When Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg the original purpose was to engage Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Yale students – 15 years later, it’s quite obvious the social platform is a lot more than that. As of January 2018, the social network had 2.2-billion active users. To put that number into perspective, that’s just over a third of the world’s population.

So how does Facebook tie into Business?

Obviously with the sheer number of users the platform has, the more you market where people are, the more exposure your business gets and in most cases the more money your company will make.  The only trick is that your business page has to be marketed the right way – you can’t, I repeat, you can’t just throw paid ads out and expect the world in return. Here are ways to ensure you maximize your businesses Facebook marketing.

Personalize your Content

Remember Facebook is a “social” platform, not a professional business platform, which means the whole purpose is to make new friends and “mingle,” if you will. Humanizing your brand will pay dividends – so promote behind the scenes or day-to-day aspects of your brand. Think of your own personal Facebook account. Maybe it’s posting a photo (see photo below) relating to current events outside of the business life. This will create engagement (Likes, comments & shares) and build trust because these posts are relatable to people’s everyday lives. Other great examples are promoting company culture, like team outings, events or even in-office birthdays or successes.

Attract People to your Brand

The whole point of marketing on Facebook is to get more customers and build your social presence within your area. There are two main ways you can attract new customers to your business page on Facebook.

1. Join community-specific groups in your city

Facebook is based upon real people, not spammers, and those real people lock themselves into Local Facebook groups specific to their city/town as a means to keep up with current events in their area. These groups are a fantastic way to promote (not spam) your product/service to real locals.

2. Create a detailed/targeted Facebook ad

To effectively promote your business through paid ads you need to ensure there’s research being done.  With Facebook ads, you can choose any audience you want and filter specifics like age, gender, language, and even location. Then to top it all off the social platform allows you to choose which platforms you can cross-promote the ads on (Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger) and to be even more specific you can choose which mobile device(s) can see it. Can’t get more specific than that!

Engage your Audience

With most people on Facebook, they rely on their news feed to find new content and see what’s going on in the world. Think of the feed as the front page of the newspaper, it’s meant for the top stories. To be featured on the “front page” you need to have lots of engagement on your post (Likes, comments, reactions) so the best way to create is by asking questions, posting videos or educating people with new information. Once you start to receive engaging posts, Facebook will begin to trust your business page and showcase it more often on news feeds.

Facebook is meant to be a fun, and interactive platform so make sure your business is being fun and interactive, because once you start to market properly, the social platform will become another stream of income for your business.

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Citations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL

https://blog.influenceandco.com/how-to-use-facebook-effectively-in-your-marketing-strategy

https://www.facebook.com/business/ads