All of us know that Facebook is a great place to reach new customers and grow a business. You must have heard crazy Facebook stories like, for example, “I had just put my stuff on Facebook, and I was surprised to see the result. After six months I quit my job and now it is my full-time job! All these are fine, but it is not the case with everyone.
There are many people and small businesses who have a different story to narrate, like “We tried Facebook marketing, but didn’t get positive results.” There are a few ways by which you can attain profit from Facebook, but you must have realistic goals and prepare yourself for success. Here are the top Facebook marketing tips for small businesses. But before getting into the top Facebook marketing tips, let us understand why is Facebook an important marketing tool.
Why is Facebook an Important Marketing Tool?
When compared with other social media platforms, it is proved that Facebook is the biggest and the most powerful social media channel. It has more than 2 billion active users every month and more than 1billion active users daily. And the best part is they grew this big within 13 years only. Although Instagram and YouTube are trying hard, Facebook remains at the top.
About 93% of marketers admit that they use Facebook advertising daily. That represents around 3 million businesses that make use of Facebook for advertising purposes. Here are the top Facebook marketing tips for small businesses. And yes, they work.
Important Facebook Marketing Tips for Business
1. Select the right category for your Facebook business page- It is one of the first and the most important Facebook marketing tips you should create a business page, not a personal Facebook profile. Your business page must include:
a. Profile picture
b. Sign up CTA!
c. Sidebar tabs
These elements play a significant role in the future.
You must create a profile under a certain category. When it comes to Facebook, it has six options. For many of you who are reading this, you will possibly come under the Brand categories or Local Business. Choosing the right category is one of the significant Facebook marketing tips. It matters as each category comes with a set of different features.
For example, local businesses will have a segment for physical location listing whereas an online brand will not have that. This plays a vital role for those who want to raise brand awareness.
2. Choose the right URL- It is another one in the list of important Facebook marketing tips. There are different ways to optimize your page after you have created it, but the first important thing you must do is choose the right URL.
This will offer a simple-to-read page link that can be posted in other places. While marketing is your objective, the reason we recommend using the right URL is that it is important for SEO.
Your profile page is not just searchable on Facebook when you use the right URL but is also more searchable on Google. Google will link the URL to the focus keywords of your site. Apart from these, it looks professional, which is never a bad thing. Isn’t it?
3. Post with an aim- Small businesses must be more careful about how they communicate with their target audience. It is one of the vital Facebook marketing tips to keep in mind. You cannot randomly post things on Facebook and hope that somebody will see them.
You must post with an intention and then later decide what you will do with that post in simple words, deciding whether you want to boost it with budget or not. Use Facebook Insights to find a good posting rhythm and a content mix.
4. Optimize your photos- The next significant Facebook marketing tips for small businesses is to get a high-quality photo for the profile picture. Facebook and almost every social media site are highly cinematic.
If you are a brand, you must use the logo of your brand as a profile image. Make sure you choose the right image for your cover photo.
5. Make use of customized Facebook Tabs- Remember, we had mentioned the small sidebar tabs at the beginning of the article? They can be customized. Customizing those tabs is one of those Facebook marketing tips that most of us forget. It is important for these reasons:
a. You can include all the important information about your brand.
b. You can use it as another form of CTA.
c. It helps in answering questions that the users might have in their minds before they purchase.
6. Follow the “70-20-10” method- After you have optimized your profile, now is the time to curate content. Do not stick to one sort of content. This is the time when you can test with different formats that your target audience will love.
Find out which type of post will seek the most engagement. If you are facing difficulty in finding the right type of content to post on your Facebook page, better to follow the 70-20-10 rule, which says:
a. 70% of the time, post unique content
b. 20 % of the time, post content related to your followers.
c. 10% of the time, post-self-promotional content
The main motto is to post different types of content every time. Have a mix of callouts, announcements, questions, related to your industry.
7. Always use a content calendar for posting content- To plan your content postings effectively, you must use a content calendar. It is one of the effective Facebook marketing tips to boost your efforts while reducing the time you would rather spend on Facebook marketing.
You can plan all your content at a time and by using a content scheduling program like Sprout Social or Buffer, you can set it and forget about it. But do monitor your posts and you must focus on community management too. Your audience will love it.
8. Build a Facebook group- Build a Facebook group, but remember, not for promotional purposes, but for exchanging information related to your business. Creating a group is one of the vital Facebook marketing tips for small businesses.
For instance, if you have a business that sells essential oils, you can make a Facebook group exclusively about pet owners who are trying aromatherapy.
The point is to find a niche within your audiences’ interests and offer them a platform to connect. As the group grows, you can start sharing your content, like relevant whitepapers or articles. Do not use your group to promote any sales.
9. Post videos, preferably live videos- Another one in the list of important Facebook marketing tips for small businesses is to post video content. Studies have found that Facebook users spend more than 100 million hours seeing videos every day.
The popularity of videos keeps on increasing. If you are planning to invest in any kind of content this year, be it in the video. Though, there are a few important things that you should keep in mind while making videos for Facebook marketing.
a. First, about 85% of Facebook users will end up watching videos by switching off the sound. This makes captioning the videos important for engagement.
b. Second, nearly 80% of users are frustrated when the videos auto-play sound, so make sure that you set up the videos correctly before posting.
If you cannot create videos, go for Facebook Live. Using this option, you can broadcast live videos of your choice through a mobile device.
10. Use Facebook Page Insights to analyze your content- Posting high-quality and relevant content is one of the important Facebook marketing tips. Another important part is to monitor the metrics to find current trends so that you can write content according to the recent trends that audiences are looking for.
The best tool for doing this is Facebook Page Insights. This will tell you how your page performed in the last 7 days, including:
a. Page likes- Measures the total number of likes along with new likes.
b. Post reach- Calculates the number of new views on your posts as well as page.
c. Engagement- Calculates the number of new people who are engaging with your posts and page.
Conclusion
Despite the continuous changes in Facebook’s algorithm, it is a great marketing tool, especially for small businesses. The thing that matters the most to achieve success is to focus on both paid ads and organic reach.
Another important thing to consider while posting on Facebook is that you must optimize.
Optimize your page, optimize your images, optimize your videos, and optimize your links. Optimization is everything.
Ensure that the content you post on Facebook matters and you get results.
Let us know what Facebook marketing tips for small businesses do you follow to engage your target audience.