Using Facebook to promote your business has a variety of benefits including being a low-cost marketing strategy, and sharing information about your organization. Facebook is also a great way to engage with both existing and potential customers. According to Hootsuite, over 2.8 billion users use Facebook each month. The most popular age demographic of Facebook users are those between the ages of 25-34 based on research conducted by Statista as of December 2021.The second most popular age demographic for Facebook users is ages 35-44. If you are looking to target consumers in these age groups, Facebook could be especially important for your business.
Facebook offers a variety of different post types, including status post, photo post, video post, live post, linked content post, and story posts. According to Hootsuite, the most popular in terms of engagement rate among these various types are video and photo posts. Facebook video and photo posts act as great attention grabbers for potential customers as they are scrolling. An important thing to note is that content should be short and sweet. Most social media users visit their social media sites like Facebook many times throughout the day but for short periods of time, so content creators must create posts that grab viewers attention quickly, before they lose focus. According to Hootsuite, “our attention span is only eight seconds long.” To make your video content count, share it in small bits.
Here are six ways to develop your strategy for marketing on Facebook:
Define your Audience: This is a seemingly simple step that can make or break your success in marketing on social media. By knowing your audience, you will be able to gain a sense for what your users are interested in and create content that engages this audience. A good starting point for defining your audience is creating a buyer persona.
Set goals: When setting goals for your business on social media, you must define what success looks like for your specific organization. Pick things that are specific, trackable and measurable as your goals so that you are able to determine your progress.
Plan your content mix: In planning your content mix, you should determine what type of content will be most effective for your audience. Some examples of this could be educational content, entertaining content and promotional content. According to Hubspot, “a good rule of thumb is to use the “80-20 Rule”: that means using 80% of your posts to inform, educate and entertain, and the other 20% to promote your brand.”
Optimize your Page for engagement: Of the most important metrics a business can track is engagement. This is how much interaction users are having with your content. It is one thing to get users to your page, but getting them to like, share or comment on your page can really help to optimize your visibility to other people who could take an interest in your organization.
Consider using other Facebook tools: Facebook provides several useful tools to help accelerate your business using their platform. These include, Facebook Business Suite, Facebook Groups and the Facebook Chatbot. Of the most important for beginners is Facebook Business Suite. This program allows content creators to plan and program posts ahead of time, view metrics and even create organic and paid search campaigns. This is a very useful tool especially for organizations who are just starting out because of its accessibility and ease of use.
Incorporate Facebook ads: Incorporating ads to your Facebook for business account can help accelerate content in Facebook's algorithm. According to Hubspot, “the algorithm prioritizes posts from users’ friends and family. This means that businesses and brands sometimes just can’t stand out from the crowd.” By boosting posts with ads, users can extend the reach of their content even beyond the organic reach.
Many organizations have had success using Facebook as a tool for business and it is only getting easier! Facebook provides a variety of free tools that allow users to level up their business at any point in their journey without a ton of added costs and fees!