The way to Successfully Advertise your Trade on Fb

Facebook might be here for more than a decade now, and arguably, it still is THE social network that defined a generation. It is an incredible online community and a gold mine for businesses and advertisers looking for a platform for interaction with their market.

How to Effectively Promote your Business on Facebook

Facebook boasts 1.35 billion monthly active users and it is too big an opportunity for you as business owners to pass. Here are some advertising methods that you can use in building up your brand in the largest social network:

1. Create a Facebook page

The first thing that you should do is to create a page for your business. While creating a Facebook profile for your company can work, a Facebook Page is a better avenue for you to interact with them.

Facebook pages have several functions made specifically for convenient communication and easy analysis for insights.

One such function is the ability to target your posts to specific segment of your market. Targeting categories include gender, relationship status, educational status, age, location, language, and interests. This means that what you post would only show up in the News Feed of your fans that fit your settings.

Another useful function you could try is the Insights for your page. Here, you can check the demographics of your company’s fans, see the progress of your Likes over time, analyze the reach of your posts, find the websites that refer to your page, and determine the best time to post updates.

The number of fans that may like your page has no limit and thus, the potential to reach a large number of people is virtually limitless. The next few tips will discuss how you should interact with your fans.

2. Be consistent with your visual design

Any marketer would tell you that branding is critical and packaging your brand has a great impact in your consumer’s perception. With this in mind, do your best to make your Facebook page reflect the message of your brand.

Aside from image posts, Facebook pages can change their Page Profile Picture and Cover Photo. The dimensions for these as well as with other social networks can be found here.

Choose the right photos for these as they will be the first things visitors will see in your page. Most of the time, your company logo will suffice for a profile picture, but you can experiment and choose what works best. We suggest using some of your products or services, or using images of your headquarters and employees.

3. Engage your followers through frequent updates and encouraging discussion

There isn’t necessarily any right or wrong number of times you should upload photos or change your status.  How often you post in your Facebook page depends on your brand and what kind of industry you are in and what your objectives in your social media marketing plan are.

That said, you should post frequently enough to make your audience stay engaged. Analyze your Facebook insights and check the times when majority of your followers are online. Use that time to post updates that could potentially incite a discussion. Such posts include thought-provoking questions, opinions, or contest giveaways.

Like blog posting, always share evergreen content. However, you should not confine yourself within this principle. Social media by nature works in real time. Brands like Oreo have mastered riding on trending topics and posting about them in their pages.

4. As much as possible, reply to your fans’ comments

Communication is a two-way street and the sure-fire way to build a relationship with your fans is to communicate with them. Try to reply to your fans comments and queries. Not only does this boost engagement, it would also show that you actually care enough to take time to answer them.

In commenting, use your fans’ first names. Your fan is a friend, and you would want to invoke a sense of familiarity between the two of you. Be transparent with your company’s business and always provide an insight to your followers. Going a little further, you can host a Q&A where your fans can ask questions.

Showcase your fans. Post a shout-out once in a while, thanking top-contributors to the page, or if possible, giving surprise freebies.

5. Join a Facebook Group and share your page’s content

Facebook groups are like mini forums where users with shared interests gather and discuss relevant topics.

This presents a great opportunity for you to share your content with greater engagement. Depending on your industry, you may find groups that would be related to your business. Use your industry experience and contribute to the discussion.

If you think some of your content would give the group members value, share it and encourage members to ask you questions. You can also create your own Facebook group for your company for a more in-depth discussion that Facebook pages may fall short of.

6. Integrate your other social media profiles to Facebook

Almost half of the online adult population uses multiple social networking sites, and Facebook is still their top platform of choice.

For your company, this means that you too should be present in multiple social networks to connect with your market. The thing is, most social networks don’t but rather complement each other. Take advantage of this opportunity by integrating your Facebook with your other social media profiles.

Post some of your pictures from Instagram or share your boards from Pinterest. Link some of your Tweets to your Facebook page. Finally, do not forget to promote your social media sites across platforms. Doing so lets you cover a wide area to attract potential customers.

7. Boost your posts and use Facebook advertising

Facebook give you the chance to boost your updates as a sponsored post to show in the News Feed of potential likers. These kinds of posts can be targeted to whatever demographics settings you used. Depending on your budget, these posts can be shown up to 20 million Facebook users. Each boosted post can cost as little as a dollar.

Aside from posts, you can also create an advertisement for your page. Facebook lets you choose between Desktop News Feed, Mobile News Feed or the Right Column to position your advertisement. Like boosted posts, you can also set the demographics of the consumers you want to target.

*Facebook recently changed its privacy policy which is beneficial to users but might make promotion difficult for businesses. Starting 2015, posts that are promotional in nature might be shown to less people organically. You have to use Facebook ads to boost your post.

There you have it! Thanks for reading our rundown on how to promote your business on Facebook. Do you have more ideas and tips on promoting your business in Facebook? Tell us in the comment box below! 

UPrinting is also on Facebook! Check out our profile here! Try our custom printing services for promoting your Facebook page.

 

Updated on December 8, 2014