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Facebook is an integral part of today’s marketing plan and most marketers understand its importance. However, there is still a lot of doubt about how effective it is in generating results. This is probably because most of the marketers are yet confused about how to proceed with Facebook marketing and here is our detailed guide to the same.
Audience identification
Before you proceed further, you must get an idea of what audience you want to target through your FB marketing efforts.
- What is their age?
- Where do they live?
- How often they access Facebook?
- What kind of jobs they are practicing?
You would have to understand the manner in which Facebook demographics operate in order to derive the benefit of the same. It is quite tempting to get in as many likes for your page as possible however that may not be very beneficial in the long run. Have a look at Facebook audience insights to know the actual demographics of the people you are trying to target.
Goal setting
Before you move ahead, you would have to figure out what you are trying to gain after you have started the Facebook campaign. You may want to generate leads, increase website conversions, or better your customer experience. Whatever you post and comment upon should actually work towards promoting your goal. Prepare a mission statement for your brand and make sure that everything happens in synchronization with the same.
Marketing On Facebook with Pages
Create your own business page
Your Facebook is like an online identity that you have developed for your brand. It does not take much investment to create a Facebook page and the options you can experiment with it are multiple. There are a few things here that need to be strictly followed:
- Choose a fan page name that is consistent or related to your brand name.
- Use it’s about section to share with your customers everything you deem necessary.
- Place enticing photos as your cover and profile pictures as they have the ability to grab attention.
- Finally, add a CTA (call to action) button which forces your customers to move ahead with the purchase.
Optimizing and promoting the page
There are various techniques using which you can link up with your customer base. One is a simple text post where you can share something intriguing about the product or ask a question to evince interest.
Next could be a photo post where you can share the details of the product in visual form or maybe add an infographic or illustration. Whatever you use, be assured that the photo post would get responses as opposed to a post without photos.
Video posts are worthy of grabbing attention as even a small look at them is sufficient to make the customer stop. People spend considerable time viewing videos on Facebook and if you want quick results you need to experiment with this mode.
Lastly, you can also create live videos of events like new product launches or any other occasion that should be shared with your customers. As many people participate in your live video, the better it is for you.
Monitor the content
For your marketing plan to be successful, you would have to define the kind of content you want to be uploaded. There is an 80-20 rule that you must be aware of. As per the rule if you want your strategy to be successful 80% of the time you must educate your customers and only 20% time you must be promoting your brand.
Facebook penalizes brands that are actually just promoting their brand endlessly and if you want to evade that you should achieve a balance between the same. You also need to find how often you need to post in order to grab attention without going over the top. Normally the best time to post is on Thursday and Friday between 1-3 pm but this can vary as per your product.
Marketing to increase the visibility
Moving on, you need to get some visibility for your brand and that mostly happens through likes and follows. The first step to do that is to make your page present wherever you think your customers may visit. This includes your website, email signature, newsletters and any other place.
Another fact that you need to pay attention to is to make your content shareable. This means that there should be value to what you are posting online. If the customers find it worthy they would move ahead and share getting you more likes in the process.
Lastly, the page you have created should be updated on a daily basis. If there are gaps between your posts there are chances that the customers would get bored and move on from your page never to come back.
Facebook group
Now that you have a group of people interested in your brand, why not give them a common platform to engage with each other. The Facebook group is one such place and when you create one the users get an opportunity to share and discuss things.
By setting up a group you get to know what your customers think about you and how you can work on improvements. You can also use your group to share the expertise you have so that your customer base is able to use it for their benefit.
Creating and optimizing a Facebook group
Creating a Facebook group may be simple but deriving maximum benefits is not so easy. Mentioned below are a few tips you may use to creating and optimizing it.
- Go to the create group option on your Facebook account and choose the goal that you wish to achieve through this group.
- Next, give your group a name that matches your brand name or its purpose. You also need to set the privacy settings i.e. closed group and public. If you have a brand group then you must make it closed so only a select few get to enter and they feel the benefit of being included in an exclusive group.
- Write a description to the group which informs the users about what the aims and goals of this group are. Here you can also set any rules that you may want users to follow,
- Last you have to optimize the group’s settings. Here you have a lot of experimentation to do. There would be various group types available but you must choose custom as that best matches your purpose. You may customize the web and email address of your Facebook group. Emails that are sent to that address are marked as posts on your Facebook group.
- You can also set posting permissions i.e. only admin can post or anyone can do so. Apart from that who would approve the posts. If you are just starting you can take the task on your own but if the members increase you might need help in this.
Facebook ads
Once you have the hang of your targeted audience, your goals and have garnered some attention through likes and associations you can use Facebook ads to build up the frenzy. However, despite being highly cost-effective they cannot yield results until you know how to hook your customers.
Why Should I Use Facebook Ads?
Here are the some major benefits to promote your business with Facebook:
- Facebook has a broad audience and suitable for any business.
- Facebook has advanced features to target audiences for your business. That’s why Facebook ads are the number one platform to reach and acquire new customers for brands. most of the brands and businesses around 72.5%, use facebook ads for holiday sale promotions to target new customers.
- It is a cost-effective channel than others like Google Ads. Sometimes (especially during the Hoiday black Friday sales) Fb CPC cost increases rapidly to 140% because of the high competition. But it still remains cost-effective than other channels.
How to create Facebook ads
A small yet catchy headline, visually enticing picture and few lines of information are enough to act as clickbait. To run a Facebook ads campaign there are a lot of parameters like budget, number of impressions, target audience, and duration of exposure that you would have to specify. The Facebook ads manager and power editor are your tools while doing so and can contribute to you creating a highly successful advertising campaign.
Types of Facebook ads
Let us have a quick view of the types of Facebook ads you can use for your brand promotion strategies. Creating them is not as tough as you find all the details in the Facebook ads manager and guidance is provided alongside.
- Video ads- In situations when you need to showcase the features of the product and draw attention.
- Image ads- Use highly aesthetic visuals to make your customers click and reach your website and complete the sale.
- Collection ads– Display multiple items from your collection to give a variety of options to choose from.
- Carousel– A compilation of 10 or fewer images or videos and each having a link of its own.
- Slideshow-With the help of motion, sound, and text create a story related to your product.
- Instant experience- A full-screen mobile compatible experience related to your ad.
- Offers– Any discount ads which you would want to share with the customer.
- Post engagement ads– Increase the number of people seeing your post by giving it a boost.
- A page like ads– Ads specifically created to get more likes for pages and can involve the use of image or video.
- Event responses- Have an event to promote then this is the ad you must use. Apart from informing customers about the event, you can also get their feedback once the same is over.
Track your achievements
Finally, you would have to track how your Facebook marketing campaign is proceeding. Facebook insights give you an in-depth analysis of what worked in your favor and what did not. You can now work upon improving the factors which were no responsive and strengthen those which were yielding results. Once you get the hang of the same, you would know how to achieve the balance between both the elements and achieve a successful Facebook campaign.
Conclusion
When it comes to Facebook marketing, there are no set rules to follow. Success comes only after careful analysis and strategy matching and takes time to achieve. However, the best part is that you can start your Facebook campaign any time and that too without any major investment from your side. Just use the above points to gain a strong foothold in the minds of the consumer. With time you would get an idea of which parts to focus your attention on and it would be smooth sailing for you after that.
