At the end of 2017, Facebook announced there were 2.13 billion monthly active Facebook users, and on average, more than 1 billion people log on to Facebook each day. Facebook is the behemoth of social media and the largest one to date, eclipsing Youtube, the second largest, by nearly 1 billion people. With so many users logging on to Facebook and interacting with the platform every day, businesses would be wise to utilize the Facebook platform into a comprehensive social media marketing strategy.
Facebook Marketing
Regardless of Facebook’s size, it need not be overwhelming for a business to take the plunge into Facebook marketing. Facebook is on the cutting edge of data collection, and fortunately, it is relatively simple for even a fledgling business to take advantage of this data and use it to craft a successful marketing strategy. Below are statistics, techniques, and results proving how and why Facebook marketing works.
First, let’s examine how Facebook pages are created and the fundamental ways in which Facebook pages work. Not only are individuals able to create a profile and a page, but so are businesses.
Users create a profile or a page, and based on their demographic data, they are shown other users’ posts in their feed, which is constantly updating. At this point, users may comment, like, or otherwise interact with posts. Every time a user or business creates a post or interacts with a post or page by liking or commenting on it, Facebook logs and analyzes this data.
Your Facebook business page is a way for your potential customers to reach you, learn more about you, and interact with you. Having a social media presence and strategy is a useful way for you to grow your brand’s awareness in the digital age. An active, relevant, and aesthetically pleasing Facebook page makes it pleasant and easy for a potential customer to learn about your products and services and how they can help them.
Now, recent changes have taken place regarding the gathering of Facebook user data and interaction and how they are analyzed.
In the past, Facebook had plenty of room within user’s feeds to show advertisements. Since late 2017, Facebook ran out of ad space. So, the company updated the way they create a user’s feed, and what data is considered important, and thus shown, to the user. Instead of simple likes, Facebook now gives precedence to posts that users interact with via long-form replies. So, comments are given more weight. Posts from a user’s friends and family do well with this recent update since they are more likely to generate a long-form reply than a business ad.
Facebook now wants to see users directly interacting with a page or post with conversation and dialect. The more users interact with posts and pages, the more Facebook will reward the page by showing it more in users’ feeds. This is a form of organic reach.
With these recent changes to the Facebook algorithm, it is important for businesses to understand the reasons for using organic reach and the best strategies to employ to get the most out of it.
Organic reach, as you can understand from the preceding paragraph, doesn’t utilize advertisements. Since organic reach is more labor-intensive and time-consuming strategy, it can behoove a business to invest in a social media or a Facebook manager to grow your its organic reach.
Think of the organic reach of your Facebook page as a garden you must cultivate and care for. It’s a lot of work, but the result can be fruitful for your business’s growth by increasing your brand awareness through positive customer interaction.
If you link your website to your page, every article or blog post you publish will automatically post to your Facebook page.
If in addition to published articles you are creating posts directly on Facebook that encourage user interaction, this will juice the Facebook algorithm, thus improving your organic reach, which Facebook rewards by then showing more of your business’s posts to users. This begets a positive cycle, resulting in more reach, and thus, more brand awareness of your business on the Facebook platform.
Also, by linking your business page to your website, Facebook marketing works by driving increased traffic to your website. This is good for your business’s SEO ranking within Google.
You can set up your business website so that when a user clicks on the link to you site on your Facebook page, they are automatically directed to a landing page. Depending on how your landing page is optimized, the user can go click on your landing page call-to-action, and perhaps it puts the user into your funnel, making them a potential customer.
Although the scope of this article does not include email marketing, you can use an organically driven, Facebook marketing strategy to build your email list.
Increasing your brand awareness will lead to reaching more potential customers, since Facebook will start showing your posts to new users. These new users are likely to interact with your page by commenting and/or giving you a page like.
When a user ‘likes’ your page, it is then added to their feed. Every new ‘like’ your page gets will increase your following. This gives your business a form of social proof. The more likes and followers your page gets, the more likely a user who views your page for the first time (if they are part of your target demographic) is to follow and like your business page, creating a snowball effect. This will increase your organic reach even more.
So, in regard to an organic reach strategy, remember to connect your blog or business website to your business Facebook page, and encourage users to interact with your page. Use a call-to-action, offer promotions, or release educational content that adds value to the viewers of your page.
There are certain strategies your brand can utilize on Facebook that will encourage more user interaction. If a user sends your business a private message, or posts on your page’s timeline, Facebook calculates how long it takes for your business to respond. Think of this as a form of customer service. The more promptly you respond to the potential customer query or comment, the more pleasant of an interaction the questioner has. The more valued the questioner feels, the more likely they are to view your brand or business in a positive manner, and this can lead to increased sales and result in customer loyalty.
Typically, a business offers a product or service that solves a specific pain-point for potential customers. Offering Facebook users educational, valuable content that offers solutions or strategies to deal with their problem has been shown to be one of the top ways a brand can prompt users from Facebook to buy. This establishes your business as an authority in your niche.
Again, these are all organic reach strategies. These are time-consuming, but proven strategies for building brand awareness and trust with potential customers.
Now that we’ve covered why Facebook marketing works to drive organic traffic to your site and product or service, let’s go over how Facebook advertisements work, especially in light of the new algorithm change.
As previously stated, Facebook was compelled to change the algorithm regarding when and how posts and pages were seen because, essentially, the platform has become huge. Billions of people utilize Facebook every day, and in late 2017, users’ feeds became saturated with ads. Since then, the laws of supply and demand have changed the way advertising works on Facebook. Less space in the feed means higher costs-per-click with Facebook advertising.
Fortunately, there are strategies you can use to keep your cpc rates down.
Facebook tracks data and insights about its users, and these insights are available on your Facebook page in the dashboard. What makes Facebook advertising so unique compared to other social media platforms is the amount of data available that businesses can use to craft compelling ads that convert. If a business knows exactly who its customer is, it is much easier for the business to make a killer ad that resonates with that specific customer.
In addition, the wealth of data available to you when you craft a Facebook ad is going to take most of the guess work out of crafting the ad copy and setting the targeted metrics. If you have accurate data from which to craft an ad, you are less likely to end up with an ad that is a dud. The more successful your ad is, the lower the cpc rate.
Facebook insights include things like the gender ratio of your followers, their age group, where they live, what other types of pages and businesses they like, and what posts they’ve interacted with. With these insights, you’ll be able to see what kinds of posts have resonated the most with your audience.
Sending your users relevant posts, even if the posts are ads, is way to build trust with your audience. You are showing them something they are known to interact with and like, and this will increase your ads success, and your brands awareness and trust with viewers and potential customers. With the accurate, detailed data available in Facebook insights, you’ll be able to understand the best way to craft an ad for the most user engagement.
Facebook insights also allow you to test and see which types of ads are giving your business the maximum ROI. For example, Tropicana used Facebook insights to test what length of ad video was best for their brand’s awareness.
There are many different types of Facebook advertisements to choose from with can affect your cpc rate, too. For instance, carousel ads allow you to craft a single ad which features several different products and services with unique calls-to-action. This will keep your ad costs down since you are basically setting up an ad in bulk for maximum effect.
Also, mentioned previously in the article were ways you can drive traffic originating from Facebook to your business website. You can set up an ad on Facebook with a call-to-action which will take your user to your landing page. At this point, the user will either buy, or sign up for your email list. But the cool stuff you can do for your business with Facebook insights doesn’t end there!
With your email list, you can create what is called a ‘look alike,’ custom audience for a Facebook advertising campaign.
You don’t even need to be a tech wiz to do this. All you need to do is save your list in a CSV format and upload it in the Facebook ads manager dashboard. Facebook then takes the list and analyzes it, giving you more information on your target audience.
You can set your ads with this highly customized information, and Facebook will then show your ad to users with the same demographics, habits, and interest as your target audience which you can set up in your ads manager.
Using your business’s email list of engaged subscribers and/or previous customers will make your Facebook ads highly targeted. Knowing your target audience inside and out can give you a positive ROI on your ad campaign, leading to increased sales and increased website traffic.
In 2018, there are over 3 million businesses utilizing Facebook marketing strategies to build their brand awareness and increase sales. Facebook marketing works because it is one of the only platforms to offer such comprehensive user data to the average business owner. Facebook also allows sophisticated testing of ads and logs the performance of ads based on numerous metrics.
Knowledge is king, and with an accurate analysis of your business’s targeted audience, your Facebook ads will generate a positive ROI. Well-crafted, successful ads will lead to increased traffic to your website and increased sales of your products and services.
Relevant ads and business pages will build your brand’s awareness, increase customer trust and loyalty, and lead to sales of your services and products.
We Can Help
While the amount of data and strategies to use for an effective Facebook marketing technique can be overwhelming in scope, there is help and guidance available. For more information on crafting an effective Facebook marketing strategy, contact our Digital Marketers at Australian Internet Advertising today and see how we can take your business to the next level.
