If your business isn’t on at least one of the major social media platforms by now, you’ve probably been living under a rock. Although it’s possible that you managed to exist for this long without hearing about them, chances are good that you live in a world where almost everyone you know has an account with one or more of these sites.
Despite their popularity, using social media as part of your marketing strategy isn’t as simple as opening an account and waiting for customers to come knocking.
Instead, successful marketing on social media requires careful strategy and planning. It also requires an understanding of how each platform works, what sorts of people use each platform, and how to target specific people using those platforms in a way that doesn’t seem creepy or weird.
That old saying, “a friend in need is a friend indeed” rings especially true when talking about marketing. When it comes to brand loyalty, no market is more fickle than the millennial generation. Because of this, marketers are constantly coming up with new ways to capture their attention and drive brand loyalty.
So, how do you drive brand loyalty? With Facebook marketing! From its humble beginnings as an Ivy League student directory, Facebook has grown into one of the largest platforms for online marketing in the world.
With over 2 billion active users worldwide (and counting), it’s the perfect place to reach your target audience and drive loyalty among millennials. Read on for an ultimate guide to Facebook marketing and how you can use it to grow your business.
What is Facebook Marketing?
Facebook marketing is the use of Facebook to grow your business. In other words, it’s the art of marketing your products or services by leveraging Facebook as a medium.
If you’re an online marketer, Facebook marketing is a must-have skill. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar business or an e-commerce company, Facebook marketing can help you grow your business by increasing your website traffic and boosting your brand’s visibility.
Facebook marketing can consist of everything from boosting your posts to advertising your product or service to your target market. The goal of Facebook marketing is to increase awareness of your brand and drive sales.
Why Should You Use Facebook Marketing?
There are lots of good reasons to use Facebook marketing to grow your business. Here are just a few:
- Reach: Facebook has over 2 billion active users. If you want to reach a large audience, Facebook is the perfect place to do it.
- Targeting: You can target your ads to a specific demographic, giving you incredible targeting capabilities. You can even target by geography, job title, and interests.
- Cost: Facebook ads are free to set up and use. You only pay when someone interacts with your ad (e.g., clicks on your ad, likes your post, etc.).
- Easiness: With Facebook marketing, you don’t have to create content from scratch. Instead, you can repurpose your existing content to get more out of it.
- Scaling: Once you’ve created a winning ad, you can easily and quickly scale it to reach more people.
How to Market on Facebook?
Now that we’ve covered why you should use Facebook marketing, let’s talk about how you can do it. First, you need to build a business page. Once you’ve done that, you can start posting. When you post, Facebook offers three types of posts to choose from:
- Photo: Posting photos is a great way to build your brand. You can post images of your product or prototypes, images of your team, or behind-the-scenes photos from your office.
- Video: Videos are an excellent way to engage your followers and provide a high-quality experience. You can share product demos, tutorials, or even behind-the-scenes looks at how your company operates.
- Status: Like any other social network, Facebook is a place to engage in meaningful conversation with your followers. You can post updates about your company, industry, or the latest news.
Facebook Ads: An Introduction
Now that we’ve covered Facebook marketing, let’s talk about Facebook ads. Facebook ads are paid promotions that appear beside related content on Facebook. If you’re an online marketer, these are the advertisements you’ve probably seen on Facebook.
You have the option to create both image and link ads. You can even create carousel ads with up to 10 images or links.
This is done by selecting one ad type, then selecting the “Create Multiple Ads” option. You can target your ads based on interests, demographics, and behaviours, just like you can with any other Facebook ad. One key difference is that you can also target people based on their relationship to your business.
Choosing a Facebook Ad Type
Now that we’ve covered the types of Facebook posts, it’s time to move on to types of Facebook ads. Facebook ads break down into the following types:
- Image Ads: These ads are almost identical to posts, but are designed to drive clicks. They show up as a large image, along with a headline and a small call-to-action button beside it.
- Link Ads: These ads show up as a headline, followed by a description, along with a link to your website.
- Video Ads: Video ads are the most engaging of all Facebook ads. They appear as a large video, which users can click to play. They also have a headline, along with a brief description.
- Canvas Ads: These ads are designed to blend in with the rest of your content, so they don’t disrupt the user’s experience. They are an image with a headline, along with a brief description.
Facebook Video Ads
We’ve covered the types of Facebook ads, now let’s talk about video advertisements. Video marketing is a booming industry. It’s expected to grow to $80 billion by 2020, which makes video ads a must-have for any business.
As Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “In the long term, we’re focused on two things: growing our community and growing our business.” Facebook’s goal is to help businesses thrive, and video ads can do just that.
Video ads allow you to engage with your customers in a way that’s not possible with other types of ads. Facebook video ads are a great way to promote your brand, product, or service. They’re attention-grabbing and can be as short as 15 seconds.
Boosted Posts
Now that we’ve covered Facebook video ads, let’s talk about boosted posts. Boosted posts are an excellent way to get more engagement on your page. You can boost any of your posts, be they links or statuses.
Boosted posts show up in the feed of your followers, along with a “Sponsored” tag next to them. You can boost posts manually, or you can schedule them to run at a later date and time. Boosted posts are particularly effective for boosting engagement in the following scenarios:
- When you’re launching a new product or service
- Boosting posts around the time of a product launch is a great way to get the word out.
- When you’re hosting an event
- If you’re hosting an event, boosting posts is a great way to get more people involved.
- When you’re looking to grow your followers
- Boosting posts is a great way to start conversations and get new followers.
FAQ
Q. What can I do to get more followers on Facebook?
A. Getting more followers on Facebook can be tricky. One way to do it is to offer something of value in return for the follow. You can do this by offering discounts, freebies, or exclusive content. Just make sure it’s a fair trade: don’t ask for too much in return.
Q. What are the best hours to post on Facebook?
A. Posts are more likely to be seen during off-work hours, but studies show that the best time to post is between 2 and 4 pm.
Q. How do I know if my Facebook ad is successful?
A. First, make sure you’re tracking your ad’s performance. Once you have that data, you can determine if your ad was successful by checking for these metrics:
- Impressions: The number of times your ad was shown.
- CTR: The number of people who clicked on your ad.
- Conversion rate: The number of people who took the next step in your sales funnel.
How to Grow Your Business with Facebook Ads
Now that we’ve covered the basics of Facebook marketing and Facebook ads, let’s talk about how you can grow your business with Facebook ads. When it comes to Facebook ads, it’s important to keep in mind that you want to cater your ads to your specific audience.
There are a few different ways to do this. First, make sure you understand your target audience. Once you’ve done that,
Why Facebook Marketing Works for B2C Brands
When Facebook first started out, it was largely a website used by students and young professionals to stay in touch with one another. As a result, it was a natural fit for brands with a younger target demographic, such as clothing and beverage companies.
Since then, Facebook has expanded to include a variety of different demographics. However, brands with a younger target demographic still have an advantage.
This is because Facebook skews towards the interests and preferences of younger users. This means they are more likely to see and interact with any ads you run on the platform. As a result, B2C brands have a huge advantage when it comes to Facebook marketing.
Why Facebook Marketing Works for B2B Brands
Although Facebook is primarily used as a B2C platform, there are still plenty of B2B brands succeeding in leveraging its power for marketing and sales. The key for B2B brands here is to make sure your ads are targeted and personalized.
With Facebook’s powerful demographic targeting, you can be as specific as you want. For example, if you run a business that sells business management software, you can target CMOs and CEOs in your area. If you target specific individuals, your ads will be much more likely to show up in their newsfeed.
This gives you the opportunity to show your company to the people who matter most, and drive them to contact you with a personalized offer. This makes B2B Facebook marketing an extremely effective tool for generating leads.
Why Should You Use Facebook Ads to Grow Your Business?
As we’ve seen, Facebook marketing is an incredibly powerful way to reach your target audience. However, it’s also one of the most low cost ways available. You can find success with Facebook ads without spending a fortune. You can even create effective Facebook ads for as little as $5!
This is one of the reasons why Facebook marketing works so well for small businesses and startups.With just a few hours’ worth of ad creation and optimization, you can start bringing in new customers at a very low cost.
Facebook ads are also incredibly flexible. You can target your ads towards a wide variety of demographics, from age and location to interests, behaviours, and more. With Facebook ads, you can also promote organic posts for your business, giving you an opportunity to reach even more potential customers.
How to Create a Facebook Ad
Before you start creating ads for your Facebook campaigns, you’ll need to set up a business account if you don’t already have one. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to create a new ad. Here are the steps:
- In the left menu, click on “Create Ad”.
- Select the type of ad you want to create. You can choose between promoting an existing post, a product or service, or creating a new ad. You can also choose the type of audience you want to target.
- Next, enter the information for your ad. You’ll be able to choose the image, headline, description, and the call-to-action button for your ad.
- Select a budget for your ad. Facebook allows you to choose between a daily budget or a lifetime budget. Be sure to select the bid type that you want to use.
- Once you’ve created your ad, you can run it as many times as you like. You can also edit or change your ad at any time.
- Also, make sure to test out different ads to see which ones are performing best. When you find the ad that works, increase your spend and let it run!
The 5 Step Process for Growing Your Business with Facebook Ads
Now that we’ve covered the basics of Facebook ads and how they work, it’s time to put them to use. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: what could you do to capture their attention and drive them towards your brand? Here are 5 ways to grow your business with Facebook ads:
- Define your target audience
- Create a winning ad
- Find the right placement
- Optimize for click-through
- Measure results and improve!
Build Brand Awareness With Facebook Ads
Before you start driving traffic to your website, you need to build brand awareness. There are a few different ways to do this:
- Choose a theme for your ad campaign
- Focus on a single, high-performing ad
- Run a variety of different ads for different demographics
Now, here’s how these translate into Facebook ads:
- Choose a theme for your ad campaign. What do you want your customers to think of when they see your ad? You can use a theme to make your ads more memorable, and help them stand out from the crowd.
- Focus on a single, high-performing ad. Facebook ads are flexible, so you can test out multiple ads to see which works best with your target audience. However, once you find a winner, focus as much of your ad spend as possible on that single ad.
- Run a variety of different ads for different demographics. Facebook ads are flexible enough that you can tailor each ad to a specific demographic. This way, you can ensure that your ads are reaching their intended audience.
Grow Your Audience With Facebook Ads
Once you’ve built brand awareness and started to capture more of your target audience’s attention, it’s time to grow your audience. There are a few ways to do this:
- Drive traffic to your website
- Engage your customers with a lead magnet
- Drive people to sign up for your email list
Now, here’s how these translate into Facebook ads:
- Drive traffic to your website. You can do this with a website conversion ad or a website conversion campaign. This type of ad directs people to your website, where they can learn more about your products or services and sign up for more information.
- Engage your customers with a lead magnet. A lead magnet is something that you give away, usually for free. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it’s something that your customers are likely to engage with and learn from, helping you to further engage them with your brand.
- Drive people to sign up for your email list. Email is still one of the most effective ways to reach your customers, so any chance you get to collect their emails is worth taking! You can do this with an email marketing campaign.
Use Facebook Advertising To Drive Traffic
Once you’ve built brand awareness and started to grow your audience, it’s time to drive traffic to your website. There are a few ways to do this:
- Drive traffic to a specific landing page
- Drive traffic to your website home page
- Drive traffic to a video on your website
Now, here’s how these translate into Facebook ads:
- Drive traffic to a specific landing page. This is a great way to direct your customers to the most relevant page on your website, and really increase your conversion rates.
- Drive traffic to your website home page. This is a great way to capture even more of your customers’ attention, and keep them on your website for longer.
- Drive traffic to a video on your website. This is a great way to showcase your brand, and show off what your company has to offer.
Optimize for Click-Through
Now that you’ve started to drive traffic to your website, it’s important to optimize for click-through. There are a few different ways to do this:
- Use negative keywords
- Use auto-tagging
- Create highly relevant ads
Now, here’s how these translate into Facebook ads:
- Use negative keywords. This is how you tell Facebook that you don’t want your ads to show up for certain words or phrases.
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