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Facebook has been the default go-to channel for brands to market their products in the most efficient and massive way, even without a strategy in mind. It’s becoming the new domain name where brands flock to reserve their spots: first come, first serve.
According to an update from Facebook, there are approximately 3 million businesses that advertise their product or service on the platform–30% from America; 70% from the rest of the world.
If you’re still not convinced, you can check out millions of success stories whereby Facebook has helped brands with their brand awareness, consideration and lead generation.
Who advertises on Facebook?
From personal stores, startup companies, small to medium enterprises, private businesses, government organizations, celebrity icons, non-profit organizations to multinational corporations, Facebook accommodates pretty much everybody.
When you set up a Page, you will see a quick list of options as Page Type:
- Local Business or Place
- Company, Organization or Institution
- Brand or Product
- Artist, Band or Public Figure
- Entertainment
- Cause or Community
For local businesses, you’ll just need to enter a name, category (e.g. coffee shop, shopping, beauty salon), street address and phone number and you’re all set.
Now that you’ve activated your Facebook Page, what’s next? Here are 5 tips that will come in handy as you dive into Facebook marketing.
Tip #1: Establish your objectives.
This might sound cliché, but the foundation of every strategy is knowing your objective. It’s good to know what you’re planning to do, how you’re going to do it, but “why” you’re doing it gets everything into perspective.
Are you looking at creating campaigns that will help build your brand and spread the word? You might be looking at brand awareness. If you want to be relevant to a particular set of audience, you can go for brand consideration, and lead generation for the low-hanging fruits that will drive users to the purchase funnel. No matter how good your creative material will be, they still won’t make sense as much if you don’t ground them by the objectives. This leads to the next point.
Tip #2: Develop quality versus quantity.
Gone are the days that marketers publish content 4-5 times a day to generate likes and views. With the updated Facebook Zero algorithm, publishing content will not guarantee viewership even to your current fan base unless they are deliberately subscribed to your Page. This means, there will be zero organic reach.
Facebook noticed a massive surge of posts flooding the newsfeed from different brands – so much so that it caused a need for decluttering. What this means for the brands is to build content assets that would be highly relevant to the target market.
Ultimately, you will have to buy media in order to get your message across.
Tip #3: Boost your content.
A compelling reason that makes Facebook a good platform for brands is that there are two billion active users. It’s now easy to send your message to the right audience. If you promote your content with paid media, that is.
When boosting a content post, you can easily set your audience (people who like your page and their friends or specific demographics based on location and age), total budget, estimated people reached coming from your targeting, and the duration. In addition to that, you can also target based on interest, increasing your probability of getting your offer in front of a receptive audience.
Tip #4: Don’t forget the call-to-action button.
Good content helps you guide the user on his journey from being aware about your brand, down to the products you offer and to becoming a potential lead that will convert as a sale. This is where the call-to-action (CTA) button comes in.
Facebook has made it easier for brands to integrate CTA buttons on content posts. You can select from these options:
- Shop Now
- Book Now
- Learn More
- Sign Up
- Send Message
At this stage, you are already in the radar of your target audience. What’s next?
Tip #5: Respond well.
“It takes two to tango.” This 65-year-old adage stays relevant even to this day with Facebook advertising.
If you’re doing it right, you will be receiving non-stop sentiments, requests and questions from the comments section, private messages and public posts. You cannot just be good at creating content; you should be great when it comes to responding to your customers too.
When you visit your Facebook Page, you will see a note found at the right side of the panel that shows how responsive you are to inbound messages. It’s called the “Page Responsiveness” badge, which contains the response rate (percentage of people you respond to over the total messages received) and the response time (length of time taken for the first reply from the brand).
Facebook bots might be useful but it also has its cons since nothing beats organic, real tone coming from a person typing from a computer on the other side of the message. And people know it if it’s authentic or fake.
Quick Recap
Tip #1: Establish your objectives.
Tip #2: Develop quality versus quantity.
Tip #3: Boost your content.
Tip #4: Don’t forget the call-to-action button.
Tip #5: Respond well.
There you have it. These are five essential tips that you can easily apply if you’re planning to start your Facebook advertising journey. A bonus tip is to always be a sponge or be adaptable to new updates from the platform because as how Heraclitus puts it, “the only thing that is constant is change.”
Richard Cruz is an industry-leading authority and speaker in online marketing and Facebook ads for entrepreneurs and franchises. He is the Chief Marketing Strategist at WSI Priority Media, a digital marketing agency in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
