Facebook is undoubtedly the most used social media platform out there. If you have an online business, the chances are that a majority of your audience and your competitors are on the platform. This is an indication that you should not only plan to have a Facebook business page but also equip yourself with Facebook marketing techniques that can help beat your competitors.
According to the data provided by Hootsuite, 66% of monthly Facebook users use it every day. This means that a total of about 1.47 billion people log in every day. This portrays how significant Facebook marketing can be for your business. You can increase the chances of outdoing your competitors if you follow a few basic tips when marketing on this platform. With that said, here’s a list of marketing tips that can help you have better sales and beat your competitors on Facebook.
Optimize your profile
Everything that your audience would immediately notice about your business page needs to be optimized so that each element talks about your business. Right from your profile picture to the cover picture, make sure every image that you use is exclusive to your business. Setting the right profile picture is crucial since your picture is what people see everywhere, whether you comment or post something.
Likewise, it is also important to keep it simple. While you can use your business logo as your profile picture, make sure it’s not a combination of too many colours, characters, or a compressed version of too many elements. Such images take a lot of time for the audience to interpret and identify. So, stick to the most basic image that depicts your business.
While profile pictures only have a limited scope when it comes to creativity, you can direct all the remaining creativity to your cover photo. There’s a lot of room for quotes, a collage of images in one image, and much more. You can come up with a cover photo that’s a combination of the logo and your business motto (or slogan). It would be better if your slogan includes call-to-actions.
Both your profile picture and your cover photo don’t need advanced graphic designing skills. You can use an online designing tool to get the job done. Besides the profile and cover picture, fill in all the details about your business and a few useful links in the “About” section, and add pictures associated with your business to the gallery.
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Be diverse in posting content
One of the mistakes that people who own a business and Facebook business page make is that they focus solely on one form of content on their page. Moreover, how Facebook’s algorithm works can be hard to comprehend. Thus, if you post diverse forms of content, you have more scope of being in the good books of the algorithm as well as cater to a diverse audience.
You probably feel the compulsion to post promotional content since you have a business page. However, promotional content won’t be enough to get more followers. You’ll have to juggle between promotional and generic content related to your business to reach more people. Furthermore, while some of your posts can be specifically used to link your products or services, you shouldn’t post content for the sole purpose of linking.
While you should make a distinction between promotional and non-promotional content, you should also alternate between posting images, videos, and written content. When you post videos, try to post native videos – videos that are highly relevant to where it is posted (ie suitable for your Facebook audience).
Another essential factor to consider when you post content is the timing at which they get posted. You would want to post content when a majority of your audience is active on Facebook. As per observations made through various studies and data analysis, Facebook users are most active between 9 am and 3 pm on weekdays. So, you can plan your posts based on the timings when there are more chances of being visible to your target audience.
Make use of Facebook Ads
Facebook ads help you target a specific audience that would be interested in your business. It’s an investment worth making because of the pin-pointed reach. However, make sure what your plan of action is before you make this investment. The Facebook Ad Campaigns come with many options, like setting an objective, the ideal audience, and so on.
Ads serve you well when you use keywords that are most relevant to your niche or business. You can look for free keyword research tools and do your keyword research with the help of those tools. While you use Facebook ads, you’re free to experiment before you make a big investment. It’s also important to target locations, interests, and many other factors to make sure your ads work in your favour.
Provide outstanding customer care services
Most often, customer care services are overlooked on Facebook. Effective Facebook marketing is not just about attracting more people through posts. It extends to being readily available to people who need help or have a bunch of queries. Since so many businesses on Facebook aren’t focusing on this aspect of marketing, this can earn you extra points and set you apart from your competitors.
For most people who are interested in your business, this could be one major criterion to decide if they’d want to invest in your products or services. People would wait for an average of four hours after sending you a message before concluding that you’re lazy in helping your customers find solutions, even if it’s only on Facebook.
Make sure you access your business page regularly and address people’s messages, comments, complaints, queries, etc., so that you give off the impression that your clients matter to you. It’s understandable that you can’t do everything at once. This is why it becomes important to schedule all your social media handlings.
Don’t ignore analytics
While you do everything to have more followers and more people buy your products or opt for your services, Facebook marketing all comes down to ROI. You can measure the outcome of your Facebook marketing strategy by using social analytics. Regularly check what type of content is received well and how each piece of content drives traffic to your page.
If you have only just started your journey of marketing on Facebook, stick to what your audience really wants. As a beginner, your motive should be to appeal to more people so don’t post too much promotional content. Another crucial thing that you should do is to study your competitors. It is important to know your competitors target audience, so you can target them too.
However, this only works if you can come up with original content, ideas, and better marketing strategies to outdo your competitors. While you evaluate your competitor’s page, you should also try to find your unique selling point. What works well for your competitors is probably what interests this audience, but what will attract this audience to you instead of your competitors is your USP.
You should look for that sweet spot that your competitor misses in the eyes of your audience. A concrete competitor’s analysis, a practical and doable marketing strategy, and constantly measuring the outcomes would help you make progress with Facebook marketing.