A few weeks ago a friend who owns a business asked me if we could meet for lunch. He had some questions about using Facebook to promote his business and wanted more information.
I accepted and looked forward to meeting with him. We hadn’t talked for some time and it was a great excuse to connect.
After we talked a bit he asked me what I would do if I was just getting started with Facebook marketing and I only had a small budget for marketing.
I’ve had other people ask me this too, so I thought that you might find what I told him interesting as well.
Here is what I would do if I had a small business and wanted to use Facebook to promote it.
First, let me clarify. There are two separate uses of Facebook.
One Is organic, which is the unpaid exposure you get when you post, comment or share.
The other is the paid ads side of Facebook. With paid ads, you can reach out to millions of people even if you have no followers.
This article is all about organic Facebook strategies.
The better you get at organic strategies and implementation the better your ads will do.
Step One:
The very first step is knowing what you want to achieve.
- Do you want to get new customers?
- Do you want your existing customers to buy more from you?
- Do you want your existing customers to come back more often and stay connected to you longer?
All of these are possible, just not at the same time.
Step Two:
Create a Sales Oriented Facebook Page.
This means you’ve designed your page in such a way that people are encouraged to find you from your Facebook page.
A Sales oriented Facebook page includes a great cover photo with a call to action, a profile picture that your audience recognizes, an about area filled out completely, and great videos and pictures that engage your audience.
I’ve written about what makes a sales oriented Facebook page previously in more depth. Click Here to read that article.
You need the Sales Oriented Facebook Page to work from. Every interaction you have on Facebook leads back to your page.
Step Three:
Post consistently.
The people who have Liked your page get used to seeing your posts in their newsfeeds, but if you don’t post or stop posting, all you have is one of those exercise machines in the basement that you hang clothes on.
Once you put posting on Facebook into your routine it can be done fairly easily, but if you stop, getting started again takes much more effort.
I recommend posting a minimum of 3 times a week to show consistent activity, but I recommend a minimum of once a day for any kind of organic exposure, and multiple times a day if you’re serious about growing your presence organically.
Regular posting will ensure that your audience has a better chance of seeing you.
As you get more interaction on your Facebook page, Facebook’s algorithm will show your posts to more people. Currently, Facebook favors reactions more than comments and Facebook Likes when your post is shared. However, this could change at any time and without notice.
Step Four:
Grow your Facebook Likes.
Yes, you heard that right.
I put this after posting consistently, because if you get people to come to your page and they’re looking around and the last post happened six months ago, do you think they’re going to Like your page?
Not likely.
When you’re growing your Likes, make sure they are legitimate Likes from people who may be interested in what you offer.
You do this by targeting existing customers and people who are interested in products or services that you offer.
Each of these Likes have a value far in excess of being a vanity number to look at.
And yes, it feels good to go to your Facebook page and see that hundreds or thousands of people “Like” you, or your page.
The value in these Likes is that people have self-identified as potential customers. Many times when we’re promoting items using Facebook ads, we target our Facebook fans and they usually respond better for less money than other audiences do.
Also, every Like you get is an endorsement to the “Likers” friends. Yes, you can target friends of your fans and this audience consistently responds well to any ad that you show them.
When this group sees an ad, it says at the top of the ad, the name of the friend or friends who Like this company. When I see that, it makes me stop and look at the offer. After all, if my friends Like something, there is a good chance that I will too.
Every Like you get can bring you 100, 200, or more potential customers.
How is that for creating value from Likes?
Some time ago I created a tool 22 Ways To Grow Your Facebook Likes. Click Here to get it. You’ll find many ideas you can use to grow your audience with this free tool.
Step Five:
Now that you have an audience, start mixing in information about what you’re doing in your business.
Talk about:
- Events you’re having
- Sales
- New classes
- New products
- How to use your products
- People who have had success
- Testimonials from happy customers
- Charities you support
- Good you do in the community
- Etc
Once you start looking into how you can use Facebook, more and more ideas will come to you.
The key to being successful with Facebook is to use a mixture of posts. Some of the posts can be a text post, but you’ll want pictures and video on your page too.
The more video you use the faster you’ll see results.
The video doesn’t have to be you talking on camera.
It can be shots of your store or place of business, it can be testimonials, or it can be a photo slideshow with you narrating over top of them.
There are many options for video. Look for opportunities to create videos and before long you’ll be comfortable making them.
The key to succeeding here is to use a proper blend of promotional posts with informational fun posts. You can post promotional posts once a week as long as you have other posts too.
If you’re posting multiple times a day you’ll find you can mix in promotional posts two or three times a week and you’ll get a good response.
Check Your Results:
Facebook gives you many tools to see how your posts are doing.
On each post, you’ll see the reach, reactions, comments, Likes, and shares just to get you started.
Scanning this will show you what topics are popular with your audience. Do more of what’s working and replace what’s not working.
In the insights tab at the top of your page, you’re going to get information about your Likes.
You’ll be able to see where your Likes are from, their age, gender, and more.
You’ll also be able to see when your fans are on Facebook, which posts have the best reach and engagement, and you can sort your posts so finding which are best is easily done inside Facebook.
There is a plethora (fun word to use) of information about your fans in your insights tab. Make sure to check it out regularly.
Step Six:
Relax and have fun!
Remember, Facebook and social media is supposed to be fun.
Don’t get uptight about every post. If you put one up and it doesn’t work as well as you hoped, put up another one later that day; if that works, put up more like it.
Remember, Facebook moves fast.
https://youtu.be/ejool9lkXw0
Working on Facebook can become your favorite part of the day. Make sure you have a way to track your results, so that you know the time spent is being invested in helping your business succeed.
As with any strategy that brings success, it takes some practice. Put in the time to learn what works organically and you’ll be on your way to seeing faster results when you start paid advertising.
This should get you going. After a few weeks of using this strategy, investigate what you can do to add paid Facebook advertising into your arsenal.
Take what I’ve given you here and get started creating your Facebook Marketing Machine.
Have a great day!
For an in-depth look at what an entire Facebook marketing system looks like, sign up for my FREE Masterclass on Facebook marketing. You can sign up here: Go Social Experts Facebook Marketing Masterclass. This free class is a 5-day video course with a video for each day, which goes into detail about the five steps for creating a profitable Facebook marketing machine. Each day a new video will be delivered to you via email.
Brian Hahn