It's not about being everywhere on social media. Engaging your best customers is key to social media marketing. This means sharing useful, relevant and valuable content. It can be difficult to choose which social media platform to use, especially with new platforms constantly being created.
Your industry and your audience will determine your social media strategy. Facebook is a good place to start. Facebook is the most used social network in the world, with over 2.7 million active users. It will allow you to engage with your followers and offer useful content that can help them make a purchase decision.
These are five reasons Facebook is essential for small businesses:
- Increase brand awareness and trust.
You need to promote your business, regardless of whether you are a baker, a law office, or a construction firm. This will help you get more customers and grow your customer base. Social media is a great way to reach potential customers, as so many people use it. If someone stumbles upon your company while scrolling Facebook they will be able to click through to your site and find out more about you, your company's help, and why they should work with you.
Even if someone visits your FB Business Page but isn't ready for a purchase decision, they still can benefit from the awareness content that you share. These could include landing pages with gated PDFs and blogs, as well as links to industry websites.
These pieces will help people get to know you better and to trust you as an informed, helpful resource that isn't always trying to sell. They might also be more inclined to choose a company that they trust and areready for purchase.
- Advertise to your top customers.
Facebook's News Feed displays the most relevant content to users. This means that only 0.5% of your existing followers will actually view your posted content. You can also create a social-media ad strategy if you want to reach potential clients. Facebook ads are an affordable marketing option that can reach your target audience and provide measurable results.
How can you target your ideal audience? People can create a Facebook account and provide information such as their age, gender, address, interests, and location. facebook certification will then analyze the content that they share and engage with, to help them identify their interests and show them content that they might be interested in. This information can be used to create Facebook ads only for your target audience.
The average cost of an ad on Facebook is . In late 2020, it fell by 9%. Additionally, the average user clicks on 12 ads per month. People see and click ads and can be a part of your marketing strategy.
- Increase SEO and Engagement
Posting to your business pages won't usually bring you new business, as we have already mentioned. It can generate additional business for existing customers. This is possible through useful content. It can lead to higher search engine optimization (SEO), and greater engagement between you, your Facebook followers, and you.
Google and other search engines look at the content that you post to your Facebook Business Page and how people interact with it (e.g. by liking, clicking and/or sharing it). You can drive more visitors to your pages by sharing content from your site. Search engines consider this a sign that you website contains useful, relevant content that people are interested in reading and interacting with. This can result in higher SEO rankings or being higher up Google's results pages.
Great (and consistent) content will increase engagement on your Facebook Business Page. You can reach customers every day by sharing videos and posts regularly. Engage your existing followers by asking them questions, sharing your posts and allowing them to leave reviews about your business on Facebook.
- Get in touch with your followers.
Facebook will allow you to interact with customers one-on-one and share useful information. They can also share more information with them. You can learn more about them by inviting their comments, feedback, and interactions.
Your company will feel more like a community if you make an effort to interact with your followers. Many shoppers today are looking for more than just information about products and services. They want to know what your core values are, what charities you support, and how your company culture works. If you share these things on your Facebook Business Page in a professional manner, people with similar values, passions or mindsets will be more likely to connect with your business and even become your customers.
- Analyze useful metrics.
After you have started to market your business on Facebook, analyze the post and ad performance. This allows you to see which content is most useful, relevant, and interesting for your customers. Analytics can help you adjust your social media strategy to improve audience engagement, if customers don't like a particular type of content or a specific time for posting.
Log into Facebook to access these analytics. Click Insights on the top menu. This will bring you to an overview of all that has happened on your Facebook Business Page over the last day, week, and month. The metrics can be analyzed, including:
- Which time of the day is your target audience most engaged?
- Types of content that you have shared (videos and other resources, etc.
- How people interacted with your content (likes and comments, shares, etc.
- How many people clicked through to your site from social media?
- Which content was most popular (and least) with your audience?
Now that you understand why Facebook is important for small businesses, it's time to engage with customers online.
This may all seem overwhelming, especially if your Facebook skills are still new or you have concerns about regularly posting to your Business page and reviewing comments. It's possible that you don't have the time or desire to manage and analyze ads and posts on your own. That's OK!
A social marketing agency will help you plan your Facebook strategy, budget, manage and analyze engagement. You can then relax and continue to run your business while you watch it grow.