This means there is a massive amount of competition out there in every industry so a business needs to stay ahead of the pecking order at all times, the world of business is ruthless and this extends to Social Media as well, one slip up and you will lose ground immediately.
How you might ask? It’s simple, by following these steps you can put your business well above the rest on Facebook.
Facebook is an ideal channel for providing updates about your business, don’t however get carried away. people don’t want to read pointless drivel about your staff night out, they want to read about what you can offer them and why they should engage with your business.
Always provide regular updates about relevant news, blogs, product and sales events and discount of the week/month offers. Make sure to keep this ongoing with good quality and people will flock back to your page time and time again.
Most people judge at first glance, this means if they look at something visually unappealing they will be inclined not to give it a second thought so it is crucial you use well-placed images throughout your page.
Include photos of people smiling while using your product or service, bright colours and logos. Place these images on positions on the page where people will notice them right away such as your profile or a cover picture while uploading regular photos through posts, a good picture paints a thousand words so you will be amazed at the impact it can have on cementing audience engagement.
Discover here how Matrix Internet can help you get the most from your Facebook buisness page
As mentioned above people don’t want to read long and drawn-out posts, it is down to the instinctive attention span we possess as humans that drives us to switch off halfway through reading long and interesting bodies of text.
Keep it simple, break up your sentences and use the right wording to keep your posts to between 60-80 characters so even those with short attention spans will be able to absorb and digest the content you provide.
If you don’t ask, you’ll never know! Ever heard that one before? You may think everything is running smoothly, you convince yourself the content you are providing is good and people are enjoying your product or service.. do you really know how things are going through?
Always ask people to review your product or service on your page, create polls, and encourage comments, sure you may receive some negative feedback, but that’s business for you you take the good with the bad. You can turn negative feedback into positive change once you know what areas need to improve.
Reaching out to your audience by using a personal touch goes a long way. Ok, we’re not talking about addressing people by their first name here, we’re talking about being less formal and business orientated.
Always try to put a little fun into it, share updated posts asking people how their day went, wish them happy holidays where relevant, and run competitions and quiz features, doing all of this will encourage the audience to interact back with you, If your page looks like it’s being operated a programmed corporate robot serving repetitive content with their only intention to part the audience with their hard-earned cash then you can be sure people will catch on quickly and boycott your site in droves.
Social media and video are two of the biggest things in digital marketing these days, so it makes sense to combine them. Social media is now an essential brand-building tool, and video is a powerful way to reach people and get your content shared. A viral video on Facebook is marketing gold. So what about using Facebook Live for marketing? How can you use this powerful and popular feature to attract followers and spread your message further? What kind of thing should you put live on Facebook? Like any marketing tool, you want to learn a bit and think strategically before you dive in and start using it.
Part of your ongoing marketing research should be monitoring what similar firms in your field are doing online. What are they blogging about? What type of content are they sharing on various social media platforms and what kind of response are they getting? So you can start developing your strategy for using Facebook Live by seeing what your competition and companies similar to yours have done and what kind of response they got.
What you post live matters. You want to share live content that really grabs attention. Here are a few ideas.
That’s just a few ideas to get you started. The specifics of your company and your audience will guide you to the best opportunities to use Facebook Live to promote your business and reach more potential customers online. Real-time engagement with your audience makes your brand stand out.
Facebook’s recently announced changes will pose some challenges to businesses marketing on the social media platform. Many will see their organic reach shrink. This will push more brands to use paid Facebook ads, which have long been highly recommended and powerful tools.
Facebook provides another option for marketing – a seriously under-used option. Facebook groups are an effective way to directly reach and engage with your target market, but only if you use them carefully.
It is less of a problem in Ireland, but in some other countries Facebook users often end up misusing the group’s feature to hard-sell to online users. Many people are added to groups without their consent and bombarded with sales messages. As a general rule of thumb, this should be avoided.
Connection and engagement are the keys to social media marketing. You don’t use social media to push your product. You use it to identify and connect with your audience and direct them to your website. People don’t really want to get on Facebook to read about products. But they do want to use the platform to follow their interests, and that is very helpful to certain types of products and services.
Fitness is an easy example. If you have a gym or sell fitness equipment, your market is people who want to get fit. And that’s something many people like to have some support achieving. So you can start a Facebook group to talk about ways to stay motivated, celebrate people reaching their goals, and share tips about exercise and diet.
If you sell supplies for any type of activity – from knitting to cooking or woodworking to kayaking – you can create a Facebook group for people to discuss their process, pose and answer questions and share information. Keep the focus of the group relatively narrow or it will fail to engage people.
A large outdoor store would do better to create a few niche groups such as camping recipes, inland fishing tips and cycling rather than one big group. Use your group to share relevant articles and start discussions. You can even do polls, but don’t treat your group like a focus group. Keep it a fun and useful place for discussion and engagement.
Of course, you can also join existing groups. If you do, be very careful to understand and follow the group’s rules. Remember that you are representing your brand there, but you should avoid blatantly self-promotional posts.
When in doubt, ask a moderator for permission. What you can do is offer your expertise and advice in your area of expertise, thus positioning your brand as a helpful expert. Joining an existing group is a fantastic way to learn more about what your market. You’ll gain insight into their wants and needs, how they see the problem your product would fix and when they are active online.
Facebook has recently rolled out their Dynamic Ads update with the seductive line: “Set up dynamic adverts once, then let them work for you.”
Now, most of us who have worked in marketing are naturally sceptical of claims like this. Usually, the only products or services that work for you are crock pots and well, people like us here at Matrix that will work for you.
However, Facebook’s Dynamic Adverts update really does minimise a lot of the work involved in advertising on Facebook. Dynamic Ads look just like normal ads, the difference is behind the scenes.
Unlike normal ads, with Facebook’s Dynamic Ads, you can create a single ad template and a product catalogue – Facebook draws from both of these to develop multiple ads. Through the use of a Facebook Dynamic Ads pixel on your site, you also are able to gather data on customer behaviour and interests.
When developing your templates, try to segment your target audiences into relatively specific groups so that your targeted ads will be tailored to their interests; this way you will avoid alienating them through the use of a stilted and overused tone.
If done right, these ads save you a massive amount of time because you will be able to focus on the interests of specific demographics and build ads for them that Facebook will continually generate. You won’t have to play guessing games and cast wide nets that return empty, and you won’t have to constantly build new ads from scratch.
Importantly, with Dynamic Adverts, you can focus on specific demographics who have already taken an action on your site or app, this doesn’t have to mean that they’ve clicked through a number of your products – it also can mean that they have read a number of your blog posts. On the other hand, you can still target wide demographics using Facebook’s Dynamic Ads.
Notably, Dynamic Ads are fully responsive and communicate across devices – so if a user looks at one of your products on her phone, she could see an ad for the same product when she next uses her laptop. This development is really important for ensuring that your products receive maximal visibility and that your site and its ads are fully responsive.
A number of significant businesses and companies are already utilising Facebook’s Dynamic Ads. Spain’s leading hotel chain, Meliá Hotels International, utilises Facebook’s Dynamic Adverts by targeting select demographics from around the world with Facebook ads which feature packages, rates, and services the individual has searched for before and therefore is most likely to want.
This hyper-efficiency saves Meliá Hotels time and money and also benefits the customers as their time isn’t wasted with ads they are unlikely to be interested in.
Flavours of My City is another company which has successfully used Facebook’s Dynamic Ads. This small food retailer started out with just a Facebook page and a dedication to providing treats and sweets from over 100 cities around India to homesick Indians living abroad. Flavours of My City rapidly grew once the company began to finesse its Facebook marketing techniques.
Flavours of My City used Dynamic Ads to retarget audiences based on data they received in regard to customers’ last website visit, visit duration, and products that were viewed, added to the cart and purchased. With the help of these nuanced marketing techniques, Flavors of My City is now a burgeoning retailer that is expanding more and more every year.
The key to success with Facebook’s Dynamic Ads is to remain vigilant and continually check that your targeted messaging is updated and that your Facebook catalogue’s stock availabilities and sales are accurately reflecting your own stock lists and sales.
With a little attention and maintenance, Facebook’s Dynamic Ads can save you significant time and effort that you can reinvest back into improving your business.
Have you ever crept through the cubicles determined to catch that slacker sharing funny cat videos? Or had to have the awkward talk with an employee about where the line is between taking a wee break to check your social media and taking the piss? If so, you might scoff at the idea of actually paying for your staff to be on Facebook at Work. Yes, that is a capital W. Facebook at Work is a new offering from the social media giant to employ Facebook’s features in a work setting. (See what we did there?)
Facebook at Work will have the same structure and features as regular Facebook, but it will be company specific. The new platform will have groups, events, messaging features and a news feed. The news feed is expected to feature far fewer cat videos and birthday reminders, however, and ‘throwback Thursday’ is not expected to be as popular.
In beta testing for almost two years, Facebook at Work will launch in the coming weeks. Advance reports say that pricing will be scaled with a per-use charge instead of a flat rate. Facebook at Work aims to be a comprehensive solution to communications problems in large companies with offices scattered globally. Basically, it will do for companies what it does for networks of friends and families with members around the world. But it also should appeal to small and medium enterprises with teams working collaboratively from different locations. A small retail chain might have half a dozen shopfronts in different towns and a headquarters in one of that town apart from the shopfront. Insurance companies, estate agents, solicitors, beauty salons and many other businesses share that configuration. Facebook at Work looks to be a good way for staff to communicate with each other and share information efficiently.
People are already familiar with Facebook for social networking, so Facebook at Work shouldn’t present any big challenges to users. Most of us are naturally resistant to change to some degree, and particularly resistant to learning new skills at work unless we see a clear and immediate benefit. Facebook is so ubiquitous that won’t be an issue with Facebook at Work.
Users may have very strong feelings about one aspect, however. While many will be delighted that there are no plans for Paper Clip Crush or Marketing Wars games, others may be deeply disappointed.
No time to market your website? Talk to Matrix!
By Irene Hislop
By Jeff Sheridan
By Matrix Internet