Using Facebook for Business
Facebook is the social media platform I’ve
personally seen the most benefit from and it's the most popular. It's important
to understand the different opportunities on Facebook when it comes to using it
for business-- it's not just about your personal profile.
On Facebook, you're going to take advantage
of creating pages, starting and joining groups, running paid Facebook ads, and
more. Facebook allows you to be incredibly targeted when it comes to building
your audience. You can grow your following fairly rapidly if you have the right
strategies.
Many people check in to Facebook several
times per day, every day. It's definitely a site to pay attention to if you
want to funnel a lot of traffic to your own properties.
You always want to get yourself in front of
people, and Facebook is where they are, well over a billion people.
There are so many different strategies you
can use to leverage traffic from Facebook. I'm going to briefly focus on each
of the parts of Facebook you can use to funnel traffic to your own properties.
You might want to focus on just one of these avenues first and then move on to
others as you build your confidence with the platform.
First, know that Facebook is one of the
most heavily trafficked websites in the world. It's become a way of life for
many people. They wake up in the morning and check their Facebook newsfeed--
repeating the process several times per day. People in your niche are
interacting with one another and other authority figures right now. You may as
well step into that avalanche of traffic and direct more of it toward yourself.
Pages: You can get traffic by starting a Facebook page. Your page can be
specifically about your brand or company. A really great strategy is to create
a page about a topic that's really interesting and enticing or exciting for
people in your niche. It's not brand-specific as far as the title, but it's
going to attract "likes" from people who aren't already familiar with
your brand and wouldn't like the page otherwise.
Groups: I love this strategy and have done well with it. People love to be
part of a group. You can create a group that's related to a hot topic or need
within your niche. People can freely join this group to share information,
learn, interact with one another, and even get personal help from you. You
won't directly advertise to your group much, but this will grow your authority
and eventually give you direct access to hundreds or even thousands of highly
targeted followers you can get into your funnel away from Facebook as well as
on.
Profile: You won't do much, if any, advertising on your personal Facebook
profile. In fact, you're not allowed to. But, you can still share information
from your page, link to your blog, and so on. This is only important if you are
"friends" on Facebook with people in your niche. Otherwise, don't
include this as part of your strategy.
Ads: Facebook has a wonderful paid advertising system. It's even more
targeted than Google Adwords. You can run ads to an extremely targeted and
narrow group of people right on Facebook, giving you an incredible return on
your investment.
You can't just post without thinking on
Facebook. You should have a strategy for what you're posting and when. People
who tend to get frustrated with Facebook often have that experience because
they haven't planned ahead. One of the best things you can do, in addition to
planning your posts, is to optimize them.
You may or may not be aware that Facebook
has an algorithm for what it shows. Just because someone "likes" your
page doesn't mean it's going to show up in their newsfeed. It has a better
chance if it's a really popular post or if they regularly like or comment on
your material.
That’s why it can be really frustrating
when you're first starting out. Luckily, there are things you can do to have a
better chance of success with Facebook pages and your posts. For instance, when
you post a photo, post the photo with a description (and link) in the status
update. Don't do it the opposite way-- posting the link to pull in the photo.
Your message will show up with the photo whenever it's shared if you do it the
first way I described.
Encourage people to regularly contribute.
Post about things they're passionate about so they'll pay more attention to
your page. You want your page to be so interesting they don't want to miss a
day of your posts. George Takei's Facebook page is an example of this. It's not
really a marketing page, but some of the concepts hold true and he does market
on that page now (for things like his Broadway show and even Amazon products).
Entertain and delight your audience and they'll share and like your stuff and
make you really popular.
Also, there are several pages where you can
add a link to your website on Facebook. You can add it to the about page,
milestones, descriptions, and more. It's shocking how many times I'll be
interested in learning more about a page or a business but they haven't really
provided any links or descriptions to help me learn more about them. Please
optimize your profile and posts-- it can pay off for you big time and help you
get more traffic.
There are many creative and unique ways you
can use Facebook, in addition to the methods I've already described. You've no
doubt seen the various popular Facebook games and apps. That can be one avenue
to additional exposure and traffic, if that suits your business model. You
don't have to rely on games alone-- there are certain ways you can design
useful apps people will want to use-- and they'll give you their email address
in the process.
You can use tools like Shortstack.com to
create apps, run contests, and more to grow your reach on Facebook. You can run
giveaways, collect email addresses, and really engage your audience in a cool
way. Tabsite.com offers another way to run contests and sweepstakes. Yet
another option is ActionSprout.com. Check out tools like these and others you
find that will delight and engage your audience to help you build a great
following, fast.
Your overall Facebook strategy should focus
on getting people on your email list, of course. It's great to create pages,
groups, apps, and things like that, but who knows where Facebook is going to be
in 5 years or 10 years. If it keeps going like it is, it will continue to be
huge. But even if it doesn't, you're going to win if you always have in mind
that Facebook is a means to an end.
Brainstorm ways you can funnel traffic from
Facebook to your very own email list. In fact, make this your mission whenever
you use a tactic to get traffic. When you have an email list, you can drive
traffic to your website and offers whenever you want to.
Facebook ads are phenomenal. I'd even go as
far as to say that never before, not even with Google Adwords, has it been
possible to target your advertising as well as you can with Facebook ads.
Facebook also makes it easy to get started with paid ads, with little to no risk.
Before you play around with setting up a
Facebook ad, it's helpful to figure out what you're going to advertise. I
recommend you advertise your Facebook page. Get some good content (and ideally
some likes) on your Facebook page before you move to this step. But really, you
can use Facebook ads to give your new page a great boost that will attract
organic likes and interactions that help you go far beyond what you paid for.
It's important to be really targeted with
Facebook ads. You want to capture that traffic right away-- which is why you
probably don't want to send them straight to your website. You want to give
them something easy to do-- like liking your page. Then, you can interact with
them, make them a fan of yours, and eventually get them to move on over to your
email list and website.
Facebook makes the process really simple.
Go ahead and check out the advertising section of Facebook now, and go through
the motions as if you were going to set up a live ad. This is a case where
you'll learn a lot by doing. Facebook allows you to target its users by things
like age, gender, education, other pages liked, interests, and more. They even
tell you how many users you're likely targeting once you set your parameters.
Then, you can set your bids and your
maximum budget per day. It's hard to go wrong when you start off with a small
budget and start to see those likes coming in. And, if your ad does well,
you'll probably end up paying less per click than you bid.
It is important to set up an attractive ad
people will want to click on. Analyze the ads you see on your Facebook right
now. Why do you think those ads are showing up for you? What kind of pictures
are they using? Which ones are really interesting to you? Then, you can figure
out what kind of picture and language you want to use for your ad.
We've talked about viral marketing already,
but what does that mean specifically for Facebook? On Facebook, people love to
share posts and photos that mean something to them. Sometimes, it's something
mysterious or moving.
People will share things because:
·
It
made them emotional
·
It
taught them something new
·
They
are really invested in that topic already
·
They
have friends who would be interested in it
·
It made them curious
·
Sometimes,
all of the above!
Whenever you create a post, video, or image
to share on Facebook, make sure you hit on at least one of the above points so
you have a higher chance of getting your image shared.
It's worth nothing that posts and stories
from sites like Buzzfeed, Viralnova, and Upworthy are really popular and get
shared like crazy. Analyze why that is. Usually, they use some sort of
clickbait to make it happen. What would make sense for your niche?
It's time to develop a plan that's going to
help you dominate Facebook. When you put all the pieces together, Facebook will
be a tool that will help you drive a ton of visitors to your website so you can
build a list, become an authority, and make more sales.
If you've never marketed on Facebook
before, now's the time to get started. It's really not that difficult and can
even be fun. It's a good social media platform to get started with when it
comes to driving traffic, because you'll likely get the best results from it.
Start out by paying attention to what
others in your niche are doing. What do they share on Facebook? What do they
name their pages and groups? How do they engage their followers? Success leaves
clues.
Then, create your own Facebook group and
page. Try your hand at paid Facebook ads. Do whatever you need to do to expand
your reach on Facebook.
Note that it can take time to build a
following here, but the results will pay off for you big time.
Speed things up by paying for exposure, by
sharing content that has a good chance of going viral, and by really
interacting and being present on your pages and groups. If you provide quality
and an experience people can't get anywhere else, people are going to flock to
you on Facebook.