “Community” tab and selecting the option to invite your friends to like your page. You can enter a person’s name and then select the “Invite” option. An invitation will be sent to them.

  Step seven: If you have a website for your business, the next step is to add a "Like Us on Facebook” icon to your site. This is important because you need to tell your target audience that you exist on Facebook. You will also need to copy your URL and paste it on all of the other social networking sites that you use for your page. This may include Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. You should also place the link as your email signature so the users know your business is active on Facebook.

  Step eight: There is no point in creating a Facebook page if you don’t use it. Now is the time to become active and start interacting with your audience. Posting interesting content will ensure your audience is engaged and interested in your page. Be sure to vary your content. For example, if you started with pictures, you should start to add some videos. These videos may include demonstration videos or other topics that you think your audience will enjoy. Remember to cater your content to the people who matter most: your followers.

  Step nine: Some brands and businesses tend to hire dedicated teams for managing their Facebook accounts and pages. However, this is optional because you can run your page yourself. Hiring help will only increase the costs involved, and you will have to set aside time to find an ideal social media team. That’s why many people prefer to manage their own pages.

  If you want to make the most of Facebook marketing, then you must concentrate on the content you are posting. Make sure you are using only high-quality images or videos and are using appealing descriptions for the content you are uploading. Don’t just keep uploading pictures and text; instead, try to mix it up a little. Start posting videos, gifs, and stories. You can even take advantage of the ability to go live with Facebook Live. There are several helpful features that Facebook provides, but you must use them correctly in order to fully reap the benefits. This will help you ensure your target audience is interested in the content you are posting.

  Step ten: Establish a posting schedule and stick with it. Even if you are not interested in publishing posts daily, you still need to post consistently. You can choose to publish on different days, but be sure to select posting times based on when most of your audience is using Facebook. When you do this, it increases the chances of your posts appearing on the newsfeed of your target audience. Remember to check the posts even after you have posted them. Interact with your audience and answer any questions they may ask. The point is to be interactive and tell them what they do not know about your business and products.

  Step eleven: Use your Facebook page to try to increase the traffic to your website. You can easily do this by posting the kind of content you know your target audience will like and appreciate. You can also link certain posts to your website, which will encourage people to visit the site. Try to stop thinking from the perspective of a marketer and instead think like your potential audience.

  Step twelve: Take advantage of different Facebook groups to promote your page. Groups differ from Facebook pages because they allow group moderators to restrict who can and cannot join the group. Groups also allow you to send messages to just the people who are members of the group. If you join another group, you can inform them about your page, and you can easily direct traffic to your page. While it may seem effective to join as many groups as possible, it’s best to stick to pages that are relevant to your niche to ensure you are reaching people who will be interested in what you have to offer. For example, if your Facebook page is related to fashion, then it doesn’t make much sense to join a group about finance because members will most likely not be interested in what you are selling.

  Step thirteen: Place paid advertisements on your Facebook page to attract visitors. This step is optional, but it will increase traffic on your Facebook page. Simply put, paid Facebook ads are ads that you create through Facebook and then place strategically in an effort to positively impact your business. This may mean increasing downloads of a certain app or promoting an ongoing deal. The idea of making your own ads may be intimidating, but you will learn more about how to master ads later in this book.

  Those are the primary steps to follow when creating your Facebook page. Keep in mind that your work doesn’t end there; it’s really just starting after you create your Facebook page. You must keep updating it regularly and consistently interacting with your audience to encourage them to keep supporting your business. It is also important to understand the followin
g components of a Facebook page and the available tools.

  Account name and bio

  If you want to create a Facebook page, you must first choose a name that is recognizable and short. You can use the brand name and include the region you wish to target if you have one. For a profile picture, it's best to use some type of graphic de sign or a recognizable character, such as a logo.

  For instance, the Facebook page for McDonald’s can be easily recognized by users because of the name used and the logo. The Facebook page name is McDonald’s, with special pages created for different regions. The profile picture is the classic McDonald’s icon, the double golden arches.

  Like McDonald’s, you must opt for a name and profile picture which will help your target audience recognize your brand.

  The bio on your page is a short description of what your business or brand is about and the purpose you serve. Placing the link to your business website in the bio is the simplest way to redirect the traffic to your website. Therefore, it is important that the hyperlink included in the biography redirects users to the right landing page. Before publishing your page, make sure the hyperlink works properly.

  Create awareness

  Creating awareness of your brand is essential, and this is done through effective marketing. You don’t have to go into this blind, however, and you can use other brands’ successful marketing campaigns to help you understand how to be successful. One way to do this is to figure out your niche, or target, audience.

  Once you find the niche audience you are targeting, check for a similar page or people who are influencing that niche. A simple search on Facebook will help you identify the influencers in the niche. For instance, if you are in the restaurant business, try searching for “restaurants” on Facebook. The results will show you a list of the top trending posts, tags, accounts, and places related to the search. Model your marketing approach after the most successful ones in your niche.

  It's important that you analyze the composition and style of the photos and videos taken by such influencers in your niche to get an idea of the kind of content you must post. The awareness about your business on Facebook will increase when you create content that leaves a good impression on the users.

  It is important to create a strong foundation based on innovative and engaging content. This contributes to the success of your brand on not just Facebook but any other social networking sites you use. Keep in mind that people use Facebook to access original and engaging content that adds some value to their lives. Users don’t access Facebook to see ad campaigns. So, if you want to market on Facebook, you need to tread the fine line between being a good marketer and maintaining a social profile. You will learn more about this in the subsequent chapters.

  Promotions

  Running contests and promotions is a great way to engage your customers. If you're running contests or campaigns, it's best to use Facebook to reach a wider audience. When distributing prizes, it's better to scale the prize based on the engagement shown by the users. If a lot of effort is required, it is better to distribute prizes that will increase the rate of participation and the interest of participants. For instance, Eggo, a frozen waffle company, hosted a two-part contest on Facebook. It was essentially a recipe contest where the entrants had to submit their best recipe for making waffles. The second part of the contest was that the followers of the Eggo page had to vote for the recipe they liked the best and the winner was awarded $5000.

  One of the simplest and most basic contests is the Like and Comment contest. Users can like and comment on photos or videos posted on your brand page, and they enter a contest that is valid for a short period. You can use Facebook Insights to track entries and contact the winners. You can change this contest by asking users to take a picture or use a specific phrase. For instance, you can host a contest where the participants need to post a picture using a specific phrase or hashtag you created. You will learn more about Facebook Insights in the coming chapters.

  When a contest ends, you can publish the winning posts while announcing the winners. When you declare winners and give them a prize which can be something as simple as a shout out, it will encourage other users to participate in any future contents you host.

  When you start attracting the audience and engaging with them by responding to their comments or acknowledging them for liking your content, you are essentially working on developing a good relationship between your brand and the other users or your target audience. Using original content is the best way to increase your reach. If you are using any user-generated content, then please ensure that you seek the permission of the creator before using such content to avoid any legal issues.

  Community management

  If you are active in a Facebook group, you can increase your brand awareness. You will get to know about the brand’s community better when you follow those who are the spokespersons, influencers, partners, and advocates of the brand. However, if you track and respond to comments, you can extend the ongoing conversation. It is always good to reward your followers for being loyal to your brand. Giving them simple benefits such as discounts, promotional codes, gifts, and product samples will make an indelible impression.

  Facebook analysis

  If you want to measure the effectiveness of the content you post, you need to examine two metrics: reach and engagement. It is important to keep track of other data too, but these are the key performance indicators that help assess brand performance on Instagram.

  Reach: This is the total number of people who have seen all the content you have placed on your brand page. The most popular content on Facebook will easily show up when you search for a topic or keyword associated with such content. By installing certain benchmarks for the kind of content you want to post, you can improve the content you publish and easily increase the number of subscribers. These benchmarks will help you create content that appeals to the audience of your brand. If your profile has hundreds of views, you can get more people to follow your brand, increasing your reach.

  Engagement: On Facebook, engagement is measured by the number of likes and comments on a post. You can track different types of data, such as filters and their performance, content, and style of the content that has attracted the most attention, to increase your engagement.

  You will learn more about analyzing and tracking the important metrics on Facebook in the coming chapters.

  Facebook Apps

  Facebook is also available on mobile devices. The user interface is extremely simple and easy to use and will help you navigate through the different aspects of a typical page. Most users check their newsfeed to update themselves about all the posts posted by those they follow.

  Facebook also has various applications that can be useful for anyone running a social media business portfolio. These applications were made for the sole reason of helping businesses have a good social media presence.

  Facebook Groups is one such application. You can create a Facebook group for your product, business, or just your staff. The main purpose of this application is to manage groups easily. A Facebook group helps communicate with all those who are integral to your business or will help you in some way. You can review all the posts and deal with the members; you don’t have to open your Facebook app every time for this.

  The second app is called Facebook Page Manager; it's a must for anyone trying to increase the reach of their page. Managing a page is not simple, and it requires a lot of work. It can be hard to deal with page-related tasks on the regular app. Page Manager has a brilliant and easy to use interface that is perfect for anyone managing a page from their phone. It allows you to customize your page, deal with the settings, and fix any other issues just from your phone. The app really lets you work on the go because you can manage the pages on your mobile phone, use Page Insights present in the app to check how your page is doing, and make any necessary changes. For instance, the app shows information like the content with the highest engagement rate, and you can use th
is information to create content which will appeal to your target audience.

  How Facebook Helps Businesses

  Facebook as a whole is a great way to grow a business, but it also offers smaller features that further allow you to improve your marketing techniques.

  Quickly reach the target audience

  With Facebook, you can reach many people in no time. It's not just about sharing information about your product with all those people; it's about reaching your target audience as quickly as possible. Facebook helps you to reach your target group in the shortest possible time, and it also allows you to customize your audience.

  Ease

  With Facebook, people can easily find your company, your brand, or the products and services you offer. It seems almost everyone has a Facebook account, regardless of their age, and many of those people spend a lot of time browsing the various product pages on the site. Having a Facebook page makes it easier for your audience to find you. This is easier than trying to find the address of your corporate website on the internet.

  Chat rooms

  Facebook offers the opportunity to communicate with your potential customers and existing customers on your Facebook corporate page. Any complaints and problems can be rectified immediately. This helps to maintain clarity in business practice, build trust, and build customer loyalty.

  Low cost

  You can share real-time information about your products and services without worrying about the costs involved. Free advertising is the best form of advertising.