How to Get Started With Using Facebook for Marketing

How to Get Started With Using
Facebook for Marketing

When it comes to marketing, Facebook has been through a lot of ups and downs. It was the first social network to introduce advertising, and since then, it’s become a benchmark for the other social sites in terms of how they run their ad algorithms. But of course, it hasn’t had a controversy-free experience. In the past couple of years, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, announced plans to reduce the impact of ads on Facebook user news feeds, in a move that many saw as a direct hit to marketers and advertisers. But even though the algorithms Facebook uses are constantly being tweaked and updated, there’s no denying that it’s still one of the best social tools for growing your company’s reach.

Why is Facebook Such a Powerful Marketing Tool?

While it might have lost some popularity with teenagers, if you compare Facebook with all the other social platforms, it’s still the biggest and the most widely used. This social network is now a household name all over the world. With 2.5 billion monthly active users and over one billion daily active users, it’s easy to see why. Let’s compare it with the statistics for other social networks:

Though it’s easy to see that the other social networks are growing and definitely putting in the effort, Facebook is still on top. And, over 90% of marketers say that they use Facebook for marketing on a regular basis; around three million businesses are currently using Facebook for marketing purposes.

So, how can you leverage this popular social networking site to market your own business? Here are some tips.

Choose the Right Category for Your Business Page:

First things first; you’ll need to create a Facebook page for your business, which is a fairly straightforward process. Now, you’ll want to create this business profile under the relevant category. There are six options to choose from.

For the majority of business marketers, your company will likely fall under the Local Business or Brand category. The type that you choose is important since each has different features. For example, a local business will be able to list a physical location, while this isn’t available to an online brand.

Optimize Your Photos:

Like almost every social site, Facebook is a highly visual network, so you’ll need to spend some time optimizing your photos. Likely, you will be using your logo for your profile image. You should also put some thought into choosing the right cover photo. Many brands opt for a Call-to-Action cover photo and utilize this available space to provide customers with some more information on how to get in touch if they are interested in what they see.

Make sure that you’re using your photos as an opportunity to display what you do and showcase your brand to your audience, and don’t be afraid to have some fun with it.

Choosing the Right CTA Button:

On every business Facebook page, there is the option to add a little CTA button to the top. There are some different options to consider, including:

You can then go ahead and link your button to any number of things, which could include a contact form, an opt-in page, a blog post, a YouTube channel, an opt-in page, your eCommerce store, and more. What you choose to link to should depend on your ultimate conversion goals; for example, if you’re selling products, ‘Buy Now’ is an ideal choice.

Creating and Posting Content:

Once you’ve set up your profile and optimized it for engagement, it’s time to start creating content. One of the biggest mistakes that many marketers use when posting content on Facebook is being overly promotional. Avoid sticking to just one type of content since using Facebook gives you a real chance to test out a variety of different formats and work out what your audience enjoys the most. Stick to a balance of content, by following these guidelines:

Analyze Your Content Using Facebook Page Insights:

Posting your high-quality content is only half of the job that you need to do to get good results from marketing on Facebook. The rest of it involves monitoring the metrics in order to find engagement trends and figure out which content is the most successful. Facebook Page Insights is the internal analytics tool that comes as standard with your Facebook Page; it’s easy to use and understand and will help you track content engagement with a simple dashboard.

When you use this tool, you’ll be able to see your page’s performance over the past seven days, including:

Further information on your page’s reach such as likes, comments, and shares

If this sparks an interest in marketing analytics for you, check out the online course available from Emerson where you can learn just how important analytics are to all aspects of marketing both within and outside of social media.

You can use Facebook Insights for a number of purposes, including determining the best type of content to share, and when to post it. You can find data on when your followers are online, which posts do best during different times of the day, and the times of day when your posts are likely to get the most engagement, making it easier for you to put together an effective post schedule.

Don’t let Facebook’s constantly changing ad algorithms deter you; this is still one of the most popular and successful platforms for businesses looking to reach their audience.