Facebook now has 2.27 billion active users, with nearly 1.5 billion users being active everyday. If we count that, it sums up to just about nearly 5X the population of the United States and roughly 20% of the world’s population. The numbers keep on increasing day by day.
We can now imagine the social influence that may be achieved with the assistance of Facebook in terms of your business. It is not only about the amount of individuals who use Facebook but also about the user attention it has. Globally an average user spends an hour on Facebook. If we consider that an average person sleeps for 8 hours. We are able to say that he spends 7% of his time when he is awake on social media.
So, spending time learning about Facebook marketing is well worth the investment.
How to know if your customers use Facebook?
According to the foremost recent data provided by the Pew Research , we are able that, on average every internet user uses at least one social networking site. Depending on the age, the time youngsters spend on Facebook is comparatively more than that of the adults. If we were to find out the internet social network people prefer the most, Facebook tops the list.
In January 2018, it was found that 68% of Americans used Facebook. The second to top the list of networks was Instagram with 35%. So, it is clear that there is a high possibility of your audience using Facebook. We just have to determine the way through which we will market our business on Facebook.
5 Ways to use set up Facebook for business
1. You need to make a business page and not a personal profile
You need to make a business page for your organization and not a personal profile. A business page may look just like a Facebook profile, but it offers some unique tools to brands and businesses. Your audience can Like your page to receive updates about your products or services in their News Feed, and this is something you cannot do for a personal profile. You can set up your business page by following the instructions given below-
- Head to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create. You need to be logged into your personal account on Facebook, however, your personal information won’t be visible onto your new business page.
Note: Since 2017, facebook started showing admin names for a some categories of pages.
- You need to choose from the subsequent page types – Business/brand or Community/public figure.
- Enter your business details.
- Add brand images –
You need to upload your business profile picture/logo and cover photos. While uploading these pictures, you need to make sure that they fit in the category of the optimum image sizes for Facebook, so that they look their best otherwise facebook will give you the option to crop images for the specific.
According to Hootsuite, Facebook’s recommended formats for best results are as follows –
- Facebook profile picture size –
The recommended size for the business profile pictures is 170 x 170 pixels on desktop, and 128 x 128 pixels on smartphones.
- Facebook cover picture size –
The recommended size for the business cover picture is given as follows ––
- For desktop –
The recommended size is 820 x 312 pixels.
- For smartphone –
The recommended size is 640 x 360 pixels.
- For smartphone –
The recommended size is 400 x 150 pixels.
#2. Complete your brand information –
To complete your brand information, you need to click on Edit Page Info and fill in the following sections –
- Your description –
As your business description, you can write upto 255 words that clearly describe what your business is about and how it helps people.
- Contact Information –
You can fill in all the ways through which you want your audience to be able to reach you. You can include your business website too.
- Extra options-
If you feel that it is relevant to your business, you can also add extra options like, your operating hours, price range and your privacy policy.2. 2.2
#3. Create your Facebook username also known as your vanity URL –
With the help of your business username, people can find your business on Facebook. You can create a username by clicking on Create Page @username, to create one. It can be upto 50 characters long.
Here are some marketing tips for your Facebook’s username –
Choose a search-friendly Page name for your business. In most cases, this will be your brand name.
As long as possible, you must use a consistent business name across all the social networks.
#4. Add a Call-To-Action button –
A call-to-action button helps your audience with reaching out to your business easily. They can also shop for your products or engage with your business. You need to click on Add a Button under your cover photo to set it up.
#5. Review the settings of your Facebook page-
Your Facebook Page settings give you custom control over which audience see what on your business page. You can also understand your privacy and security settings here.
Top 8 Facebook marketing strategies for your business –
#1. Define your audience –
In order to put up a successful marketing strategy for your business, you need to understand who your target audience is.
You need to ask yourself the following questions with regards to your business
- How old are your target followers
- Where do they live
- What kind of jobs do they have
- What challenges do they face
- How and when do they use Facebook
In order to start, you need to understand and follow the basic Facebook demographics. Once you know as to which of your audience uses the platform and how that maps back to your target customer, you can look at the insights of the customers on Facebook. You can do this by finding out more about your customers, like –
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Relationship status
- Location
- Language
- Facebook usage
- Past purchasing activity
This is one of the most significant steps in using Facebook for your business marketing.
#2. Set goals
It can be great if you get a huge number of likes to your business page on Facebook. But, unless those likes do not contribute to your broader plan of marketing, they are of no use. As an effective part of your Facebook’s business marketing strategy, you have to have clear goals tied to your real business objectives. The goals may differ for different businesses, but they should all focus on actions that have a real impact to your business marketing strategy. Your goals could be –
- To generate leads
- To increase conversions on your website
- To improve customer service
These goals are a good place to start off with your strategy. You also need to make sure that your goals are much more specific and they can be measured. Everything you do on your business page—every post, every comment, every ad—should eventually lead towards you achieving your goals.
#4. Plan your content mix –
Once you have set your business goals, you need to create a plan to achieve those goals. You can either follow the 80-20 rule or the social media rule of the thirds –
The 80-20 rule says –
- You must use 80% of your Facebook posts to inform, educate and entertain.
- You must use the other 20% to promote your brand.
This means that the maximum of your posts (80%) should be of value, so that your customers will be willing to learn about your products and services in the next 20% of your posts, which are more focused on sales of the products/services of your business.
The social media rule of the thirds says –
The social media rule of the thirds can be described with the following points. It says –
- One-third your content must have ideas and stories.
- One-third of your content must involve personal interaction with your followers.
- The remaining third of your content can be put to promote your business.
The final part of planning your content according to your business requirements is to know when and how often to post. According to research, the best time to post on Facebook is –
- For B2B Brands – between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
- For B2C Brands – 12 p.m. EST on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday
It may be any business, but it is important to post consistently. Creating a content calendar will balance your distinct content types such as text, images, videos etc. and also keep your posting schedule on track.
#5. Optimize your page for engagement –
In order to achieve the marketing goals that you have set for your business, you need to make it easy for people to find your business page on Facebook. Once they visit your business page, you need to compel them to like your page. You must put some extra efforts in the cover page of your business profile, as it is the first thing people see when they visit your profile.
Next, you need to make people view, like and follow your business.
In order to make people who follow you on other channels, find your Business page, you need to do the following –
- Add a link of your email signature, newsletter and other channels in your business page.
- Add Facebook Like and share buttons on your website and blog to make it easy for people to find, follow, and share your business page in one click.
If you want people to share your content about your business, you need to make sure the content you post to Facebook is highly shareable. Creating valuable and entertaining content that your customers will be happy to share with their connections is the best way to expand the organic reach of your business.
#6. Consider using other Facebook tools –
When all of your Business profile is set up, some tools on Facebook can help you with the marketing strategy, they are as follows –
- Facebook Groups –
In today’s time, a Facebook group can be considered as the new equivalent to your favourite coffee shop or community center. They are a place for people to share new information and ideas. Creating a facebook group for your business, will enable you to share new ideas with your customers about the new products/ services and you can also collect their feedback or grievances here.
Nearly 1.4 billion people use Facebook groups every month. Thus, it is an audience too large to ignore. You can also use Facebook Groups to showcase your business expertise within the industry and provide added value to your customers. This is a great way to build trust and ongoing loyalty of your customers.
2. Facebook Chatbot or Facebook Messenger Bot –
Research shows that on an average, Facebook users exchange more than 20 billion messages with businesses every month. Users expect a business to respond to their queries immediately. When a survey was conducted, a Facebook user said that he would not wait for more than 10 minutes for a response from a business before moving onto another one.
Facebook suggests that businesses must use a Facebook Messenger Bot for the purpose of quick replies to their customers.
3. Facebook Business Manager –
According to Facebook, a Facebook Business Manager is, “a one-stop shop for managing business tools, business assets and employee access to these assets.” It is a tool that allows you to manage the organic and paid Facebook posts within your business.
#7. Incorporate Facebook ads and Facebook pixel –
Just because you post something related to your business on Facebook, doesn’t mean that all your customers will see it. The approximate percentage of customers that your post on Facebook can reach is given below –
- For Business pages with fewer than 10,000 followers: 8.18% organic reach
- For Business pages with more than 10,000 followers: 2.59% organic reach
This is because Facebook’s first priority will be given to posts from customers’ family and friends and then the posts related to your business will be shown to the customer. Facebook Ad’s can help you with this.
- Facebook Ad –
A Facebook ad is a type of content you pay to share with some specific or targeted customers. It is all about getting your business in front of the right customers and thus achieving your business goals.
- Facebook pixel –
A Facebook pixel is a simple piece of code that you place on your business website. It operates as follows –
- It tracks the conversations between you and your customers
- It remarkets your products to customers who have already visited your business website
- It builds targeted custom audiences for the future ads related to your business.
The pixel will start collecting data as soon as you place it on your business website, so you’ll have remarketing and custom audience information ready when you start the first marketing campaign of your business..
#8. Track, measure, and refine –
You cannot just set a Facebook marketing strategy for your business and then forget about it. You have got to track and measure the performance of your business so that you will know the following – what worked and what didn’t work for your business. By doing this, you can improve the marketing strategy of your business in future.
With the help of Facebook Insights, you can measure the following –
- Likes
- Reach (how many customers saw your posts)
- engagement (how many people liked, clicked, shared, or commented)
- which of your posts result in people unliking your Page
Facebook Insights will also help you determine which post types work best for your business, so that you can find out which post is working well for your business and which are not. By following this, you can do successful marketing for your business on Facebook.
