Enraged and frustrated with a break up, Mark Zuckerberg, then a Harvard sophomore, decided to teach his ex-girlfriend a lesson. He curated a website called Facemash that compared the attractiveness of students at Harvard. The site also allowed users to vote for the most attractive students. It was an instant hit with 400+ visitors within hours and over 22000 votes. Zuckerberg used this to humiliate his girlfriend by showing that there are more attractive people than her at the university.
Nevertheless, Facemash was shut down within two days as Zuckerberg had violated Harvard’s data protection policy while building the site. However, this sparked a wave of innovation and soon Zuckerberg came up with the idea of a social media website that can connect people from all over the world. He registered with the domain name thefacebook.com in 2004.
Since then, Facebook only went uphill, garnering more and more members. Today, the social media giant boasts of 2 billion plus users, which is the highest among its competitors. And since there are so many people on Facebook, it automatically becomes a sought after marketing destination for digital marketers.
In this blog, I will give you a panoramic view of what Facebook marketing is and how it can be leveraged to attract potential buyers for your products or services and therefore boost your sales and revenue. Let’s explore.
What is Facebook marketing?
Simply put, Facebook marketing is a specialized digital marketing technique that leverages the social platform to attract potential buyers. Since Facebook now has over 2 billion users who spend at least 30 minutes on the site every day, it has gone beyond just a social media website and transformed into a marketing hotspot, just like a shopping mall.
There are various ways through which Facebook can be used to market your product or services such as ads, creating an online presence (inbound marketing), videos, and more. The most effective, however, is inbound marketing that includes creating a brand presence and earning a name for your brand, which translates into customer loyalty and hence generate sales for your organization.
Now, who should actually use Facebook marketing? I bet you are wondering about the same. Let’s see whom can Facebook benefit.
Who should use Facebook marketing?
As stated earlier, the number of people swarming Facebook has gone beyond 2 billion and therefore, the social media site has become a sought after marketing destination. Facebook can be extremely helpful for the following:
Brands: Any local food joint, electronics company, home appliance manufacturer can promote their products through Facebook and transform passive customers into active buyers.
Celebrities: Authors, musicians, entrepreneurs, columnists, journalists, and others who want to make a fortune by just being famous can connect with 2 billion Facebook users and actually reach their goal.
Non-profit organizations: NGOs that work for a cause can actually advertise using Facebook to increase awareness and garner members, resulting in a win win for everyone.
Government: Even Government and its various wings can use Facebook to update policies, create awareness, and more.
Why Facebook marketing is crucial for your business?
On the basis of the discussion so far, do you really have any doubts about Facebook’s marketing potential. I hope not.
Agreed that Facebook has a lot of users and you can market your offerings, however, do you know why I am constantly emphasizing on Facebook marketing. I have listed down specific pointers that will convince you that Facebook is your go-to marketing tool. Let’s have a look.
- Global exposure: Facebook prides itself for having 2 billion plus users and therefore you get access to 2 billion potential customers. Moreover, Facebook allows businesses to open pages, groups, and form communities to attract buyers for their products or services. Also, there are Facebook ads that can help you connect with your customers and turn them into buyers. Now, can you imagine the extent of global outreach you can have just by creating your business page on Facebook?
- Cost-effectiveness: Creating a Facebook page, group or building a community is free of cost. Heck, even sharing product information, engaging with your customers also comes without cost. Do you see how Facebook can significantly reduce your marketing spends? Even paid ads are affordable and lets you target potential customers. It is this cost-effectiveness that has turned Facebook into a hotbed of marketing activities.
- Specific targeting using Facebook ads: Facebook ad is the elixir that every digital marketer should gulp down. Not only such ads are cost-effective, they allow very specific targeting on the basis of demography, location, likes, and interests. How cool is that?
For example, you want to target teenagers of Mumbai for your fashion apparel, you can simply create ads for demographics of age between 13 to 19 in Mumbai with interests in fashion. Isn’t it exciting? Not only such targeting helps you narrow down your target audience but also allows you to advertise on a local level. This also enhances your brand loyalty, which strengthens your customer base.
- Augments website traffic: By posting the link of your website on Facebook with an effective tagline, you can actually persuade your target audience to click through the link. Once they reach the landing page of your website, you can use further marketing pitch to sell your offerings. This is one of the most effective ways to increase organic traffic to your website and boost your bottom line.
- Facebook insight: After you have posted your ad, you can track its performance with the help of Facebook insight. This specialized tool provides information such as number of times the ad was shown, audience reach, people engagement, and more. With this information you can gauge consumer trends and create highly effective as well as personalized ads to rope in more customers.
Now, do you get my point? There are so many benefits that you can reap by using Facebook as a marketing tool and this comes at an unimaginable cost-effectiveness.
I bet you must be pretty excited to have a Facebook marketing strategy in place now. Believe me, there are many who have tried to market on the social media platform but fell on their face. It’s not at all easy. This is why I am here. I will show you exactly how to formulate a Facebook marketing strategy that stands out from the rest and helps you garner customers for your offerings.
Five effective steps to create an exceptional Facebook marketing strategy
The key to preparing a great Facebook marketing strategy is customer engagement. Therefore, it is mandatory to engage people on Facebook so that they are aware of your brand. So, the question is how do you do that? Let’s find out.
- Build a strong Facebook presence: Once you are out there on Facebook to get hold of potential customers, it is no brainer that you will have to build a strong presence on the social media site. Else, how would your customers know that you exist. Right? So, start by creating a Facebook page for your business and supplement it with great content. This doesn’t mean you will start spamming. Hell no! When I said great content, I meant content that resonates with your target audience. Keep doing that and you will find a lot of people liking and sharing your posts. This will increase your brand awareness and you will be blessed with more visitors to your page. Your job is half done.
- Leverage consumer trends to create brilliant Facebook ads: By analyzing consumer trend you will be able to understand what your customers like, dislike, and what do they expect. This will help you curate personalized Facebook ads that strike a chord with them instantly. Studies have shown that emotive and personalized ads lead to greater sales. Now, imagine how this can augment your bottom line. Isn’t this a brilliant strategy? Let me know.
- Run contests on your Facebook page: Recent trends have revealed that Facebook pages that run contests have greater customer engagement. Not only contests pique the interest of your target audience, it also amounts to more number of shares and hence leads to greater popularity. With the kind of engagement you can get through contests, be assured that your sales numbers are going to skyrocket in no time.
- Create videos to engage your audience: Undoubtedly, today’s world is pro-video. No one has the time to read and videos provide just the right ingredient to gather knowledge. This trend can be optimized to display products and services and hence attract potential buyers. Make compelling and engaging products that shows your products USP and use Facebook to spread the video. You cannot even imagine right now, how much it can augment your sales volume.
- Know the optimal timing for your posts: When you’re posting your content on Facebook for your target audience, it is essential to know when they are online. According to CoSchedule, a scheduling app, the best days to post on Facebook are Sunday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and the best times are 09:00 AM, 01:00 PM, and 03:00 PM. So, it is essential that you keep track of such useful insights before posting on Facebook. Perhaps you can take help from apps such as CoSchedule to help you further.
With this we have come to an end of this blog post. I hope you had a great learning experience. Now you can start using the strategies outlined in this blog to create a highly effective facebook marketing plan.
In case you need any further assistance, you can visit our website: www.externalexperts.com where we have services and offers tailor made for all your business needs. On top of that, we also house a wide range of digital marketing training courses designed to elevate your digital marketing skillset.