Unless you have been living under a rock for the last ten years then I am assuming that you have heard of the Mark Zuckerberg’s social media platform, Facebook. It is likely that you already use Facebook personally and no doubt if you are reading this article you have heard that Facebook marketing is a great way to successfully and cost-effectively market your small business.

You don’t have to look far to find people who have grown their business predominantly via Facebook marketing and swear by it! I am not one of those people. However, I believe Facebook is an amazing tool to market your business and when used properly within an integrated marketing strategy it can help your business to grow in an extremely cost-effective way.

Since Facebook’s creation in 2004, the platform has been evolving and now there are numerous ways you can use Facebook within your marketing strategy to promote your small business. This includes, but is not limited to, your personal profile, an official Facebook Page, Facebook Groups, Facebook Ads and Facebook Live.

In this article, I am going to briefly explain how you can use your personal profile, official Facebook Page, Facebook Groups, Facebook Ads and Facebook Live to market your business so you can decide what elements to use to market your small business.

 

FACEBOOK PERSONAL PROFILE

A Personal Profile is what you create when you first join Facebook. As a business owner, you need to make a decision on whether you want your profile to be open or close. If it is closed then it means no one will see any of your posts unless you accept them as a friend, whereas, if it is open then everyone who clicks on your profile can see what you post or are tagged in. (There are ways to limit the content further, but this is the general gist). One thing to note is that you are only able to have 5,000 friends.

 

FACEBOOK PAGE

Technically, personal profiles are meant to be used for personal reasons so Facebook has given the option for businesses and entrepreneur to create official Facebook Page. This has most of the function of posting on your personal page, but with lots more capabilities. Depending on what type of business you have when you first set up your page you will be given options of different templates that are designed for specific industries.

The main advantage of a Facebook Page is that you can have unlimited followers. You can also sell directly from your page, have links to all of the Facebook Groups you manage and the events you are running.

In early 2018, Facebook announced that it would be putting a larger focus on friends, family and groups appearing in an individual’s news feed, rather than publishers. The reach of Facebook Pages are limited, which means if you post something don’t expect all of your followers to see it.

 

FACEBOOK GROUPS

There are two ways that you can use Facebook Groups in your marketing strategy.

Option 1 – Running your Facebook Group

Running your own Facebook Group is a great way for you to grow a community, position yourself as an expert, be able to communicate directly with your followers and have a place for your followers to be able to communicate to one another.

I run a number of Facebook Groups including Superstar Solopreneurs, which is designed specifically for solo business owners who are looking to gain support to market and grow their business. If that sounds like you and you aren’t already a member then come join us by clicking here.

Whilst Facebook Groups can be great for your business, you need to have very clear intentions for how they are feeding into your overall strategy. In 2017, a number of major coaches and consultants (including Emily Williams from I Heart My Life and Melissa Griffin) closed their Facebook Groups, which has tens of thousands of members.

When Facebook Groups grow they can become extremely time-consuming activity and in some cases costly as people end up having to hire administrators to manage the group. So before starting a group be clear on the purpose of the group, the rules of the groups, how the group will be managed and how often you will be in the group.

 

Option 2 –  Being a member of other people’s Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups offer a great way for you to connect with other business owners, entrepreneurs and potential clients. If there are other business owners that you would like to collaborate with then joining their Facebook Group and actively engaging before you reach out for the collaboration is a great way to get on their radar and increase your chance of getting a response and hopefully positive response.

Also, being in other people’s Facebook Groups is a great way to serve your potential audience. I recommend you choose a few keywords that are relevant to what your business offers and then use the search function to see what people have said and where a question has been asked, answer where possible.

Facebook Groups are also a great place to do market research. Join groups where your target market is and ask questions to find out what they are struggling with or keep a list of questions asked to inspire future content.

 

Pro Marketing Tip – If you are going to be interacting in Facebook Groups as part of your marketing strategy you should be aware that in other people’s groups you have to post and comment using your personal profile. Therefore, if you have an official page (and I hope you decide to do so) then you should link to your Facebook Page clearly in the about section of your personal profile. This way if someone clicks on your personal profile after being interested in something you wrote in a Facebook Group then can quickly see your official Facebook Page.

 

FACEBOOK LIVE

As I mentioned earlier, the ultimate objective of Facebook is to keep users on the platform for as long as possible. As the world has become more interest in video content so has Facebook and especially Facebook Live. Facebook Live is where a video is broadcast live. This can be done on your personal profile, official page, within your own group and sometimes within other people’s groups. Facebook Live is a great way for you to be able to share your expertise quickly and the organic reach is normally much better than a text, image or record video post.

 

FACEBOOK ADS

So far I have spoken about all of the free ways that you can market your business on Facebook, but one of the reasons why Facebook is so powerful is because of Facebook Advertising.

One of the reasons why I think Facebook Advertising is amazing for small business owners because you can start with a very small budget and be extremely targeted.

When it comes to Facebook Advertisements, there are two types of adverts you can run: Boosted Posts and Sponsored Posts.

Boosted Posts are where you create a Facebook Post and then you put advertising spend behind it to extend the reach.

Sponsored Ads are created exclusively to be used as an advert.

Depending on your circumstances, there will be reasons to use one over the other or both. For example, if you are running an customer acquisition campaign (ie a marketing campaign that is focused on generating new customers for a business) then you would run a Sponsored Post and ensure that it isn’t delivered to current fans of your page. However, if you are launching a new programme that you know your current audience will be excited about you create a normal Facebook Post and then boost once you had gathered some likes and comments.

Targeting
Facebook is a targeting dream. Facebook knows so much about it’s users and by running Facebook Ads you are able to take advantage of that knowledge. On the simplest level you can target my location, age, gender and interests.

Facebook Pixel
I can’t talk about Facebook Ads without mention the Facebook Pixel. The Facebook Pixel is essential in order for you to be able to track conversions and calculate your Return On Investment or Return On Marketing Investment.

 

CONCLUSION

For years Facebook has been the go-to social media platform for businesses and as you can see there are many ways you can use Facebook marketing for your small business.

Hopefully, this introduction to facebook marketing for small businesses has given you some ideas of how you can use Facebook to market your business.

As with any marketing tool or tactic, the key is to ensure it fits in within your overall marketing strategy and it is helping to move people along the customer journey.

If you are unsure about what is best for your business then feel free to check out my 1:1 services where I will personally help create a bespoke marketing strategy for your business.