Even with layout changes, policy updates and an aging demographic, Facebook still finds itself at the top of the social media mountain. During the fourth quarter of 2020, Facebook reported almost 1.85 billion daily active users. While new platforms gain early adopters’ attention and attempt to entice more users with added features, Facebook is still the number one most used social media platform. With more than 17 years of social media networking service, Facebook’s consistency, reliability and active users make it one of the most useful social media platforms for businesses.
Despite Facebook’s popularity, you should still always be assessing the content you’re creating. With constant algorithm shifts, platform design updates and software development, you want to make sure you are utilizing Facebook effectively. If you are in need of a Facebook strategy refresher, continue reading to discover BPM’s Top 5 Facebook Marketing Tips and what you can do to stand out from your competition.
People, Personalities and Pets
Our main recommendation is for your brand to have a personality. What does your company look like behind the logo, website and mission statement? Show employees at work. Highlight birthdays, work anniversaries, networking events, meetings with clients (ask first), building updates or any form of content that will cut through a mundane social media feed and grab someone’s attention. People like seeing other people. If you show a picture of someone’s friend, family member, spouse, parent, child or business associate, the engagement on the post will increase rapidly! The more interaction that occurs on a post, the better.
Additionally, the Baer Performance Marketing team is a big fan of pets and animals. Over the years, we’ve done our best to show off our dogs and cats on
significant days. Next month, March 23rd, is National Puppy Day. Consider posting a collage of photos or carousel of your staff’s furry family members with witty text. We guarantee you will get more likes, loves and care reactions than most of your other posts.
Collaborating and Tagging
Reach, engagement and impressions are the top metrics you want to consider while running any social media account or campaign. One of the easiest ways to increase these metrics is by collaborating and tagging other companies and brands with which you work. If you’re working within a retail or B2C business, you can tag brands you offer or companies with which you have a partnership. With a B2B business, you can execute similar tactics. Consider tagging the Facebook account in the written part of your post, and tell people why their product is the best. Use Facebook and social media as a way to network in front of your followers. If you start interacting with other business pages, odds are, they will return the favor.
High-Quality Content
In our previous blogs, we’ve discussed how important producing quality content is. With resources like Canva.com, PixaBay.com and other stock image databases, it is very easy to find and use professional images. Make sure the images you are using for posts are matching your written content and also reflect your business and culture. Additionally, take the opportunity to use (willing) employees to pose for a quick picture. Snap the picture with a smartphone to upload quickly or save it for later.
Besides graphics and stock images, using video on Facebook helps gain higher reach, engagement and impressions, too. Facebook users enjoy livestreams more than recorded videos. Livestream video engagement is 26% higher on Facebook compared to other platforms. Livestreaming is a great way to give followers a direct insight to your culture while having genuine interactions with them. Livestreaming can, however, be intimidating and isn’t for every industry and personality. Traditional videos can also be uploaded to help answer customer FAQs, highlight your company’s offerings, or bring a headshot to life with a testimonial from a happy customer or employee.
Whether you choose video, images or professionally-designed graphics, the written content needs to be thought provoking, engaging and witty mixed with a sprinkle of sales. You have their attention—now capitalize on it.
Call to Action
Social media or any type of marketing initiative is intended to gain attention from current, prospective or past customers. The goal is to tell a story, offer a solution, inspire and sell an idea. However, in comparison to traditional marketing, you need to be slightly more tactful. Social media users dictate what they want to see. A page is posting too often? Unfollow. The content is missing the mark and not speaking to them? Unfollow. The imagery or written content isn’t appealing? Unfollow.
A simple call to action on a Facebook post could simply be a URL to a blog or service page. Use the majority of the post to explain a problem you are able to solve. Put the social media breadcrumb in front of their thumbs to make it hard for them to not want to tap to find out more about you and your company.
Advertising
While personalities, pets, collaboration, appealing visuals and education help market your page on Facebook, those efforts can end up going to waste. Remember, Facebook is a business, too. Whether you started using Facebook in its infancy or recently created an account, it is likely you’ve noticed changes and additions to the platform. Posts from friends might be fewer. Sponsored posts may have increased. The constantly changing algorithm that selects what you see in your News Feed is determined by your interest level as well as who wants to pay for your attention.
Spending a portion of your advertising budget on Facebook ads is a fraction of what it costs to advertise on traditional advertising platforms. Most consumers aren’t buying newspapers. They are dictating when they are watching a show or listening to music. They control the narrative of their attention. As a marketing firm, we want your message to be seen by the most people while spending your budget efficiently. By boosting posts, you are able to target an audience based on interest and demographic data while breaking through Facebook’s “pay-to-play” algorithm. Posts which would previously go unnoticed are now viewed by more people and more often.
Facebook Final
If you are still debating if Facebook is the correct platform for your business’ social media strategy or if your content has gone stale, we are here to help. Finding the time to create a content calendar, respond to messages and engage with followers can be difficult. Our focus at BPM is to let you focus on what you do best while we focus on using marketing to tell your company’s story. Contact us at www.BaerPM.com for Facebook, social media and other marketing solutions.
