Why We Love and Hate Facebook

It seems that most brands these days have a love hate relationship with Facebook. With organic reach on a steady decline it can be tough to justify using Facebook for social media marketing.

But here at Digitopia, we still believe! We encourage clients to use Facebook, but we know that it can't be a halfhearted effort. It takes time, great content, and, yes, money.

Facebook is great for small businesses
A number of companies who started using Facebook before the decline of organic reach are seeing success without creating ad campaigns for posts and page likes, but even they aren't reaching the number of people they should reach because of the changes to organic reach. For these brands, spending money on Facebook may not be a necessity because they've already created a large, loyal engaged following who is sharing, commenting and liking posts.

But for small businesses just starting out on social media, Facebook can be a great benefit. Think of traditional advertising campaigns: spending thousands of dollars on billboards, hundreds on ad placements in magazines and newspapers. While those tactics are still applicable to today's marketing practices, Facebook gives small businesses a leg up. For less money than it would take to dive into traditional marketing efforts, small businesses can promote products, services and content via Facebook to a very targeted audience.

You need great content to be successful on Facebook
Why do people flock to social media sites? It's for one of three reasons: To be entertained, to be moved, or to be informed. Before spending money on Facebook, your business should have a sound content marketing strategy in place. Determine what your business goals are and write posts that center around your core goals. For example, if you're trying to promote a healthy new cold-pressed juice, you could write an article that subtly features your product. The article could be, '12 Nutrition Fixes for Your Diet.' In this article, include one section that highlights juicing and explains the benefits of cold-pressed juices.

Recognize that Facebook is an advertising platform
Once you have the right kind of content in place on your website, begin your advertising campaign on Facebook. Use a content calendar to make sure that the content you're sharing reflects your business goals. For example, if you're posting five times a week, one post should link back to a recent blog post, while another could link to an interesting feature of your product or service. 

We've found that Facebook can be hugely advantageous for small businesses when thought of as an advertising space. For example, we have a current client who wants to promote events and booking at their venue. Within their space, this company has a number of exciting retailers, a renown restaurant, a design studio and more. Our social media team found the secret (not-so-secret anymore) sauce to building brand awareness for their location and website/foot traffic:

1) Create a dedicated, well-optimized landing page for the event.

2) Ensure that the image used on the event page contains less than 20 percent text, so you can boost it on Facebook.

3) Create an appealing, soft call to action (don't push it!) - "Happy Fashion Friday! We love this amazing purse from [name of fashion retailer] - love having them at [name of the venue]." And ensure that the image shows up properly on Facebook.

4) Facebook gives you the option to target 'People who like your page,''People who like your page and their friends,' or 'People you choose through targeting.' If you are still building your following, your best bet is to use the third option. Target your desired locations, age ranges and interests. When choosing interests, try entering the names of competitors, interests of your target audience (shows they might watch, stores and restaurants they might go to ect).

5) Use your budget wisely. If you are a small business but you have an established marketing budget we suggest using a budget of $15-$20 if you want a post to get a good amount of attention. Boost the post for 2-3 days. If your budget is non existent we still suggest you try boosting three posts for $5 throughout the week for a few weeks to give it a try!

6) Boost for page likes. To draw more people to your Facebook page to create brand awareness and drive traffic back to your website, it's important to not only boost posts, but also "boost for page likes". This way, you're encouraging new potential customers to engage with your page and its posts.

Is Facebook working well for you? What strategies have you implemented lately?

Digitopia is passionate about helping businesses grow by tapping into the power of social media and SEO. To discuss how we can help you grow your business, contact us today!