Facebook Takes Time and Money
Many businesses sign up to Facebook and expect big things. We often get clients who come to us saying their ad spend isn’t delivering a strong ROI or their mere presence on the platform is not generating much, if any, income.
While getting leads from Facebook is possible, engaging (as with any other social media) is more about having an active, relevant and authentic presence on the site. It’s about gaining client trust. Once you have done that, you should find you generate more leads and potential sales.
The trouble is it is not an overnight thing – you need the right strategy in place and you need to keep at it. In some cases, you may need to change the way you think about Facebook altogether.
Reason 1. Facebook is not a Marketplace
It took a long while for professional marketers to get the hang of social media. In the early days, approaches lacked nuance. People would buy followers to make themselves look popular, spam post every five minutes but fail to sincerely engage with fans and followers in any way at all.
It’s not surprising that these approaches didn’t work. Facebook is not a marketplace it’s an online social venue. Yes, you’ll see plenty of businesses trying to push products but the site is essentially about engaging with other people. It’s about the conversation, not commerce.
Building relationships takes work. It takes effort and not just every so often. In general, users on Facebook are not keen on the hard sell – they use their engagement to build a connection and stay in touch.
What Are Your Goals?
In any marketing activity, the solid base from which everything else grows is your goals. What are you trying to achieve?
72% of businesses use Facebook to create brand awareness (at least the successful ones). Setting clearly defined goals will help you keep your marketing activity on track and should help you build stronger relationships with those who choose to engage with your brand.
If you are a small to medium-size business or start-up, it’s a good idea to take a look at some of the bigger players and how they achieve this. Yes, they have substantial budgets and large teams working on their branding on Facebook, but the basic strategies are still the same and apply to businesses of any size.
Reason 2. Facebook Ads are not a get Rich Quick Scheme
Many businesses look at Facebook Ads as a way to circumvent all the hard work organically building their audience following and believe this can deliver decent results. Targeting the right audience and developing the right messaging are both huge challenges. That’s why some companies find their ad spend not delivering the ROI they initially expected.
There’s a sweet spot when it comes to ad targeting. Without appropriate goals and an understanding of your audience, it’s easy to flush your ad spend down the drain and become disheartened. Some of the problems that business have when creating ad campaigns include:
- The demographic parameters are either too narrow or too broad.
- There are too many steps or clicks to get to final conversion and sale.
- The ad you have created is too generic.
- Your ad message doesn’t match your landing page.
- The ad you have created is poorly conceived and constructed.
Why Quality Content Counts
Social media, including Facebook, can often be viewed as throwaway content. Businesses get so focused on posting something that they put any old stuff up on their timeline. As with any marketing content, quality is essential:
- What is the purpose of your content?
- Is it meaningful?
- Is it relevant to your customers?
- Does it have a call to action?
You need to approach content creation for your social media posts in the same way you would your service and landing pages or your blog posts.
7 Tips for Succeeding With Facebook
- Put in the effort: As we’ve already stated, succeeding on Facebook is not an easy fix for untold riches. You have to develop a strategy, put your back into it and be prepared for the long game.
- Start a conversation: Facebook and other social media sites are about engaging. If you can’t interact with your audience and have a conversation without overtly trying to sell, you probably shouldn’t be on there.
- Be a motivating force: Avoid dull or pointless communication. Find out what motivates your fans and followers and explore different ways to bring this kind of engagement into your posts.
- Include customers and fans in your story: Whether it’s user-generated content or allowing customers to leave reviews, it’s important to give those who follow you a voice. This can be daunting for newer businesses. But It can also be an immensely powerful brand promotion tool.
- Excel at customer service: Social media has become the go-to place if people have a query or want to complain. Use Facebook as a way to show you provide great support by answering everyone directly and, just as importantly, promptly.
- Use video: It’s the premier content choice for many businesses today and can have a strong impact on your Facebook page. Yes, it takes work to get the hang of but with 8 billion video views on the platform each day, it’s an approach you should give a priority to.
- Invest time in metrics: Don’t post content blindly and hope for the best on Facebook. Get the right metrics in place such as Insights, build valuable data and use that to fine-tune your approach and influence your goals.
If you are prepared to spend the time getting to know your audience and have the right goals in place, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool. It’s not an overnight lead generating device but for creating strong brand awareness and building a loyal customer base it’s a tool that certainly delivers in the long-term.