Facebook Marketing for Small Business Owners

There are hardly any small business owners out there that couldn't tap into the power and scale of Facebook marketing to promote and grow their business. However like with any marketing activity, you need to have a reliable system in place to manage your Facebook marketing to get the best results. Here's my step-by-step guide to getting more results from Facebook for business.

To effectively promote your business on Facebook you need to have a Facebook Business Page.

Yet time and time I come across profiles that are set up as businesses. Firstly, it's illegal according to Facebook rules, so your profile can be blocked without any notice - and you'll end up losing all your "friends" and content. Secondly, as a personal profile you are missing out on some very effective features Facebook designed for business owners - which are available to Pages only.

So if you haven't got a Page for your business -go set up one now as the number one priority. You can then let "friends" know about it - and ask them to become fans instead.

(I'm saying "friends" like that, because as a business you can't have real friends as a human would have, so that "friends" are actually fans or followers of your business)

To create an effective marketing system on Facebook it is useful to establish who your ideal audience is, what interests they have and which other pages on Facebook they visit. You are then able to use this information to create a marketing plan and system.

Facebook Marketing Plan:

identify your perfect audience (who they are - age, gender, location, education level, income, marital status etc., what their interests are, what other Facebook pages they visit and like),
identify their pain points, problems and challenges you could help them with - what words and phrases do they use to describe them?
identify when your perfect audience is most likely to be online and use Facebook - you can use your Page's Insights tool for that.
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Whether you do the marketing research yourself or hire a marketing manager to do it for you, once you have the data to hand you can organise a system of how all the marketing activities are going to be done.

Facebook Marketing System:

Any marketing system is a step-by-step plan of what needs to be done, when and who is responsible for this action.

I love having systems in place, and I love helping my clients implement systems like that. Systems help their businesses become more predictable, less uncertain, more effective. And with responsibility and accountability built in - it's far more likely that marketing will actually get done and not pushed to side when the small business owner (you!) gets really busy.

Even if you do the marketing tasks yourself and don't have an assistant, having a marketing system in place will save you time wasted on guesswork and reinventing the process each time you need to do it.

Facebook marketing tools you will need:

HootSuite, BufferApp or Postplanner to schedule your updates,
Facebook Page Insights provided for your page to review performance,
Facebook Pages mobile app to quickly respond to new comments and messages on the go,
A simple graphic tool like Canva.com or PicMonkey to create images to post with your updates.
Step 1: Using your research data, work out what you need to post to help your ideal clients with their problems and challenges.

Step 2: Connect with other pages your target audience is already following, post messages, comments and share their updates on your page. Those pages are likely to return the favour and do this in return.

Step 3: Schedule your Page updates to come out during the times your target audience is more likely to be online.

Mix the media up:

text updates,
link updates,
new blog posts,
images only or text and image updates,
more engagement on facebook
Infographic by fbpower.com
Step 4: Using your mobile App, reply to comments and messages you Page receives on the regular basis. With short response times you are more likely to catch the person still online thus starting a conversation with them.

Step 5: Review your Insights on the regular basis to check what kind of updates work best for your page. Test sending similar updates at different times, or sharing different updates at the same day/time to work out what can make a bigger impact. Your best times to post will change all the time as your fanbase grows so keep an eye on your posting schedule.

Step 6: Brand your page with an attractive Profile and Canvas images showing a potential fan what your page is all about and how you can help them. Your profile image is visible in their stream all the time so choose it wisely as it'll be helping your fans identity your updates amongst all others. See the infographic below on the best image dimensions for your Facebook Page.

Step 7: Promote your posts to reach a wider audience. Yes your free reach will be lower than what it was years ago. With more and more businesses joining Facebook, you can't expect all your fans to be able to see all your updates all the time, as well as all updates from their friends and all other pages they like. It's completely unrealistic and impossible.

At any moment in time only a portion of your fans will be online, and will be able to see the update as it goes live. To reach more fans in hours and days after the update went live you can promote it - however running Facebook Ads is a system in itself so do not jump into spending money on it, unless you really know how to use it.

Just clicking "boost post" button will not bring you the results you expect, but will cost your business the hard-earned cash. It's a lot more complex than that. I've worked with clients burnt by experimenting with Ads on their own, without a clear strategy, goal or in-depth understanding how they work. It's not hard to get it right - but you need to know how.

If you need help with setting up your Facebook Ads - get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Getting more leads from Facebook

Keep up to date with the changes, for example, Facebook has changed the size of the cover photo and now allows the placement of a call-to-action, links to your website and text (to be more that 20% of the area) on an image which is now enlarged to 851 x 315 pixels.

Keep an eye on your stats to post relevant content when your fans can see it.

Interact with your fans to have a more engaging page - in return even more fans (and non-fans but friends of your fans) will see your updates.

Have a monetisation strategy in mind: how can you guide someone from becoming a fan to becoming a lead to becoming a client?

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When you add a photo to your update include text and links, which will take your audience wherever you want them to go. It could be a sign up page or just to find out more about a product, service or offer. Do not presume that everyone will know what is expected of them, reinforce what action you want them to make with words, pictures, video or audio.

facebook-marketing-strategy

Your action this week

Have you noticed a difference in click-through rate when you use images? Do people watch your videos or listen to your podcasts? Are you struggling with reaching more of your fans?

Or is your Page and fans' community thriving and growing?

Share your stories in comments, as well as ask away your questions - happy to help as always!

P.S. if you are struggling with creating and implementing marketing strategies in your business, then marketing mentoring might be just what you need. I work with a selected group of clients 1-to-1 to create measurable and effective strategies to marketing their business. You get direct access to me, resources and guides, training and hands-on support, accountability and coaching - as part of the Digital Marketing Mentoring. Spaces are open for September start - find out more here.