Note: On January 11, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg posted that Facebook will be favouring person to person conversation in ones’ newsfeed. What the implications of this are yet to be determined, but the takeaway is you should always post content on Facebook that sparks person to person engagement. The post below discusses this under tip number six and ten.
With billions of people on Facebook, how can businesses do better Facebook marketing to get more followers, engagement and thus more business?
First, you need to have a Facebook page of your business, if you don’t already have one.
A facebook business page offers many marketing features and it’s free; it compliments your website.
Ten Free OR Near Facebook Marketing Tips
Once you’ve set up your Facebook business page, here are 10 free or near free Facebook marketing tips that you can do:
1. Make sure your page is optimized. This means fill out your facebook business page as completely as possible, especially your business information and address and check “Local Business” as your category. The latter two are especially important for the 10th tip mentioned further below.
2. Display attractive Facebook covers. A Facebook cover is the first thing people see.
It takes up the largest space on your page, so make sure you have a cover that’s visually attractive and reinforces your brand.
As the cover is a billboard of your business, take advantage of it. Occasionally change your cover with other covers that feature your latest promotions, news, events, holiday greetings, etc. to let people know about your business’ latest happenings and offers.
Facebook even allows you to upload video into your Facebook cover now. Take advantage of this to brand and spotlight your business, next promotion, event, etc. Video better captures people’s attention better than static images.
You can create a number of Facebook covers using a free image editing tool like Picmonkey.com.
3. Post content on your Facebook page frequently and consistently. Though not all your Facebook posts will show up on people-who-have-liked-you newsfeeds now, posting frequently and consistently still maximizes your chances of them seeing and engaging with your posts.
4. Make your posts visual. People process visual information quicker and thus are more likely to engage with visual posts over text only posts. Post either these two types of visual posts on your page:
- Images with text on them. Text conveys the point you want to make with an image reinforcing the text that stands alone or links back to your website landing page or blog article. You can make text on image posts using free image tools like Pixabay.com and overlaying text on top of images using Picmonkey.com. You can also create animated text on image GIFs with Giphy.
- Video posts. You can shoot videos of your business using your smartphone. Add text to them using iMovie or Windows Moviemaker. Or create slideshow videos on PowerPoint or Keynote and add text to them with the same. The sweet spot for Facebook videos is roughly no more than two minutes long. After that, people tend to stop watching on Facebook. Here’s an example of a slideshow video:
5. Create quality posts. Besides posting frequently and consistently, post information that interests your customers. These types of quality posts maximizes the chances of people engaging with your posts (i.e., liking, sharing and commenting with your posts).
Here are the types of posts found to best engage people:
- Contests. One of best ways to drive engagement, easy to setup.
- Ask a question
- Polls, surveys
- Fill in the blanks
- Ask people to share their content
- Fun facts related to your business
- How-tos & tips
- Infographics
- Links to articles related to your business
- Inspirational quotes
- Funny posts
- Posts about your business (latest happenings, milestones, causes, staff, featured product/service, etc.)
Mix these posts up when posting. 80% should be entertaining and/or educational and 20% promotional: special offers, discounts, product itself, company news, coupons, etc. That’s because when you do post your promotional posts, people will then be more likely to engage with these posts from the engagement and trust built from your earlier entertainment and educational posts.
6. Monitor and respond to any comments to your posts. Respond in a conversational, friendly way may prompt further conversations with people, which Facebook likes to see. People will appreciate it, and visitors to your page will see that you listen to your followers, creating good will towards your business.
7. Create a Facebook event. For example, an VIP sales night for people who register for your Facebook event. Their Facebook friends will then see they’ve registered for your event and in turn may register too and/or share the event with their friends.
8. Get people to review on your Facebook page. 70% (2015) say that online reviews influences their buying decisions. If you have a WordPress website, I offer a plugin that conveniently directs people to leave you reviews on your Facebook page or other third party review sites you chose—-maximizing your social proof. Here’s more information about this plugin (opens in a new window), if interested.
9. Advertise on Facebook. You might be thinking that’s not free, but you can advertise on Facebook for as little as $5 per day. The key to advertising successfully on Facebook is to know who your most likely buyers are and then targeting them on Facebook. For example, who are most likely to use a dentist? Target Facebook people who recently got engaged! They’ll likely be interested in a teeth whitening offer before their wedding! People who indicate they’re new home owners? Movers would want to target them! Think of criteria that might prompt a buy (e.g., likes Italian cuisine, currently renting, etc.) Facebook offers many targeting criteria.
10. (Best Tip!) Get people to check in to your business on Facebook. It’s one of the best ways to get followers, engagement—-and business. When people check in on their Facebook page about your business, this spreads word-of-mouth of your business to their Facebook friends with a link to your Facebook page. It especially works well if they also comment positively about your business while checking in—effectively recommending you to all their friends!
Maximize Your Facebook Check With a FREE FB Check In Table Tent
For best results, place this tent at point of sale & encourage people to check in & comment about your business. This spreads FREE word-of-mouth about your business on Facebook!
I offer a generic Facebook Check In Table Tent that maximizes Facebook customer check ins to any business for FREE. You just set what your special-of-the day is, prominently place the tent at your point of sale and encourage people to check in your business on Facebook for your special. The tent comes with a disclaimer statement so that you can set any conditions to your daily special.
The tent comes with instructions on how customers can check in to your business on Facebook even if they or you have never done this before. You can easily show them how to check in with these instructions.
Note: You should also honour your special regardless of what people comment about when checking in to your business on Facebook.
To get this free table tent sent to your business, just pay the $12 Canadian for postage and handling by: 1) Choosing the percentage discount to be printed on your table tent for your daily special and 2) clicking on the Buy Now button below.
Note American buyers or paying in US dollars get roughly 20% off the price, depending on the current rate of exchange.
After clicking on the Buy Now button, you can pay using your Paypal account or Pay just with your Credit or Visa Debit card. Please enter your ship to address, if it’s not already filled in during checkout, so that we know where to send your tent to.
If you’d prefer a custom Facebook Check In Table Tent with your branding or to list a specific offer, free include, etc., please contact me and I can quote you the cost to customize a Facebook Check In Table for your business, depending on what you want customized.
Share Your Facebook Marketing Tips
Try out these Facebook marketing tips today and let me know how they work for you.
If you need any help implementing any of the above tips, I offer Facebook Marketing Services. You can choose a specific tip for me to assist you with for an one time cost or monthly cost depending on the tip. I can even set up an online shop for your Facebook business page, first item is FREE! Fill out the contact form immediately below and I will reply back with more information. Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
Have I overlooked a Facebook marketing tip that you’d like to share? You’re welcome to share it below under the Leave a Reply section, which is below the contact form.
[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]
Design Wizard is an excellent graphic design software which allows you to create high-quality marketing material. Social media marketing, such as the creation of Facebook covers, is a huge focus of Design Wizard. There are over 1 million images and tens of thousands of images on the platform.
I had a look. It looks like a really good. I see you can conveniently create all sorts of visual posts on any topic even if you’re not a designer. Also, people often say they don’t know what to post. This tool solves this with its search feature on its library of images. You can make & store many visual posts in advance and post them later, solving your content marketing. Thanks David for sharing this.