With amazing content, you can rely a little less on Google by having a loyal following of users coming straight to your website. But another strategy is to find other sources of traffic. One such source? Social media.
Promoting yourself on social media gives you a direct method to engage with your audience and to gain likes and shares. Better yet, your content can spread through the interconnected real-world social networks of your followers. The best place to do this? Facebook. Here’s how you get started.
Facebook remains the biggest and most popular social network on the web by far. We’ve all heard the incredibly popular statistics by now… Facebook has more users than the population of any country in the world. There are over 2.9 billion active users on Facebook each month. In short, Facebook is an absolute no-brainer for marketers. This is one of the most effective places to find new clients, fans, and customers. So, the question is: how?
In this quick start guide, you will learn everything you need to know to get started with your own Facebook marketing campaign. You’ll discover not only how to get started and set up a thriving Facebook page and ad campaign, but also how to ensure that you avoid the common mistakes and pitfalls that other marketers make and that you positively thrive as soon as you go live.
Before you can begin Facebook marketing, the first thing you need to do is to create a Facebook page. Your page is going to be the hub of all your activity on the platform, and it will be where your fans can stop by in order to learn more about you or to check out what you’ve posted recently.
Creating a Facebook page is easy. Setting one up is as easy as clicking ‘Page’ under the ‘Create’ heading on the left of the home feed and then choosing whether this is a local business or place, band or public figure, a company, a cause, entertainment, or brand or product. For internet marketers, the ‘brand’ option might be the best choice, or ‘entertainment’. For companies, you can choose local business, company, or brand. Whatever the case, though, ultimately the function of your page will be very similar.
You’ll then need to add some details and a profile picture/cover photo. Uploading an image in slightly higher resolution will result in a crisper-looking final product.
Therefore, it's recommended that you choose a high-quality image that is also relevant to your brand. For your profile picture, it's best to use your company logo or a professional headshot if you're a public figure. This will help people easily recognize your brand or persona.
For the cover photo, you have more space to get creative and showcase your brand's personality. You can use a high-quality image related to your brand, such as a product shot or a lifestyle photo. Alternatively, you can create a custom graphic that includes your brand's messaging or tagline.
It's important to note that both the profile picture and cover photo will be displayed differently on desktop and mobile devices. For example, on mobile devices, the profile picture will be displayed as a circle rather than a square. So, it's a good idea to test your images on both desktop and mobile to ensure they look great and convey your brand's message effectively.
In addition to your profile picture and cover photo, you can also add other images to your Facebook page, such as photos of your products or services, team members, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business. These images can help to humanize your brand and connect with your audience on a more personal level.
The next thing you need to understand is how to create engaging content for your page and how to make sure that your fans get value in exchange for their loyalty.
Value on Facebook comes from entertainment, information, and things like discounts and free giveaways. If you aren’t offering one of these things through a post, you are wasting your fans’ time, and there’s a high chance they’ll leave after not too long.
This might sound obvious, but it’s actually one of the things that many businesses struggle with the most when trying to promote their pages. Instead of making posts that provide real value and entertainment, all they are interested in is self-promotion and selling their product.
This is an example of a typical Facebook post from a company that "doesn’t get it":
So, what’s the problem with these examples? Simply put: they offer nothing of use! Those posts aren’t interesting, they aren’t entertaining, and they don’t save the viewer money. This is essentially just hollow advertising that is now clogging up the newsfeed for many users, and eventually, they’re likely to get tired of that and unsubscribe.
And what do you think the chances are of someone liking one of those posts or sharing it? Slim to none! The only possibility is if they’re already a fan, which presumably must be due to a prior interaction with that individual.