This article will guide you through the tricky and sometimes confusing world of Facebook Marketing. By the end of it you will have a better understanding of the power that Facebook can offer as a marketing tool, and how to wield it

What is Facebook Marketing?

What would you say if we told you there was a free online resource which provided access to over 2.2 billion consumers around the world? A platform which provides opportunities to propel your brand’s exposure, generate leads & sales, and drive traffic to your website.

Well, that is exactly what Facebook and Facebook Marketing can deliver for you. Facebook can be an invaluable inbound marketing tool which can reap major benefits in growth and revenue for your business.

As of September 2018, more than 2.2 billion people are using Facebook.

We understand that venturing into social media marketing and devising an effective strategy can be a daunting prospect for any brand, regardless of its size. Especially with the knowledge that millions of consumers are ready and willing to communicate their uninhibited opinions of your brand and its product. However, we are here to shed some light on how to create and execute a successful Facebook Marketing strategy in 2018.

What do you want to achieve from your Facebook Marketing strategy?

First thing’s first, in order to achieve the success you aspire towards in your business’ Facebook Marketing strategy – you have to know exactly what it is you seek to gain.

Take the time to establish quantifiable, measurable goals for your strategy.

Whether that be in the form of;

• Increased likes on the platform
• Lead generation
• Website traffic
• Sales
• Greater consumer engagement with your brand
• An increase in brand awareness.

These objectives are especially important when you undertake paid ad campaigns as part of your Facebook Marketing strategy. Be sure to construct clear marketing objectives and communicate these with employees, especially your social media marketing team, ensuring everyone is working towards a common goal.

How do you write Facebook Marketing content that your customers want to read?

To create the content your audience actually want to engage with, it is vital that you understand them. Who are they? When are they active online? What are they interested in? What kind of problems do they face? And most importantly – Why would they buy your service/product? These are the questions which should fuel each Facebook post.

The purpose of a brand’s Facebook page is to provide value to their customers’ lives by answering their questions, solving their problems, educating them on what they want to know about and ultimately helping them to achieve their goals. This is what fosters strong, positive brand associations and enhance perceived brand value. So, make sure your content has a value, it is ok to put out the odd ‘filler post’, but that won’t help deliver on your overall strategy.

Competitions are a great way to stimulate consumer response to posts. The prospect of gaining a reward for simply liking or commenting on a post is a highly attractive one and can work wonders for the popularity of your posts which is crucial to making sure your content performs well and is visible in users timelines. We won’t go into the detail and mechanics of why that works in this particular post, but feel to read our detailed post on the Facebook algorithm which determines which posts get boosted to the top of a user’s Newsfeed.

How the Facebook algorithm update changes your timeline

In brief though, post visibility is based on what the algorithm thinks the user would be most interested in, taking into account the levels of engagement on posts. Therefore if one of your posts receives a lot of engagement, then it is deemed as popular, meaning your content is far more likely to feature in fans timelines. Simple, right?

What should your Facebook Marketing content look like?

Visuals are king in social media, with Facebook being no exception. Customers want aesthetically pleasing, quick and entertaining content – they don’t want to be bored with pages of information. Keep it light, concise and attach images and videos wherever possible. Remembering to take advantage of Facebook features including Facebook Live and Stories – this can help to establish your brand as in-tune with their social media savvy audience and create a new way to engage with their audience.

The more visual content, the better in Facebook Marketing. Consumers are empowered to ignore brands today, give them a reason to take a second glance at your content by catching their eye with good and clever visuals.

A great tip for Facebook Marketing is the inclusion of a Call-to-Action in content, which involves asking your audience to do something immediately, whether that be liking, commenting or following a link to your website.

How do you Advertise on Facebook using paid ads.

With your content up to scratch, your brand can set up a successful Facebook Marketing campaign which consists of 3 consecutive levels: the campaign, the ad set and the ad. Paid ads is when your marketing objectives are most important as you must select what your end goal is for the campaign which your ad set and ads will then focus upon.

Next up, your target audience come into play in your ad sets where you will choose the demographic you want your campaign to reach. This decision will have a considerable influence over the cost you will invest into your Facebook advertising, as the most highly sought after demographic groups will demand a higher bid price to capture with so many other brands competing for their attention too. The ad sets allow you to determine a daily or lifetime budget, alongside a timeline for the campaign, and following these choices and a successful campaign bid, you’ve got yourself the coveted Newsfeed ranking.

An understanding of your audience is crucial to successful paid Facebook advertising, especially when it comes to figuring out the placement of your ads. Whether you want to feature on mobile, desktop or right-hand column – consider where your audience’s eyes will be drawn. Once all this consumer analysis and strategy is done and dusted, it’s time for the fun part with the creative. Facebook advertising grants you the ability to include up to 50 different ad designs, allowing you to experiment like never before and monitor which designs seem to be capturing your audience more than others and adapt accordingly as your campaign progresses. With, quite literally, the flick of a switch you can turn poor performing ads off and allow the most popular to get you closer to reaching those marketing objectives!

This is a glimpse at the power of Facebook advertising and it can provide a tremendous ROI when managed properly.

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How do you ensure consistent results from organic Facebook Marketing?

There are two key concepts in ensuring consistency in Facebook Marketing, they are: timing and engagement. Just as retail stores experience peaks and troughs in footfall so too do social media platforms experience heightened and depleted activity levels throughout the day and week. It is crucial that you know when your customers are online and when they are most likely and willing to engage with your brand’s content. For example, most consumers are far more active on social media on a Saturday afternoon than they are on a Monday morning. However, this can involve a degree of experimentation in testing out when your content receives the most interaction from your target audience and then devising your content schedule around these periods of high activity. Once you have identified when your most successful posting periods are, compose a content calendar to coincide with the results. Plan content in advance and schedule posts to be published during your peaks.

Secondly, Facebook Marketing demands consistent and prompt engagement in both firm-generated and user-generated content. The nature of Facebook allows consumers to express their innermost thoughts on your brand whenever they desire, whether that be a positive or negative narrative. This is why response time on Facebook is paramount and your social media marketing team is poised ready to respond to customer testimonials. Prepared to send sincere appreciations of and encourage positive feedback, and efficiently defuse and resolve any negativity or errors made. Considering consumers today are far more likely to believe the content of fellow consumers as opposed to firm content, this is arguably the most crucial element of successful Facebook Marketing.

How do you know that your Facebook Marketing is working?

As with any marketing campaign, you must monitor your audience’s reaction to published content in order to inform future content creation. Consult Facebook Insights on a frequent basis to gain insight into the performance of aspects including: page likes, views, post reach and engagement levels. You can learn what is working for you & more importantly, what is not and adapt your strategy appropriately. The greatest part being it is completely free for business pages to access.

Wrapping it up

There is a lot of things to consider before you start with Facebook Marketing for your business. But the key to it is planning, monitoring and refining your content and ads.

Do not forget to make sure you understand your target audience, and produce content that appeals to them, and don’t be too sales led, it will turn your audience off.

If you would prefer for Red Media to do all of this work for you, we would love to hear from you. Simply drop us a message by completing the below form or if you would prefer, give us a call on 0141 375 1180.