Facebook Marketing Step-by-Step

by Bryan Bren

  Premium content

  You have to create content that is not only valuable but is also something that appeals to your target audience. You cannot expect to attract an audience unless you offer them something attractive. One way to do this is to offer them free premium content to stay true to your brand. For instance, if you have a Facebook business page for your restaurant, then the kind of content you offer must be related to your business or niche. If you start posting about politics on a page which was meant for promoting your restaurant, you will be turning your audience away.

  Hashtags

  The use of hashtags on Facebook has become very popular recently. Hashtags are phrases or words that are used to mark something as being related to a certain topic. They are preceded by a # sign, such as #advertising.

  Hashtags are a great way to reach a wider audience. You can search for hashtags that currently are trending in your niche and use them to increase your reach. Use hashtags that are appropriate for the content you offer. Whenever a Facebook user searches for a hashtag, all pages associated with that particular hashtag are displayed in the search results. For instance, you can use a hashtag like #freshandyummyfood for promoting your restaurant business. So, whenever a user searches for this hashtag, your Facebook business page will pop up. This is a simple and effective way to improve visibility on the Internet.

  Network

  If you have not been online yet, you need to get started right away. You need to be able to look beyond Facebook if you want to promote your business and create a large audience. Collaborate with bloggers and influential people on other social networking sites to send links to your Facebook page. The simplest way to network is by using Facebook to message them or by contacting them on any other social media platform they are active on.

  Engagement

  Engagement refers to any interactions your target audience have with your business or brand on Facebook. It can be in the form of likes or comments on posts, by sharing posts or even by messaging on Facebook. The key to understanding engagement is realizing that once you have created an audience, your work doesn’t stop there; it is just beginning. You must maintain your current audience while working to increase your audience. You'll need to learn how to increase Facebook's activity.

  In this section, you'll learn about a few simple things you can do to increase your interest in Facebook.

  Your personality

  Social media is all about social. Nobody wants to interact with a media bot. Instead, you need to prove the identity of your company or brand in your Facebook posts. You need to make your business sociable for your audience because only then will they want to engage with it. The best way to go about doing this is by promptly responding to any comments or likes you receive on posts, by acknowledging your followers, or any other type of engagement along those lines.

  Ask questions

  If you want people to connect to your posts, the easiest way is to ask questions. You can ask your fans and subscribers specific questions and wait for their answers. You can ask them questions about everything, but make sure the questions you ask are not too technical. The idea is to make your followers talk. For instance, on your restaurant’s business page, you can post the picture of your idea of comfort food and ask the followers to comment with their favorite comfort foods. It is all about starting a conversation.

  Images

  A picture is worth a thousand words, and this is true on Facebook. You can send a meaningful message across by using multiple stories because images tend to look more attractive compared to the text. It will benefit you to take some photos to promote your business or brand and then post them on Facebook. It will also help your followers understand what your business is about. You can also start using Facebook Stories where you can post videos or pictures. Posting pictures related to your business, employees, and customers. Use more visual media instead of solely depending on textual posts.

  Sneak peek

  The amazing thing about using Facebook as a marketing tool is that you can promote your business without looking for too much advertising. You can post snapshots of employees, customers, your daily operations, behind-the-scenes work, or even information about an upcoming event. In a way, these pictures give your company a human feel, and that’s what people want.

  Specific content

  You should pay attention to the type of content your audience responds to. If they don’t seem interested in a specific topic, don’t post it.

  You also need to focus on posting content that will maximize the number of likes, shares, and comments. To ensure people comment, like, and share, you must once again focus on creating content which appeals to your audience. The more likes, shares, and comments you receive in your posts, the wider your potential audience.

  Fan content

  The easiest way to build relationships on social networks is by sharing other people’s content. If you've ever come across useful content, even if it comes from other companies, do not hesitate to share it. Share the news with your subscribers. Everyone appreciates good and useful content, but do not prioritize posting any content over posting quality content.

  Simple posts

  Sometimes a simple text status can have a huge impact. You do not always have to share tons of information or long messages. A simple post does its job. No matter what you decide, have fun and don’t always try to make the content about your business or brand. If you want your subscriber base to grow, you need to make the page interesting. If all you post is promotional material and ads, your audience will quickly lose interest and you will start losing followers.

  Conversion

  One of the most important indicators a social marketer can track on Facebook is the conversion rate. A conversion occurs when a person interacts with an ad you post and then performs an action beneficial to your business. It can also be viewed as the point where the user decides to switch from a normal browser to a customer. This can apply to an online purchase or even a call to your business. And the potential for a high number of conversions is vast considering that Facebook boasts over 650 million visitors per day.

  For most marketers, the conversion is a top priority. A good conversion rate is an indicator of success. Remember, though, that the conversion is not always associated with purchases and actions of the driver. The goal of the campaign may be to increase the subscription to the weekly newsletter or to encourage customers to add more products to their wish list.

  Luckily for businesses, Facebook is one of the best conversion platforms. In this section, you'll learn how to increase conversion and further benefit your business or brand.

  Define a conversion event

  Before you think about conversions, you must first decide what action people should take after viewing the ad. The different types of conversions that Facebook supports include viewing content, adding products to their wish list, starting the order, and purchasing. You can even create your conversion events if you have a specific goal. You cannot expect an ad to reach all your conversion goals, so you will have to create different ads to achieve different goals.

  Do not forget the goal

  There is a direct connection between the ad and the landing page, or the page or the website the link in the ad redirects the users to. The ad is only as good as the landing page. When you choose a location to convert, you need to make sure everything is ready and the ad delivers as promised.

  There are a number of things you should consider when preparing your landing page. You must implement pixels (a code from Facebook that allows you to track conversion data) if you want to track an event. After you've determined the landing page, you'll need to add the Facebook Pixel code to track the event.

  There must also be continuity between the ad and the landing page. For example, if an ad is for shoes and a landing page redirects a customer to a page about apparel, then the ad doesn’t serve its purpose.

  Today, many people do online shopping on their smartphones, so it makes sense
to send traffic to your application. Therefore, you must optimize the application to increase the conversion rate.

  Visuals

  You must use attractive visual effects to attract your potential customers. The user’s first impression of your company or brand is the design that they see, so you can think of the visual the users see as being similar to the way you would greet someone by shaking their hand when you first meet.

  There are a few things you should consider when designing visual elements for advertising. You need to make sure that you do not clutter the images along with the text. A good idea is to save text on pictures. When you fill an ad with images and text, it looks chaotic, and there is a chance a potential customer will scroll through the ad.

  Visual elements should also have a high resolution because all low-resolution visual elements give a bad image of your brand. Moving pictures are better than static pictures, so try using a GIF, or moving image, whenever possible.

  Short and sweet

  If the ad contains too much content, the conversion rate is very low, so you have to make a short and simple copy. Try to use personal pronouns (like us or we) to establish a relationship between the audience and the business. Avoid jargon and keep it short. A short text looks attractive, and too much text can be quite overwhelming.

  Call to action

  Conversion is the motivation to act. Therefore, you must insert a call to action in the ad. You can use active verbs such as start, search, explore, or even detect to increase your conversion rate. If you'd like to increase the number of purchases or subscriptions, you can use expressions like “buy now” or “register now.”

  Target group

  When creating an ad, you must select a group you want to target. If you select this, Facebook will help you find more users with similar interests. This will allow you to further expand your audience and reach more people. The bigger your audience, the higher your conversion rate.

  Optimize for conversions

  By now, you have learned different strategies for optimizing or increasing your conversions. However, another option is to enable the "Conversion" checkbox on Facebook. Go to the "Budget and Schedule" form → "Delivery Optimization" section → and tick "Conversions." You will learn more about the optimization of Facebook ads in the coming chapters.

  Format of display

  You have to select a specific advertising format on Facebook according to the goals of your advertising campaign. Some formats can serve a particular advertising campaign better than other options. For example, Adidas used videos with the Facebook Collection feature to demonstrate the various Z.N.E Road Trip Hoodie features and reduce the overall cost of conversion.

  There are some things to keep in mind when choosing an ad format. You can use carousel or group displays if you want to present some products or different functions. Ads with Facebook offers are a good idea if you want to publish special offers or discounts as an incentive to buy. If you want to use stunning visual effects and impressions that look good in full-screen mode, choose Facebook Canvas. There are numerous types of ads which we will discuss in upcoming chapters.

  Facebook Marketing Tools

  From the perspective branding, Facebook is different from other platforms in the history of marketing. It has more than 1.6 billion active users, offers international reach, free page creation, and is an excellent platform for advertising, regardless of your budget. Facebook can now run third-party advertising, which further increases the likelihood of success in this network. On Facebook, you can do everything from ads to promotions. Facebook marketing becomes easy if you understand the basics. There are many opportunities for marketers and advertisers.

  Although marketing on Facebook is relatively easy, it isn’t without its challenges. Many people lack enough knowledge to successfully use the platform. Facebook is pretty easy to use, and you certainly do not have to be a tech guru to understand this platform. Facebook simplifies the process by providing creation and management tools, but not many are aware of their existence.

  Manually creating advertisements can be frustrating and inconvenient. Even if you have a really good idea, developing a separate ad on this platform is very time-consuming. This is a pretty big investment, especially for small businesses.

  Another major obstacle that most newcomers to the Facebook marketing world face is that they depend on superficial numbers, such as the total number of likes or views they've received. These metrics should not be your only goal. The main concern should be ROI (return on investment). With the right tools and some knowledge, this can be calculated fairly easily.

  These obstacles may seem overwhelming, but you don’t have to worry about them. Third-party developers are working to simplify your Facebook marketing process. There are a few tools that you should familiarize yourself with. These tools help to overcome or completely avoid these obstacles. Some of the most useful ones are listed below.

  Flow

  Developed by Driftrock, this is a tool designed for developing well-optimized and targeted ads for Facebook as well as Instagram. It syncs with your existing e-commerce platform and helps you collect customer data, allowing you to focus more accurately on your existing customer base. You can focus on your existing customers and mailing lists, or you can find new people who have the same characteristics as your current customer base.

  Google Analytics

  This tool is mainly used to track web traffic. If you do not use it in conjunction with your Facebook marketing campaign, you're missing out on some good things. With this tool, you can obtain segmentation analysis of the data like conversions, custom reports, display charts, and scorecards to see the changes in the performance of the content. It also tracks the data related to all the users who have visited your website and any actions they performed on the website. This is an ideal tool for determining the profitability of investments and the effectiveness of your location.

  Agorapulse

  With this tool, you can link your accounts centrally on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and any other social networks. You can plan and publish your posts, track your activity on these social media sites, interact with your customers, and even track your competition in the marketplace.

  Social Bakers

  This is a social analytics tool that works with all available social networking applications. It helps you to conduct competitive research and provides you with information about your target audience, your ROI, and other data in the form of customizable reports that can be tailored to your goals.

  DrumUp

  This is a combination of content marketing and social media tools that helps you find content that is considered appropriate and effective for your audience. DrumUp sifts through tons of content available online and uses a complex algorithm for recommending stories and content that’s most relevant to your audience. Essentially, it does all the heavy lifting when it comes to finding the ideal content. It is quite easy to use and you can quickly review and create as well as publish the posts to your social media account. It also provides different analytics like the engagement rate and media analytics to measure the effectiveness of the content you are using.

  Likealyzer

  With this tool, you can analyze the reach and effectiveness of your Facebook page. All you have to do is specify the URL of your page. This tool notifies you of any errors in your layout and the type of activity your site has received. This is a free application.

  ShortStack

  This tool is designed to make it easier to create advertising and host competitions using Facebook. The interface of this application is quite simple, and it has several tools that you can use to create a campaign that meets your needs.

  All of these tools have their pros and cons, so the choice of tools depends on your goals and preferences. Most of them offer free trials or are available for free. Get started, experiment a bit, and you can focus on what suits you. If you can streamline your strategy, automate this process, and measure your ROI corr
ectly, you can take full advantage of what Facebook has to offer.

  Business Marketing Applications

  There are several applications that every Facebook marketer needs to have to be more successful. These apps are not officially created by Facebook, but they are designed to help you create a corporate page on Facebook.

  These applications are quite simple to use, and they help you to manage your site better. They help you with the content of your page and even with tracking the progress.

  Custom tab applications

  Tabs are available under the Facebook cover photo, and you can also find them in the Facebook Page tabs. These tabs are like the website navigation for your Facebook page that allows the users to browse through your page.