With an advertising audience of 2.14 billion, Facebook is definitely a giant in the social media realm. Focusing your marketing dollars on Facebook marketing campaigns is just smart, especially when you consider that the United States and Canada generate 47% of the platform’s ad revenue.
Facebook may look like it could be a goldmine for the savvy social media marketer but keep this in mind. The average Facebook user spends about 34 minutes a day on the platform. So, that’s how long you have to grab their attention!
So how do you do that? We’re so glad you asked! Here are some 10 Facebook marketing best practices that you can start applying to your company profile right now.
1. Create a Facebook business page that really works
Setting up your Facebook business page requires several steps, but when it is done correctly, it will perform well. You probably already know how to set up a decent business page, but here are some specific tips that will help you make it great.
- Fill out your profile with as much information as you can
- Upload your profile photo
- Set up the CTA button (Sign Up, Message, Learn More, etc.)
- Set up your sidebar tabs
- Choose your category – there are six categories for Facebook business pages. The two that you will probably need to decide on are Local Business and Company, Organization, or Institution. Each has it’s own set us special features so choose wisely.
- URL – Set your URL so that it contains your company name or something easy for your customers and visitors to follow.
There’s a lot more to it, but this is a very good start. From here you can begin adding content and information to the profile.
2. Know your audience like they are family
Before you start talking about your product or service, you need to know who you are talking to. Create a detailed profile of your ideal audience or customer. Sketch out the demographic information on them such as:
- Gender
- Age
- Language they speak
- Where they live (region, state)
- Relationship status
- Children
- Education
- Homeowner or renter?
- Job
Then there are the nitty gritty questions that help you really get to know them:
- How often do they use Facebook and how do they use it?
- Are they new customers or have they purchased from you before?
- If they have purchased from you previously, what did they buy?
- What do they worry about?
- What makes them happy?
- How can your product or service change their life?
Think about other questions that are directly related to your product or service. When compiled, this will give you a much better understanding of your target audience and how you can reach them!
3. Create an editorial calendar and automate most of your posts
Begin your Facebook adventure by defining marketing goals. What do you hope to gain from your campaigns?
Those goals will guide your content and help you stay on track. You can then use that information to create an editorial calendar. This will help you organize and plan your posts so you can stay on track!
4. Use Facebook text posts and photo posts the right way
Yes, video posts are hot right now, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Right now, let’s focus on Facebook’s text posts and photo posts. A text post is text only while a photo post has, you guessed it, a photo attached.
There are tons of things you can do with these posts, but to be honest, more people are drawn to photo posts.
However, there are ways you can use text only Facebook posts that do increase engagement.
They are great for announcements, but they do really well when you ask a question to spark a conversation. Photo posts, on the other hand, are great for communicating information to your audience through the photo, meme, or infographic.
5. The Story about Facebook Stories
Facebook stories is a fairly recent addition to the platform and are very similar to Instagram Stories.
Photos and videos are loaded to the site. The photos are visible for five seconds while the videos are visible for as much as 20 seconds.
After 24 hours, the content disappears completely.
The good thing about Facebook Stories is that they are at the top of the page, above the News Feed and above the posts and are not subject to the platform’s algorithms.
All you need to do is create content that grabs your audiences attention!
6. Get more play with a video post
Video posts get more engagement than photo posts, link posts, and text posts. On average, videos that are from 1 to 3 minutes perform best while those that are less than 60 seconds come in a close second.
And if you really want to increase your impact, add a call to action in the middle of the video!
Now, if you are wondering what kind of video you need to post, well, you have plenty of choices.
Explainer videos do quite well, as do customer testimonials. But a well done, compelling video introducing a new product or service can do pretty good too!
Just make videos that your audience wants to see. Think about the questions they may have or the struggles they are facing and solve them!
7. Build buzz with a Facebook Watch Party
The Facebook Watch Party allows you to screen a video in real-time and invite your followers and friends to view it with you! You can turn it into an event instead of just another Facebook video in the feed.
Say you are launching a new product. You can create a compelling introduction video about it and then invite your fans and followers to “attend” your watch party to see it.
That is a great way to build buzz and get people excited about your business!
You can also go Live on Facebook to do this as well! Tailwind hosts a weekly Live where we discuss marketing education, resources and new product launches.
8. Give your audience a break from sales
When you start posting to Facebook for your business, it might be tempting to make every post about your awesome products and your company information with lots and lots of CTAs sprinkled in. But it’s a fast way to create burnout in your audience, and may result in a lost like!
In fact, this is a huge sticking point for Holly Homer, founder of kidsactivitiesblog.com and proud owner of a 3.5 million member Facebook page. She thinks we often lose sight of the fact that Facebook is a social network when we head to Facebook to promote!
Listen in to her tips on promoting ourselves the right way with organic Facebook marketing below:
Instead, mix up your content a little. Many successful businesses use the 80-20 Rule. They devote 20 percent of their posts to brand promotion and the remaining 80 percent of their posts to entertain, educate, and inform their audience.
Sure, you want to let them know how great your product or service is, but people get tired of that. People also don’t like feeling as if a company is constantly trying to sell them something.
Build relationships with the first 80 percent of the posts and the remaining 20 percent will ring loud and clear. Don’t worry, you will get their attention.
9. Put faces to your brand
Facebook is a people centered platform and for those who remember the (very) early days of this social media giant, it was designed to connect friends and family. It’s original intent really had nothing to do with business or at least advertising businesses.
Even though Facebook has grown and expanded tremendously, those people centric roots run deep.
Adding some posts on your business page that highlight your employees and show fun behind-the-scenes shots will attract attention and get you some likes.
Most of all though, it will bring the humanity of your brand front and center, instead of just pushing your product or service and showing the impersonal face of a company.
Your business is made up of living, breathing humans. Bring them out to play!
10. Create content by your audience, for your audience
Roundups are a fun, engaging, value packed content opportunity. It’s the flip side of putting faces to your brand in that it’s the customers who are getting the highlights. Testimonials as Facebook posts are great too, but this takes it a little farther.
Start with a post asking your followers to share their knowledge or experience. This could be sharing tips for using one of your products or it could be personal stories about how your service saved the day.
Collect the best and compile them into a blog post and share it in a Facebook post. If you really want to connect with your audience, tag your contributors and give them a heartfelt thank you, give them a coupon, or some other little reward.
Inject these tips and tricks into your own Facebook marketing strategy and you’ll see what a game-changer they are!
