The stage is set… the lights are on… the curtains are drawn… and you, the showman, step onto the dais! Social media, and Facebook especially, is your platform. What will you say and do to draw an audience? More importantly yet, how will you win them over and keep them engaged?
Questions like these have beguiled marketers since the beginning of time—or, at least, since the beginning of marketing. Facebook may be a modern platform with its own capabilities, but there are some timeless tricks to the trade, too.
Let’s stroll backstage together and solve these mysteries once more!
What Is Facebook Marketing?
Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world. It follows, then, that the platform has become a major channel for digital marketing. “Facebook marketing” isn’t a tool; it’s a way of leveraging multiple tools to build your brand and win the right audience.
Below, we’ll examine some strategies for making the most of your Facebook business page. Harness the capabilities of the platform and hone some timeless marketing skills, and you’ll be on the path to success! To win your desired audience, you’ll want to….
Post Often
Your social media marketing game isn’t finished the minute you set up a Facebook page; it’s just getting started! To win your target audience, engage regularly. According to HubSpot, optimal posting frequency depends on your number of followers.
This can’t be said enough, but it’s important that your Facebook posts offer rich content. Write in a fun, relatable, conversational way, and convey information about your product or service through the lens your audience uses: How will this improve my life?
Not sure what your customers want to see? Experiment a little! Facebook’s poll features let you ask what your Facebook fans want. Facebook Audience Insights can show you how many people engage with each post, as well as their demographic information. It helps you gauge what’s working and what isn’t.
Earn Your Audience’s Trust
Businesses engaging with customers via social media is nothing new. We’ve all seen a call to action that prods us to “join the conversation!” on social media, or something to that effect. You’ve probably seen and heard it enough that it sounds a bit clichéd.
But behind that cliché lies an important truth: In order to truly win your audience, you need to earn their trust. This is much more easily accomplished when you approach Facebook posting from a conversational standpoint—not the shortsighted “hard sell.”
Customers want to feel like they know your business and are part of the “family,” so to speak. Give them information that shows off your products and services, sure, but do it in a natural way. Prioritize building a relationship—and loosen the tie a little! Behind-the-scenes content that centers on your employees is a smart way to do it.
Make Your Ads Stand Out
It’s always important to tailor your ads to the medium they’ll be shown on. When it comes to Facebook, image is everything! Well, maybe not everything, but it’s a critical building block that lays the foundation for a successful ad.
Did you know that successful Facebook ads need be no more than 20 percent text? It’s not hard to see why: Images are more original and universal than text. After all, the very purpose of text is to put an image in the reader’s head! Cutting out the middle man, when it makes sense to do so, is a shrewd approach.
Choosing a powerful image, then, is one of the most important things you can do. It needs to draw your audience’s eyes and tug at their emotions, reinforcing your carefully chosen text. The words themselves should pinpoint precisely what your target customers need to know.
Optimize Your Ad Targeting
Who will see your ads? You’ll never know your potential audience with precision, but you can make some educated guesses. In fact, Facebook will help you do it! You can create your own lookalike audience. Get your ads seen by users who fit the typical profile (user persona) of your existing audience.
Of course, lookalike audiences can be rather large and unwieldy. To refine your targeting and find a more focused audience, test your ads with different interests. Options for interests have only grown over the years, so you can work your way into very niche areas.
You can target your Facebook ads by age range, too. Keep an open mind when it comes to age: Not every interested party will fit the usual profile. Expanding the age range (and testing the results) can help ensure you’re casting as wide a net as is needed.
Leverage Facebook’s Capabilities
As you know, Facebook has a slew of marketing tools up its sleeve. We’ve covered several of them here already! Let’s look closer at a few more:
- Facebook Stories: This is a highly visual way to get your brand’s message across. Use images and videos taken from your phone to weave a narrative. You can edit them from your desktop before posting for a little more polish. Stories stay viewable for 24 hours before disappearing.
- Facebook Open Graph: How your content appears on Facebook matters. It makes the difference between high engagement and posts that aren’t even seen by the audience you want to win over. With Open Graph, you’ll boost word of mouth and diversify interactions beyond the usual “like” and “comment.”
- Host Contests: Contests, sweepstakes, promotions… They’re all great ways to capture a potential audience and boost your brand awareness! You can’t host contests through Facebook itself, but you can use your Facebook page to direct users to contests created via third-party app.
Beware of Conventional Wisdom
Marketing isn’t always as scientific as the experts would have you believe. Advertising is an art, and that’s true when it comes to modern media platforms like Facebook, too. It’s not as simple as plugging your data into the “buyer persona” formula. After all, personas are caricatures, not living people.
Real people make decisions for a variety of divergent reasons… even if they share the same demographics, interests, job titles, or social or familial roles. While data and abstractions can be useful, you’ll need to appeal to something primal and personal—often without knowing just what that is.
And that’s the point: You never quite know what will draw individuals to your brand—or who will be drawn. That’s why using bricks to build an audience is such a helpful Facebook marketing strategy!
Use Bricks to Build an Audience
What does this mean, exactly? The phrase refers to master marketer P.T. Barnum’s method for advertising his American Museum. Oddly enough, his scheme had nothing to do with the product he hoped to sell—aside from a theme of curiosity.
To find his audience, Barnum paid a man to carry bricks around the NYC block that his museum of curios stood on. On the first lap around the block, the man laid single bricks down at various points. He kept one brick on hand for future laps, methodically replacing each brick with the one he was holding.
All this he did without making a peep, silently gathering a following of curious onlookers. As the onlookers grew to a crowd, he’d lead them right into the museum before starting again. He drew over 1,000 visitors into the museum on the first day of doing this.
As impresario of your very own Facebook business page, you can do the same. Those Facebook posts and ads we described above? They’re your bricks. Be compelling, creative, and willing to get weird—and don’t forget to test!
Get Facebook Marketing Right
Marketing on Facebook is a dynamic, long-term play, and the ground is always shifting. Master the basics and do the ordinary extraordinarily well, and you’ll be able to find your feet.
If you want a proven approach for winning the right audience on Facebook, contact the marketing mavens at Stream Companies. Step up your social media marketing game!