The social media giant was once designed so that American students could communicate, but it’s now developed into a hub for everyone. Users from countries across the world use Facebook as a communication, interaction, and content-sharing tool. As of January 2018, most users came from India, the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil, and these are all major markets for worldwide businesses. From sharing pictures of new babies to advertising special offers, users have the whole world at the fingertips when they log into Mark Zuckerberg’s site.
This access to countless markets is what makes Facebook so attractive to corporate clients and especially to new businesses starting out. As well as being able to communicate directly with customers and build a community, you’re also able to add an approachable, human side to your business. Excellent tools are built into the platform, and this means that you have everything you need to effectively launch your business on social media.
Setting up a Facebook page for your business is easy and straightforward to do, and there are no initial start-up costs. All you need is information about your business, some good pictures to use throughout, and an idea of what you want to achieve. From there, you’ll start to develop your page, run ad campaigns for new customers, and analyse key metrics to boost your social media performance.
Once you’ve got to grips with how Facebook works for businesses you’ll be unstoppable, so what are you waiting for?
Communicate with Potential Customers
While corporate websites are excellent for providing content to your customers and improving your business’s ranking on Google, they’re not the most practical way to reach out to your target market. The huge advantage that Facebook has, is that it’s incredibly easy to engage audiences and respond to their comments and feedback in real time.
Whether they’ve messaged your page, left a comment on one of your posts, or simply liked your page, you’re able to have some form of engagement with them at your convenience. Facebook is with people 24 hours a day, either via computer, phone, or tablet, and this means that meaningful, business-focused conversations can be created and nurtured in a constructive way.
People are online for hours every day, and this gives you lots of opportunities to pique their interest in your business or products. No matter what you’re marketing, there are target audiences for most products, and Facebook is one of the best places to find them.
Learn about Your Customer Base
As well as communicating effectively with customers, you’re also able to learn about them, their patterns, and how best to target them. Facebook Insights and Analytics is the best way to track your customers on social media, and the data that you can get back from this program is astounding. This free tool shows you exactly how your page is performing for customers, tracking likes, page views, reach, and more. This information is split into three types, and these are explained below:
- Page Likes: How Many People Liked Your Page in the Last Seven Days
- Post Reach: How Many People Saw Your Content in the Last Seven Days
- Engagement: How Many People Liked, Commented on, or Shared Your Content in the Last Seven Days
Other insights are also available, including:
- Post Reach
- Visits
- Post Performance
- Video Views
- People
This “People” section is the one that gives you the most information on the customers that you’re reaching, including details on their gender, age, location, and language. The information is invaluable, as you’re then able to target your marketing in a clever, constructive way.
If you have lots of friends and family members that like the page, as small businesses generally do, then you’ll know much of this information already. However, the people that like your page away from friends and family are the ones to focus on. By using analytics, you’re able to understand where to aim your posts for most effect, and you can even see when most of your audience is online if you’re planning on implementing a more rigid posting schedule.
Over 50s are on Facebook for 4 hours per week, whereas Generation X users are online for more than 32 hours. This means that any marketing campaigns are likely to be picked up by younger users, rather than older people. This can feed into the marketing and posting style that you choose, as younger people are typically more likely to respond to more interactive, interesting posts.
Humanise Your Business
One of the primary reasons that people use Facebook is to keep up with what their friends are doing, no matter where they are. In theory, this means that when they’re on Facebook, they’re interacting with friendly people, and your business has the potential to become one of these trusted sources.
Having a business account on Facebook allows you to build a human relationship, where trust is gained through the content you post and the communication channels you open. Depending on your posting style, the tone of voice, and your response frequency, you have the potential to make serious, lasting relationships, and these are proven to be the ones that lead to sales and conversions most regularly.
Build an Engaged Community
One of the best ways to reach customers on social media is by building a community around their needs. While Facebook Pages are effective in displaying information for customers, people may not engage with them in the way that you’d like. This is where the community you create can become your most effective tool.
If you’re looking to create a space where customers can feel included, a Facebook Group may be the best place to start. These groups are most effective because they are places that lots of people can contribute, rather than being a place that customers can like, message, comment on, or share a page.
By building a community, you’re able to effectively garner opinions on your company and learn more about customer wants and needs. It also makes your company seem more approachable, as a group shows that you’re open to talking with customers directly.
Discover Facebook’s Built-in Tools
One of the big advantages that Facebook has, is that it has lots of tools pre-built-in for businesses using Facebook. We’ve detailed some of these tools below, and added a short explanation to show you how they can help you:
Pages API
The Pages API allows you to look at and update page information, check on posts, and make settings changes on your business page. This means that you can react to whatever is happening, as well as posting effective communications on the go. By doing this, you’re able to ensure that your page is constantly pushing out fresh content.
Marketing API
Working in a similar way to the Pages API, the Marketing API allows you to quickly and easily create ad campaigns, bid on ad auctions, and manage some of the more creative parts of your page. By combining your data with Facebook’s targeting capabilities, you’re able to market much more effectively, easily, and completely.
Facebook Analytics
Typically, you can only see a limited amount of data about the visitors to your website. However, Facebook takes these deep data insights a step further with Analytics. As well as displaying the number of people who have visited, liked, and engaged with your page, it also gives you a more in-depth look at who they are. These details include:
- Unique Visitors and Changes in the Last Seven Days
- Conversion Rate as a Percentage
- Cohorts, to Help Maximise Impact
- Patterns, Trends, and Anomalies
Boost Your SEO!
It should go without saying that having a professional presence online is good for your overall visibility. Your Facebook page is just one branch of your online presence, but it has the potential to be one of the most important. Some of the ways in which Facebook can help your SEO include:
- Building Links through Shares
- Directing Traffic to Your Website
- Attracting New Audiences
- Improving Site Visibility
As with a website, your new Facebook page needs to be properly optimised to work effectively, and we’ve got some top tips for you.
- Use Keywords Effectively
- By properly using keywords, you’re more likely to appear when customers are searching for terms within Facebook.
- Since this content is going to be relevant, customers are more likely to read more and this could lead to a sale.
- They’re also more likely to stay on your site, and this reduced bounce rate while boosting your ranking.
- Optimise the Facebook URL
- If possible, your Facebook URL should reflect your business name.
- This adds uniformity and ensures that your name is memorable for customers.
- The other reason for doing this is that it avoids the generic, numeric URL that Facebook creates as standard.
- Focus on the “About” Section
- The “About” section on your Facebook page is the most important place if you’re looking to boost your SEO. In this section, you can add relevant keywords, your company name, and your location. These are all things that customers look for, and this is the best place to add them initially. Keywords show up when customers look for them, your company name is visible if people know who you are, and your location indexes you for Facebook’s local searches.
- Complete Your Business Information
- Ensure that your customers can find out about your business by filling out all of the information.
- There’s a lot of boxes to fill, but each one shows something different to potential customers.
- By filling in the boxes with helpful information, you’re more likely to keep customers and point them towards your website.
People Are on Facebook Every Day!
Depending on age, people spend between 4 (over 50s) and 32 hours (Generation X) per week on Facebook. From seeing what their friends are doing to trawling through selling pages, people find it hard to not use Facebook to fill in their free time. This gives you and your company a great opportunity, as your market is already in the area that you’re looking to enter.
One of the huge advantages of social media, and Facebook, in particular, is that people are already waiting to discover new things. Social media is now one of the most popular ways to search for local businesses, restaurants, and more, and this is where your business can make a real impact.
By following the advice given above, including using keyword-rich content, completing your business information, and targeting your campaigns using information from analytics, you’re able to tap into this market.
What Are You Waiting for?
In essence, Facebook gives you a lot of things that a website can’t, including:
- Instant Communication with Customers
- More in-Depth Analytics
- Targeted Content Production
- On-the-Go Creation of Marketing Materials
These added things make Facebook one of the most important arms of your business. It has the potential to draw customers in and point them to your website, and this is something that can’t be overlooked. If a website and a Facebook page work in tandem, the results can be amazing for your business.
Marketing on Facebook is simple, easy, and, for the most part, free, which most websites cannot compete with. You’re in complete control of what you post, the time that you post it, and the audiences that you want to aim for. Facebook is a flexible way to reach customers, and we’d love you to discover everything it can do for you and your business.
Take control of your content and online presence with a high-quality business Facebook page today.