Facebook is an enormous social media website – and for many businesses, a great way to capture new audiences and showcase your business or service on a different platform. But bringing people to your Facebook page won’t magically increase your sales.
What you need to do is to drive Facebook traffic to your website, where you can guide people to more information about your business, get them to sign up for a newsletter, or nurture them towards a sale.
Here’s seven tips for making Facebook work harder for your business goals.
1. Ensure your audience matches your business goals
Before you embark on a long-term Facebook strategy, it’s important to decide whether Facebook is really the platform for you. Take a moment to think about who your business is selling to. Do they exist, as a significant segment, on Facebook? Or are they more likely to be found on other social media platforms? If it’s the latter, it’s likely unwise to begin a lengthy Facebook campaign that won’t reach people that want to buy your product or service. Match your activities to your business goals.
2. Headlines over content
Headlines matter a lot on Facebook. When you’re posting content from your webpage or posting a status, you want the first 5-to-10 words to catch the reader’s eye. Think about what’s huge on Facebook at the moment – listicles and click bait headlines that get the reader to click. We’re not saying you should make every headline sensational and over-the-top, but it’s wise to be aware of, and emulate to some extent, the style of headline that captures Facebook users at the moment.
3. Which Facebook topics work for you?
Take note of which topics you post on Facebook create a buzz with your followers. Over time, you should build up a backlog of posts from which you can analyse the top performers, dissect what made them resonate, and recreate this for future posts.
4. Timing doesn’t matter much anymore
The conventional wisdom on Facebook said that you posted content during the hours people were browsing social – before work in the morning, just after lunch, and just after dinner. But what increasingly being found is that when you post content isn’t having as much of an impact anymore – Facebook’s algorithm won’t discriminate based on when you post.
5. Be visual
Visual content outdoes text-based content – that’s been clear to digital marketing agencies for a number of years now. An easy, quick way to make this work for you is to do picture posts and attach a short description and a website link in the caption of the picture.
6. Post content that engages
One of the big factors that determines how many people see your Facebook posts is how well people engage with it. So things like how long they spend looking at/reading it, whether they return to it, whether they comment, share, or like it, and whether they click through to your site all play a role in Facebook determining how engaging your content is and whether it should be shared with a wider audience.
7. Consider paid reach
Facebook allows you to pay to amplify your reach. And it’s relatively cheap compared to Google Ads. If a post or piece of content is performing well and links to your site (and thus your sales), go ahead and pay for it to reach more – it’s likely a worthwhile investment.
These tips should be enough to get you started with getting your Facebook to work towards your business goals. But there’s a lot more that can be done with social media platforms like Facebook. We’re a digital marketing agency with a depth of expertise in social media – from setting up your presence to lengthy, multi-platform campaigns. Contact us today to find out how we can you’re your business grow.
