When people find out that I work as a social media manager, quite often the first question I’m asked is “How do I get more likes for my business’ Facebook Page?”
A Facebook Page can be an invaluable tool for start-up businesses to grow awareness and build a fan base. But it’s not as easy as jumping online one night, creating a page, and then BOOM! – success hits you and your business is the next big thing.
When launching a Facebook Page for your business there are a number of things to consider.
When preparing to launch your Facebook Page, take the time to add some basic information and content before you hit the ‘publish’ button.
This means that you can work on your page ‘behind-the-scenes’ before it is publicly viewable. Your ‘About’ section should be completely filled out, including your contact details, website and a description of what exactly your business is all about.
Depending on your business, it might be appropriate to load a photo album showcasing your products before launching. You should also share a first post on your page so that visitors (and potential customers!) do not land on an empty wall.
It can be really hard to think of interesting, relevant and engaging content on a day-to-day basis, not to mention time consuming!
Therefore it’s always best to spend some time nutting out a content strategy to make this process much easier.
The first thing to identify is who your target audience is. From there you can decide what sort of content you are going to share, spend some time researching and creating your posts and then start populating a content calendar.
Being organised is a key factor in having a highly engaged Facebook community.
Facebook also has the functionality to allow you to schedule posts ahead of time, which is a great time saver!
This makes it far easier to promote your page to others and through marketing collateral. This means that instead of your Page URL being https://facebook.com/pages/Laurens-Business/123456789, it can be as simple as https://facebook.com/Laurens-Business.
One of the single biggest misconceptions about social media marketing is that it is free.
Sure, it doesn’t cost anything other than your time to have a Facebook Page for your business, but if your only fans are your friends and family then it’s going to take a bit of budget to start expanding your reach.
Facebook Ads are a great way to start communicating to people in your target market not already connected to your Facebook Page.
You can target your ads by various demographics such as location and age, but also by a number of psychographics including interests.
Even better, your campaign need not be expensive. With Facebook Ads you can set your own budget, so if you just want to spend $20 a day for 2 weeks then that’s all you’ll pay.
Facebook states that just 17% of your fans actually get served your content in their newsfeed. That means that if you have 100 fans, only 17 of them are likely to see what you post!
In order to get more eyeballs viewing your carefully crafted content, Facebook has another paid advertising service called ‘Promoted Posts’. At the time of posting, you can choose to promote your post for a cost (usually minimal, especially if the size of your page is small) and this means that more that 17% of your fans will see it.
This tool can also be used to acquire new fans by checking the box that promotes your post to friends of people who like your page as well.
These tips are just the start of the road to a successful Facebook presence as you need to nurture trust through constant engagement before you can turn your fans into advocates.
Over the coming weeks I will delve deeper into content strategy and Facebook’s advertising products, we’ve only just scratched the surface!
