The 7 Best Facebook Marketing Tips You Need to Know

Facebook can be a great way to market a small business to the local community. As recently as last year, there were 2.6 billion monthly active users. That makes it the largest social network used around the world. In the case of using it to reach a local market, Facebook can allow you to reach a larger audience and attract customers away from your competitors. Here are some of the best Facebook marketing tips you can use to build up your small business.

1. Be strategic with posting.

When posting on your company’s social media page, you shouldn’t just post on it just to post. All of your social media content should have some kind of purpose. You think about the actions you’ll want your audience to take as a result of seeing your post. When considering the next update you write, look at your Facebook Insights, and see what content has typically been popular. Use that as a guide when posting on your page. Additionally, check the pages of your competitors and analyze the content that has been successful. Attempt to recreate that content in a unique way.

2. Create an attractive cover.

While you can choose to put up your business logo as a cover, you might miss an opportunity to create one that really engages your audience. Consider looking into putting together a video cover for your page. You could arrange some short clips of what happens in your business in a day. You could also put some clips of pleasant customer interactions or your employees being happy to work there. Using a video cover can be a great way to highlight your small business’ culture and brand.

3. Plan out your content.

Just posting day to day without any kind of plan can quickly get overwhelming. Having a calendar and schedule can make it easier to strategically post each day at specific times of the day. Use an online tool like Trello to pre-plan all your posts for the month. Then, preload the content into a tool like Buffer, which will auto-post your content for you. Using these tools will allow you to focus on other important work with your business. You’ll only have to log in to check how your content is performing and respond to your followers’ comments.

4. Go live.

Potential customers enjoy getting to see casual content in video format. You can use Facebook’s Go Live, too, and show your followers a behind-the-scenes look of your business. It can be unscripted and focus on a general part of your company that’s interesting. Examples of live feeds you can consider doing include sharing customer testimonials, showcasing new products, doing tutorials, and many other ideas. Once you finish your live video, you can save it and feature it on your page for future visitors to find later.

5. Custom audiences

Running ads doesn’t require a large expense to do effectively. All it takes is getting your posts seen by the right people through targeting. Facebook provides you tools to create a custom audience that your ads can be shown, too. It’s helpful to have a good understanding of the demographics associated with your business. Once you set up the ad, you can use the Facebook pixel on your website to focus on a certain behavior you want to be the outcome of your ad. You can build a custom audience based on visits and engagements on your page, the number of people who watch your video, subscribers to your newsletters, and a variety of other ways. Alternatively, you could have Facebook create an audience of people matching your existing audience’s behaviors and interests or your own customer list.

6. Friendly interaction

Communicate with your followers as if they were your own friends on Facebook. Humanizing your brand in this way will make more people interested in engaging with your page. One tactic you can try is reaching out to your followers with no specific purpose of selling them anything. You could ask how they’re doing and just check if the product or service you provide is doing well for them. When you give value to your followers without anything in return, it helps build a lasting relationship. 

Additionally, in accordance with Robert Cialdini’s reciprocity principle, they’ll feel more like doing something nice in return, such as purchasing one of your products or service. Similar to how people don’t enjoy those on Facebook who always talk about themselves, they also don’t enjoy a brand that always promotes itself. It’s wise to also have your team read every comment and respond to them as soon as possible. The responses should be detailed and thoughtful. You can further humanize your company by having people sign off every reply with their first names.

7. List your page on Facebook maps.

Perhaps you’ve once used Facebook’s “check-in” tool to mark yourself as having visited somewhere. It’s important to know that you can use that same tool with your business as well. Whenever a customer checks in to your location, the person’s timeline will display their check-in to your company and link to your brand page. To make this happen, you need to have your company listed under the “Local Business or Place” category.

Customers can be encouraged to check in at your business location by offering them points or discounts every time they do it. If one of your customers that does this happens to have 100’s of friends on Facebook, and most of them are locals, that can be great targeted visibility for your brand. People will also be influenced to trust shopping at your business more since one of their friends was a customer.

Facebook has been a useful tool for many businesses trying to market themselves and build their customer base. All of these tips can be useful for helping your company expand its visibility and become more profitable. Constantly experiment with different techniques, and take time to learn more about digital marketing from this agency in Raleigh, North Carolina.