4 Tips For Guaranteeing Facebook Marketing Success

I’ll be honest. I am getting so tired of reading article after article of people writing about how marketing on Facebook is a waste of time. Whether you are a B2C or B2B company it doesn’t matter. If you are not getting results from Facebook you need to change your strategy plain and simple. While it does take a bit of time, effort and budget there is no doubt Facebook is effective and should be at or near the top of your company’s digital marketing plan.

Below are my top tips for creating a successful Facebook page: 

1. Understand Facebook’s EdgeRank System

If you want to be successful using anything you need to first learn how to use it. Facebook uses a system called EdgeRank to determine where and how your post shows up in a user’s news feed. By creating new posts that best follow the EdgeRank criteria you can guarantee that it will be seen by the most possible people. While its worth finding a resource that outlines this in greater detail my quick recommendations include: posting regularly around the same time, include videos, photos and links not just text in your posts, have clear call to actions such as asking questions or creating a poll, and post relevant content to your audience. Essentially, the more engagements your post get the longer they stay in the news feed.

2. Content is Still King

 It all comes down to producing good content. No one is going to engage with your posts and you will have trouble building a quality Facebook community if you are not consistently posting content that is relevant and interesting to your network. No, this does not include posting cute puppy pictures or grumpy cat photos. Those tactics are short lived and will not provide long term Facebook success. Plus that is not what your company is about so why post it? It is good to mix in some funny posts or off topic items once in a while, but you will want to make sure the majority of your posts are related to your company or industry.

3. Sponsored and Promoted Posts

 Going the free route will only take you so far. Sometimes it helps to get a little boost by trying out the Facebook paid advertising options.  If you have a smaller budget try out the Sponsored Stories and Promoted Posts. These two options keep users on Facebook rather than sending to external sites and this is the preferred method of Facebook. Sponsored stories are great since those are essentially word of mouth recommendations from friends. So if a friend checks in somewhere or ‘Likes’ a page your brand can sponsor those posts so their friends will also see and be likely to ‘Like’ it as well. Promoted Posts are also great when you have an important announcement or content that you want the most amount of people to see and engage with. This option allows you to stay at the top of news feeds longer and when people engage with it their friends will also see it as well.

4. Test, Test and Test!

In marketing you can never keep doing the same thing over and over again. You have to constantly switch things up and test your strategies and Facebook is no different. Test different kinds of posts between text, pictures, video, links, polls etc… See which one’s your followers enjoy engaging with more and also what kind of topics resonate most with them. When you try out the paid advertising options test out different budgets, tactics and see which ones provide the best results. Over time you will find the winning formula that works best for your brand or company.

To me there is no doubt Facebook is a viable and effective advertising option that should not be ignored. Next time you read an article about how it does not work for someone don’t jump to conclusions give it a fair shot using some of the tips above and see how it works out for you.

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