Thursday, March 2, 2017

7 Ways Your Business Can Profit From Facebook

Facebook is the market leader for social media sites where friends, family and strangers
connect and share online. It is also a great platform for your business to keep customers
informed, develop brand identity, and expand your market.
Social media has proven to be a valuable tool in online marketing and advertising for both large
and small businesses. The following are best practices that can help your business grow on
Facebook.

1. Post regularly
It may seem obvious but many people forget this simple act. Your business will fare better if you regularly post relevant and interesting content two or three times a day. Consider the
relevance of your content before posting as the idea is to elicit a reaction from your audience.
Focus your posts on building relationships by engaging your customers with interesting, useful
or insightful posts. Spark conversations by posing questions or start a debate.

2. Use Facebook ads to target email lists
The people in your email list already have interest in your content. How do you convince as
many as possible to like your page? Leverage Facebook ads by creating a Custom Audience by
using email addresses or phone numbers. Choose the type of ad to create, preferably a Page
Like Sponsored story that will drive users to a landing tab where in exchange for a like they will
receive a reward. You can also take advantage of outdoor signage, standard email signatures or
regular direct-mail pieces, to prompt people to like your page for a chance to win a free item.

3. Make use of Facebook contests
Whether you have 100 or 100,000 likes, Facebook contests are a great tool for building your fan
base. User-generated content (UGC) promotions such as photo or video contests will enable
you to engage, and deepen the connection with your audience. If it involves a voting
component, participants will be inclined to share, asking friends and family for their votes --
amplifying your marketing message in the process. In addition to new insights from the
conversations that take place around your contest, the entry details from participants is also a
rich source of data.

4. Set up custom tabs
You can integrate Facebook tabs with your digital marketing strategy to boost mailing list
subscribers, promote a new campaign or highlight custom content. Pop singer Taylor Swift has
a custom tab on her page that promotes her fragrances, in addition to a quiz that helps her
audience discover their own ‘fragrance personality’. You can generate more sales, and increase
followers by engaging your audience with interactive and relevant custom Facebook tabs.

5. Utilize video playlists
To make a video these days is as ‘difficult ‘as pressing record on your smartphone. According to
Cisco Systems, video traffic will represent 80-90 percent of global internet traffic by 2019.
Another interesting stat shows that for brands with a million plus Facebook fans: video posts
reached 35% of their audience on average, compared to 14% of the photo posts and 4% for text
only posts. Facebook has a system that enables users to watch videos on silent mode, driving
many brands and content creators to embrace silence as a way to captivate viewers.

6. Make it easy to contact you
The easiest way to know whether you have an angry customer is to check your business’s
Facebook page for negative posts or comments. Recent studies suggest that 50% of U.S.
consumers use social media to raise queries or discuss positive and negative experiences. Your
Facebook page is not just a platform for marketing and advertising, but also a channel for
soliciting and receiving customer service in public. Mishandling one customer can see you miss
a lot more prospects. Ensure the messages feature on your page is on for quick and easier
communication across all channels.

7. Utilize Facebook Audience insights
Facebook Audience insights can provide you with behavioral and demographic data of a
segmented audience of your choosing. The free tool will let you see emerging trends from three
groups of audiences:
  • General Facebook audience
  • People connected to your page
  • The people in Custom Audiences you created.
You will also get access to information such as; Demographics, page likes, location and
language, Facebook usage and purchase activity. Using Facebook Insights will enable you
determine the best time of the day or week to post and what content is most popular.
There is more to using Facebook for your business than setting up a page and posting updates.
Understanding the strategy behind social media marketing will help you track results, and tap
into Facebook’s analytics. Your business will remain in the minds of customers if you continue
to leverage its reach and audience.

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