If you haven’t realized the power of social media in scaling
your business, you are missing out on incredible potential for company growth.
In the last year, there was almost $15 billion spent on Facebook ads, 30
million business pages, and 1.49 billion monthly active users. Facebook has one
of the highest influences on the social marketing space currently, and by
ignoring its possibilities, you are limiting the amount of success your online
marketing can have.
The critical thing to remember is that in order to be
successful, your Facebook marketing needs to be done right. There are many
pitfalls when using Facebook for business that can negate its effectiveness. In
this article we’ll discuss three of the most common challenges businesses
encounter when utilizing Facebook for business.
1. Focusing on Sales
Instead of Building Trust
When posting to Facebook, it is important to include content
that’s designed to educate, inspire, and entertain your fans. A content
strategy that is too focused on pushy sales messaging can diminish your
content’s effectiveness and cause a drop in fan engagement or page likes. By
creating a compelling content strategy you can establish loyalty, trust, and
expertise in your fan base; which puts you on a path for lifetime loyal customers.
Unfortunately there is no magic solution for creating a
content strategy. Each industry can benefit from different post types and
frequency. A good rule of thumb is to use the 4-1-1 rule. Originally coined by
Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping,
Social Media 4-1-1 is a sharing system that enables a company to get greater
visibility with social influencers. Here’s how it works:
For every six pieces of content shared via social media:
- Four should be pieces of content from your
influencer target that are also relevant to your audience. This means that 67
percent of the time you are sharing content that is not yours, and calling
attention to content from your influencer group.
- One piece should be original, educational
content that you have created.
- One piece should be sales-related — like a
coupon, product notice, press release, or some other piece of content that no
one will likely pay attention to.
2. Not Correctly
Utilizing Dark Posts
You may have recently seen our post about Dark Facebook Posts.
If not, now is a great time to do your research. Dark posts are Facebook Ads
placed though Ads Manager or Power Editor that do not live on
the business page’s timeline. These types of ads can have more specific goals
(like app installs, website conversions, or offer claims) and can be a bit more
complicated to run. Timeline content that is advertised is called a
boosted post. This is content that lives on the business’ timeline but is given
a “boost,” which allows it to be shown to more people as a sponsored post in
the Facebook newsfeed.
If your content is timely and needs immediate awareness, a
boosted post is probably the way to go, especially if you don’t have much
experience with the inner workings of Facebook’s Ad Manager or Power Editor. If
you are promoting a product that will be around for a while, an ad for website
conversions with a “buy now” or “download” call-to-action might be a great idea
for a dark post ad. Something you can continue pushing without cluttering your
timeline. See other ways you can use dark posts in our last article.
3. Not Tracking Your
Results Effectively
ROI is always an important factor for any marketing channel,
but when it comes to social, the results aren’t always so cut and dry. Always
decide on your goal BEFORE starting a Facebook campaign. Some companies choose
to use Facebook to gain awareness and likability, while others want to drive
more conversions on their website. Depending on your goals, your social efforts
and content marketing strategies will need to work towards those goals and can
be measured with stats such as engagement, link clicks, or website conversions.
Facebook marketing can be a complicated beast when diving
into the belly of Facebook Ad Manager and Power Editor - it’s best not to go
alone. The Digital marketing and social media marketing teams at Sales &
Marketing Technologies can be your guides through this wild online marketing
world. If you’re looking for a way to grow your business online, contact us
today for a free consultation.