Effective Facebook Marketing Strategy

The Most IMPORTANT Steps to an Effective Facebook Marketing Strategy - Gain Views, Likes and Shares

Currently, Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users. This clearly shows that it is the main hub of all social media activities on this planet. Hence, any business that is not implementing an effective Facebook marketing strategy is missing out on a big opportunity to connect with its users.

So, what are the steps you need to take to build an effective Facebook marketing strategy that can help you gain views, likes and shares?

  1. Determine your Facebook marketing goals

What are the things you want to achieve with your Facebook marketing? Are you looking for more Facebook views, likes, and shares? Do you want to boost your brand awareness? Are you searching for ways to increase your website traffic, get more leads, and improve sales? It is crucial to have a clear idea of the things you want to achieve with your Facebook marketing before you start taking any steps. By determining your goals, it will be easier for you to customize your strategy to suit your particular needs and preferences.

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To make your goals more realistic, consider implementing the popular SMART strategy. In other words, make your goals to be:

  • S – Specific
  • M – Measurable
  • A – Achievable
  • R – Relevant
  • T – Timely

For instance, let’s assume that your goal is to get 5,000 Facebook views on your videos within 2 months. This goal has all elements of the SMART strategy. Foremost, you have specified what you want and can measure whether you have gotten 5,000 views or not. Similarly, if you put in the right efforts, you can achieve it. The goal is relevant because having more views means that you are reaching a lot of existing or potential clients. Lastly, you have set 2 months as the timeline for the goal; therefore, it is timely.

  1. Define your Facebook audience

Without a doubt, all demographics are represented on Facebook. However, you cannot reach everybody. Also, it is not everybody that will want to use your service or product. Therefore, you need to define those that you want to reach. This will assist you to create Facebook content that your target audience will like to read or view.

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If you would like to define your Facebook target audiences, start by deciding where they live, their age range, the languages they speak, their average spending power, the average period they spend on Facebook and so on. Having the demographics will provide you great insights on the steps you can take to reach them.

  1. Create a budget

Like other marketing strategies, Facebook marketing strategy requires you to spend money. Hence, you should consider having a monthly budget. However, if you don’t want to spend a lot on Facebook ads, you can rely on organic growth. But the reality is that you may never see any significant improvement in your online presence. Organic promotion of your content may not reach up to 2% of your audience.

So, you need to spend to reach people on this platform. For example, if you want social media influencers to help you promote your Facebook page, the majority of them will charge you a particular amount. So, a free Facebook marketing strategy may not produce any significant result for so many months.

Notably, Facebook marketing doesn’t usually cost much, so it is affordable for most businesses irrespective of their size. With the right budget, this social media platform is ready to display your business for everyone to see. In general, some of the things that will probably take up your budget are lead generation ads, content creation, and promoted posts. Also, if you want to boost your posts by getting instant likes, you should consider adding it to your budget.

  1. Define your Facebook marketing strategy

What strategy do you want to use to reach people? There are tons of them but you don’t have to use all at once. You can simply pick a couple of marketing plans and see the results they can produce over the next few weeks or months. It is worthwhile to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, so you should take a look at your goals and find the most suitable plans.

Nevertheless, whatever plans you have chosen must be relevant and cost-effective. By being relevant, you will be able to achieve the goals that you have set for your marketing strategy. Cost-effectiveness, on the other hand, ensures that you get great value for the money you are spending on the ads.

  1. Create your content

For a starter, you should note that content is key as long as engagement and loyalty on social media are concerned. That is, if you give your audiences the type of content that can engage them, they will always look forward to getting more from you.

So, what are the important things to understand about creating Facebook content?

  • Facebook content comes in different forms – articles, polls, videos, pictures, infographics, etc. As long as the content can engage your audience, there is no thumb rule for the kind of content you should post.
  • Content should be related to your service or product. Nonetheless, there are instances where you may post unrelated but trending content that your audience will likely be interested in.
  • Content must have rich information. This is vital to make yourself an authority in your field.
  • Content must be error-free. This is especially true for the articles or posts. Make sure it is grammatically correct and well punctuated. The goal is to guarantee that you give your audience what they will like to read. Infographics, videos, pictures, etc. should also be scripted or designed well.

You may not know how to create engaging videos, design infographics or write articles. But you don’t have to worry as you can hire an employee to handle the tasks for you. If you cannot afford a full-time employee for the role, you can find freelancers on online marketplaces to do the job. This will save you money without compromising the quality of the work.

  1. Schedule your content

Anybody can post a few Facebook posts now and then. However, the ability to be consistent is what differentiates a serious-minded business from others. Therefore, you need to have a schedule for how you want to post on your Facebook page. Google Planner and other apps can come in handy at this stage. These apps will help you have a regular schedule for your Facebook posts so that you can continue giving your audience something to read or view. You must post on your page a couple of times every day or week.

While the scheduling of content is important, you must not overlook the essence of keeping your content fresh. Unless you want your audience to get bored of seeing your content, don’t post the same type of content every day. This is why it is advisable to combine different types of content.

  1. Engage your audience regularly

If you want to build a community of loyal customers via Facebook, you need to keep the conversation alive with your audiences. After posting your content and getting instant Facebook views, you need to like and reply to their comments. By doing all these things, you will let them realize that you appreciate them. This gives them a sense of belonging and motivates them to continue engaging your posts.

Don’t sit back and expect the interaction to happen naturally among your followers; you have to make it happen by engaging them. Depending on the size of your business and your goals, you may need a social media manager to engage your followers from time to time.

Furthermore, there are times when your customers are more likely to engage your posts. So, you should do yourself a favor by knowing those times. Generally, you should post more during the weekdays, from about 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. However, if you notice that the trend for better engagement by your audience is different from this, don’t hesitate to adapt your posting schedule.

  1. Let your employees engage the audience

Allow your employees to be also involved in engaging your audience. Why is this necessary? Because most people feel a better connection with a brand when the employees are sharing information or engaging customers on social media. Also, employee advocacy creates a form of credibility for your business; hence, audiences will be more willing to be involved in what you are offering.

  1. Leverage of the Facebook traffic to your website

If your target is to get more people to do business with you, your Facebook marketing strategy should not stop on the platform. You need to find a way to bring your audiences from Facebook to your website. Sending them to your site increases their chances of using your services or products. Besides, it is an exceptional way of turning them into loyal customers.

  1. Monitor your marketing strategy

Finally, you need to track your strategy. This should be done daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. Are you gaining as many likes, shares, and views as you want? Do your audiences engage your posts? These are some of the important questions that must be answered.

The goal of regular monitoring is to know whether your strategy is bringing the desired results or not. This, in turn, will let you decide whether you should continue with the strategy or look for another strategy that can produce better results.