Facebook still reigns as one of the most widely used online platforms by adults. And the vast majority are using it daily, which continues to provide brands and businesses with an opportunity for maximum visibility when implementing a Facebook marketing strategy.
Often times, the toughest part is simply getting started, but we’re here to provide you with seven steps to help get your Facebook marketing efforts off the ground.
Read on to ensure you’re getting the most out of this ever-powerful social media platform.
The first step to any marketing strategy is setting the right goals. This roadmap will be an essential reference to measure against to make sure your Facebook strategy is successful. But to set goals, you’ll first want to do a little research to ensure your plan is attainable through the platform.
We found that marketers on Facebook had a few top goals in mind:
So, if you don’t have Facebook goals of your own yet, these survey results are a great place to start. Additionally, if your company has already set general goals, look for how these overlap with your own plans for marketing on Facebook.
Here are some common yearly goals for businesses and how an effective Facebook strategy can help you:
Understanding who is on Facebook and what your current audience breakdown looks like will be important in determining which Facebook marketing strategies you should employ and how.
Sprout Social’s 2019 deep dive into social media demographics is a great starting point for getting a general sense of things like where Facebook users live, languages spoken, education and plenty more key findings from the Pew Research Center.
Once you’ve studied up on that, spend some time getting familiar with your own Facebook demographics using either Facebook Page Insights or a tool like Sprout.
Like most social media channels, they’re built as networks to converse, discuss and share content. As a brand, you can’t forget that basic idea of what makes a social media network. That means conversation and engagement should never be put on the back burner.
Instead, try to be a community for your audience. Facebook is a great place to hold industry chats or discussions, whether it’s with a different audience or your own customers. While Twitter often gets all the limelight of being a social customer care mecca, don’t forget about Facebook too.
You can help drive Facebook engagement by asking people to simply engage in the first place. However, you can’t sit back and wait for your followers to interact. You can’t reach everyone, but there are ways to increase engagement.
For example, Zippo does a great job at interacting with users on several comments and continues the discussion on Facebook. The brand also acts as a source for info for loyal customers.
Facebook is still one of the most difficult social networks to use for organic content. Again, algorithms make it a challenge for businesses trying to find optimal posting times. However, our guide on the best times to post on social media outlines the do’s and don’ts of posting on Facebook:
Content creation and curation are important components to any social media strategy. On Facebook, you have many more choices on the types of posts you can use. This ranges from Stories to status to Group posts.
With the selection of options comes the specific types of content your audience is interested in, which should also be kept in mind while evaluating the techniques for marketing on Facebook that will work best for you. Our 2018 Index analyzed what type of posts consumers want from brands. Thirty percent said they would like links to more information and 18% want more images. Videos came in a close third with 17% of people surveyed.
The same report also discussed what social marketers need to succeed. For Facebook, the top priorities included video and a budget for ads, which we’ll go into next.
For scheduling content, you have both free and paid options available to you. Facebook’s Page controls allow you to schedule your posts right from your own page.
Scheduling and planning your calendar makes it easier for you to see where gaps are in your posts. Using a tool like this will save you time in the long run.
Whether you’re just starting out on Facebook or you’ve been on it for a while, it’s difficult to escape the need to pay for brand exposure. Our comprehensive guide to creating your Facebook advertising strategy is a great place to start learning more about Facebook ads.
However, growing your audience and brand loyalty doesn’t happen overnight. You have to earn it.
But there is one shortcut to get there a bit faster–social media advertising. Specifically on Facebook, there are more than four million advertisers with just an average click-through rate of 9%. Advertising on Facebook is simpler, but not easier. You still have to effectively build your brand and showcase it perfectly with ads.
You Facebook ad campaigns should always be focused on two things:
For starters, you want to stay within your allocated weekly or monthly spend with Facebook to avoid over exposure and useless clicks. Ad spend can shoot up in a hurry when you’re targeting isn’t effective or set appropriately, which brings us to the next step.
Your Facebook ad has to be relevant. Targeting a broad audience isn’t a bad thing. At first, you want to actually see what works best to build awareness. However, relevance is crucial toward great Facebook ads.
Try to build custom audiences and address customers who would best fit your Facebook content. If it’s a retargeting measure, make sure the content provides something recognizable but also something new.
Earlier in this post, we did a deep dive into the types of content on Facebook. Now it’s time to choose which pieces of content you think are worth advertising in front of a much larger audience.
Some of the best aspects of your ad content should include:
Facebook ad content is literally squeezed between your friends and family feed, which means it’s seen often. Have you ever deemed a TV commercial the worst ever and seen it replayed endlessly through your favorite show? This is the same thing.
Don’t let your content get stale with viewers, so make sure to update and repurpose your ad content every week or two. The whole purpose is to drive users to a specific site or purchasing page. So don’t let old content ruin your Facebook retargeting or remarketing efforts.
Create a spreadsheet and document your core metrics. Each metric will provide you with unique insights into what you specifically want to achieve with your ad:
Your employees should be your biggest cheerleaders. 72% of people reported feeling more connected with a brand when its employees shared information about it on social media. Employees put faces to the brands, making them more relatable to consumers.
While you can try to wrangle employee advocates using company announcement emails, a solution such as Bambu is specifically designed to streamline the process and make it easy to transform employees into brand ambassadors.
Your employees are an invaluable asset when it comes to messaging amplification, social selling and authentic engagement. And unlike industry influencers, their services on social are free.
Use Bambu to easily curate content for employees and track your advocacy program’s performance.
When considering employee advocacy, don’t forget about the CEO. In the same report, 70% of consumers feel more connected to a brand when its CEO is active on social media.
The last step of your strategy is to keep an eye on the metrics you identified earlier in goal setting and analyze the results. This also includes determining your ROI.
Sprout makes Facebook data analysis a breeze.
Quickly measure Page impressions, Fan growth and how your Facebook content is performing using intuitive, interactive reports that can be downloaded and shared with stakeholders in seconds.
And don’t forget to see how you measure up against the competition. With Sprout, you can directly compare your performance against industry averages and competitor’s data to ensure your Facebook marketing strategy is on the right track.
With these seven steps in hand, you can begin plotting your Facebook marketing strategy today. Anything we missed? Comment below with steps you’ve taken to find success on Facebook!
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