I love snacking, don’t you?
How about your business, does it enjoy the occasional donut or two?
I happen to think it would, granted it will most likely not be a donut but the kind that brings traffic, leads and sales to its funnel, like Facebook.
Facebook is a platform that allows you to connect with customers and prospects for your business. And with 2 billion active monthly users it is no longer a question of is your business on Facebook, because it should be.
Facebook is crucial in content distribution which could be in the form of a post, event, images, videos that you can put up on your business page. Reaching your audience on Facebook could be organic or paid.
As delicious as Facebook sounds, it is borrowed land for your business because you do not own the platform.
This means you have no control over what happens when Facebook changes its algorithm. Your business could be affected either positively or negatively.
The 2018 announcement by Mark Zuckerberg on timeline changes has people running scared for their business. As per the announcement, Facebook will now prioritize posts from friends, family, and groups on the news feed. On the flip side is that it will de-emphasize news articles and anything published by brands.
If you are an entrepreneur, small business owner or part of a larger marketing team incorporate, this update may have you worried about reaching your customers on Facebook to the point where you want to give up on Facebook business altogether.
But worry not, I will give you 3 Facebook features that will help your reach and engage with your target audience even when they do not get to see your updates on their timeline.
1. Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are a great way to reach a targeted audience as it is a group of people coming together with common interests or goals. With a click of a button, you can share a post of your business or service to people you are sure to have a vested interest in what you offer. This is, of course, assuming you are posting to the relevant groups.
Nothing will be less effective on Facebook than randomly sharing posts in groups that are not in your line of interest. No matter how big the group is in terms of the number of members, focus on your target audience. It is not about quantity but quality.
Also, when posting in groups, refrain from always posting about what it is that you are selling. Be a part of discussions that educate and provide value to the members without trying to sell them on your product, you will come out looking like an expert and thought leader.
2. Facebook Messenger
If you haven’t already you better start using Facebook messenger and have an unfair advantage over your competitors. A few facts about Messenger, mind-boggling facts!
60 million business is on messenger, 2 billion messages are sent monthly between users and businesses on messenger and 64% of Facebook users use messenger monthly
Facebook Messenger allows you to interact with your customers quickly and personally all while leveraging on automation and with an open rate of up to 80%!!!
That right there is enough reason to set up a welcome greeting, instant replies and away messages on messenger for your business. You can also run ads on messenger and reap some benefits from that open rate.
Learn how you can get started with Messenger for Business.
3. Facebook Advertising
Advertising on Facebook is not free but it is worth it if you do it right.
This is a strategy that has grown a lot of business throughout the years. If you have a Facebook account you know they ask information of its users such as gender, relationship status, job title, interests, location, date of birth and a lot more.
While all of it is optional information for the user to give and may not seem that valuable to them, it is gold to marketers like you and me.
This is because as the marketer if you know your buyer persona’s age, likes, job title, a location we can choose to target your ad to be seen only by Facebook users that meet these criteria. And this is the game changer. You are no longer shooting in the dark. You get your ad in front of people you know are interested and have the ability to buy increasing your sales tremendously.
Learn how to create Facebook ads for your business.
Now that you have the 3 tools you can use to reach and engage with your audience on Facebook, here are a few pointers on content creation for your Facebook audience without being a slave to the ever-evolving algorithm.
On Facebook, it could be live video or recorded and it does not have to be you on video all the time. You could e.g. have a weekly show, conduct interviews, show behind the scenes of a project, involve the audience with a Q&A, or feature a day in the life of a team member.
As an alternative which is free unlike opening an account, you can decide to submit to your blog to the popular platforms in your line of work. For example, in marketing, there is MarketingProfs, Forbes, Business Insider and the list goes on.
Have a method to the madness e.g. on blog posts, fonts used, heading and subheading, CTA image, all of it. Use a tool like Canva to create banners, social media posts
That is a wrap on this “snack” segment on Facebook for your business, still, a lot more to come and be sure to feed that business page with these tips and watch it grow.
Subscribe to our blog and get upcoming Social Media Snacks and updates (for your business) delivered to your inbox looking like this.