Small business owners typically don’t have the funds or bandwidth to pay for a full-scale digital marketing campaign. Unpaid social media marketing is a great way to grow a business without a dedicated team or a huge budget.
With over two billion active users, Facebook is by far the most popular social network. Regardless of your business type, your customers are most likely on it. Also, around 2/3 of Facebook users visit local businesses’ pages at least once a week. According to a survey, over 90% of marketers use the platform, and 54% rate it as the most important one.
Facebook can help boost your brand awareness, attract new customers, improve website traffic, and grow your customer base. It can also help you retain existing customers and improve sales.
Any business can benefit from Facebook, whether it’s a hair salon, a landscaping company, or an e-commerce store. A strong platform presence can help boost sales and attract more potential customers.
Since you only have so much time, you must focus on one or two platforms, and Facebook is most likely to be successful with your current customers.
Connect With Customers
One of the easiest ways to find out if Facebook is a good fit for your business is to ask your customers. You can send a survey to ask your customers about their social media habits if you have an email list.
You can also use SurveyMonkey or Typeform, two free survey tools, to gather information about your customers. With the help of a social media survey template, you can customize it to allow you to collect more details about your customers.
If you don’t have an email list, you can still ask your customers to participate in a survey. This method can be done in various ways, such as during a client’s appointment or at the checkout.
Different audiences are more likely to engage with different social media platforms. To determine which one is right for your business, you can compare the psychographic traits and demographic characteristics of your target audience with those of the platforms you’re considering.
If businesses similar to yours have a large following and are getting a lot of likes and comments on Facebook, it’s most likely that your target audience is there. After all, your competitors’ customers are also potential buyers, so you need to start posting regularly.
If your competitors are not on Facebook, then it might not be the right platform for your business. However, if multiple of your customers have already told you that they’d like to follow you, this could mean that there’s potential in your niche.
Getting Started on Facebook
Your business page is one of the most important elements of Facebook for small businesses. It’s important that it’s designed to look like your homepage. Having a well-designed page can help you attract more potential customers.
Among the most effective ways to engage with your audience on Facebook is by posting video content. Compared to plain-text or link posts, those with photos are more likely to receive engagement. There are also various types of content that can be used on the platform, and it’s worth considering using them if you’re trying to reach your target audience.
Your fans came to your website for the products and services that you provide, but they stayed because they liked how you interacted with them. Social media is a part of your brand’s personality, and it can be used to promote other products and services. You can also post promotional content, but it should only be in the mix with other engaging content to make your brand stand out.
Sometimes, you’ll want to get people to your website or blog, but you can also use Facebook to promote other content. Since the platform favors media that’s published directly on it, you should only post content that’s relevant to your page and not to other websites. Also, by posting on Facebook, you can enable a conversation to take place right on the platform, which leads to more eyes on your page.