Facebook has built up a powerful platform that marketers can use to get their message to as many people as possible. In a world where social media predominates, Facebook is the Slotocash casino king. The site has 2.32 billion monthly active users which accounts for over a quarter of the world’s population.
If you’re a small business owner, you may not be ready to invest in Facebook’s paid advertising opportunities. There are, however, plenty of things that you can do to market your product or service on Facebook for free.
Business Page
Once you (or one of your staff members) has created a Facebook Profile (for an individual), they can open a Business Page. The Business Page is a space on Facebook where people can see your product along with product posts, reviews from past customers, photos and videos, announcements, upcoming events, special posts and more.
It’s important to make sure that your page is completely filled out, including all relevant contact information and everything that you want to highlight about your product or service.
Remember that one of the major strengths of Facebooks is its focus is on creating relationships. In this case, you want to make it possible to create relationships with potential customers. Highlighting the possibilities for person-to-person interactions between your business and your audience makes consumers feel as though they have a special connection with the company and that they have encountered a brand in a meaningful way. It’s up to you to promote that through your Page so your audience feels that they aren’t just interacting with “the brand,” but with the individual behind that brand!
Presence
Once you’ve created your presence through your page, you need to maintain a robust brand presence. Post frequently – even once a day, if not more. Try not to post only about your brand, your sales, your discounts and other obvious marketing-related data. Perhaps you saw a funny photo, video or joke that is somehow connected to your product. Or maybe an interesting story about someone who used your service.
Other options might be to screenshot reviews of your product from another reviews site and then post the photo on your Facebook page, take a poll, create a questionnaire or open a subject for discussion and invite feedback – “….we’re getting ready to launch a new product and we need ideas for names.”
Engagement with a Personal Profile
Everything that you post on your business page should be shared with your profile page so that your own friends can see and share. Every time you make a new contact who may be useful for your business, friend them through your personal profile. That way, they are more likely to see your posts.
When you share your business page’s posts on your personal profile, those posts will find a larger audience that they would if they were only posted on your Page. Facebook doesn’t allow you to directly share a post from a Business Page onto your personal profile, so it’s best to screenshot the post from your page, together with the name of your brand name (which appears on the post) and then post that JPG onto your personal page.
In the comments section you should add the URL of your business page. This allows an interested viewer to click right into your business page (which they won’t be able to do from the post itself, which is not a JPG). Also, you might want to say a few words about the post to attract interest.
Facebook Groups
Now, Facebook has made it possible for a business page to join groups as the Page. That means that you’ll be able to post in various groups to get more exposure for your brand.
Using your Page you can join groups in which members might be interested in your product. You’ll be looking for groups that are in a similar industry or profession or have similar interests. Via your own personal account you might want to join groups of colleagues plus other groups where your target audience is likely to be found.
Once you’ve been accepted into the group, don’t spam. Don’t promote your product, announce deals and discounts or otherwise take advantage of your membership in the group. Use your membership to comment on other’s posts as appropriate or post items of relevance to the group.
Remember, your ultimate goal here is to give your brand more exposure, not to market your product directly. Contribute toconversations taking place in the groups to gain name recognition. You want people to think about you as part of your industry or profession’s leadership and expertise.
Events
Promote events. If your product or service is a land-based one, you can use your Page to invite locals to join you. If you are mainly marketing online, you can create online events – lectures, discussions, meet-ups, etc.
Facebook offers a Facebook Live feature that allows you to livestream an event to your friends Take advantage of this feature and livestream either pre-planned events or events that take place on the spur of the moment to, again, engage old friends and new acquaintances and expand your name recognition.
Influencers
Identify influencers in your industry or profession and reach out to them. Statistics show that many people check their Facebook messages, and respond, more regularly than they do with their email accounts. Make them your friend so that they’ll see your posts and like and share their posts so that they’ll notice and remember you.
You can reach out with a simple “I enjoy your work” message, either in a text message or on their wall. Post as your Page, not as your personal account, to increase your brand recognition.
Community
All of these suggestions boil down to the advice for you to create a community, using the Facebook platform. I you decide to use paid advertising, you can build on the free accounts and pre-advertising that you’ve been doing with your profile and business page. And even if you don’t do paid advertising, you’ll be able to start to get your name “out there” which is, after all, the foundation of good marketing.
