Undoubtedly, Facebook is the king of social media sites. What started out as a simple college project turned out to be a vast place where people around the world interact and share photos, messages, videos, and websites with one another.
Because of its immense social power, Facebook has become a favourite tool for home –business owners, small- to medium-scale businessmen, or multinational corporations to market their products and services. Properly used, Facebook can keep your market base informed, enhance your brand identity, and expand your reach.
Here are a few tips on how to use Facebook as an effective marketing tool:
1. Use your Facebook page. A Facebook page is specifically designed as a marketing tool. It allows a business to share links, photos, product descriptions, and other useful information via a customisable page. The customisation feature itself provides a business its own character and personality.
Your Facebook page is also a place where you can stop being too formal so that you can show the human side of your business. For instance, in your business’s Facebook page, you can show an album of your company’s Christmas party, a funny video of your co-workers, or paintings made by your art-inclined employees. Your customers will like the fact that they are dealing with real people, not emotionless beings who are only interested in getting their money.
2. Facebook has its own advertising service with Facebook ads, sometimes called Marketplace ads. These usually show at the side columns of the Facebook website. Each ad may include a headline, copy, image, and a click-through link to an outside website, Facebook app, or Facebook page. Use Facebook ads to your advantage.
3. Everyone loves to win a freebie or two. So, why not run Facebook contests? You can conduct contests, sweepstakes, or promotions that can increase brand awareness and market base with Facebook.
Note that such contests cannot be hosted through Facebook itself (i.e., you cannot have users write their answers in comments and factor them in to your contest’s mechanics). You should utilise a third-party app for creating a Facebook contest; such apps are available at sites such as Pagemondo or Shortstack.
4. Invest a little so you can use Facebook Promoted Posts. This feature allows page owners to promote a single post so it can reach a certain number of users. This increases that post’s reach and impressions. This is especially useful if you are promoting a new product or service.
5. Facebook Sponsored Stories is a kind of ad that shares a user’s interactions, such as Facebook likes, to the user’s contacts. Sponsored Stories use the word-of-mouth principle of advertising. If you like a particular product or service and share the experience to your friends, your friends will most likely purchase that product or pay for that service.
That’s the concept behind Sponsored Stories. When a client likes your company event, product photo, promotion, etc., his action is shared to his friends. Most likely, his contacts will check out your offers.