Facebook is kind of like the Yellow Pages of old for today's social media landscape: every business needs to be there. The major difference is in how one leverages their exposure and the level of consumer engagement at the network so that they can optimize the level of exposure and success they have there. Here are some quick ways to supercharge your Facebook marketing efforts without spending money on ads or like campaigns.
Create Engaging Content
It goes without saying that you want to get in front of as many people that like your brand as possible. It sounds easy and you probably feel as if you could just hire someone to post and their sharing material from around the web will be enough. That's the wrong strategy. Sure, hire someone to do the work if you don't have the time; it's awesome to still be able to personalize from within, but there are a lot of content types that will energize your active audience. Funny memes of cats might rule on personal feeds, but not at "Johnny's Cupcake Shack." You will see some recommendations below that are vital, but before you do anything, brainstorm cool ideas that your audience will care about. Challenges, personalized behind-the-scenes posts, success stories or testimonials and, most importantly, engage that audience by asking your followers what exactly their pain points are. Do they have their own businesses and are leaning on your for industry-leading guidance? Ask and you'll find out while also increasing engagement.
Emphasize Photo Albums Instead of Photo Posts
Sharing top posts on other blogs isn't what Facebook is about and shouldn't be the only strategy you have for the network. It's about conversation too, but think about what works best on Facebook, namely videos and photos. Photo or video posts make up about 93% of the most engaging pieces on Facebook. As a social marketer, if the consumer/advocate likes your photos, give them albums, but don't be scared to test ideas. Not all audiences are the same so your strategy shouldn't be either.
Mess With Your Call-to-Action Button
Facebook offers you a unique opportunity to guide your fans and random people in a direction that you desire with their call-to-action button. "Watch Video" was particularly successful for several short films and webseries that we have worked on in the past. It tells your audience where to quickly go to consume episodes or snippets of your material. If you're a business looking to use Facebook as a sales tool, definitely think about "Shop Now." Something similar works for developers if you have an app or game to promote. Think about the unique buttons available to you as well.
Share Facebook-only Offers
Making people want to come back to your page is as important as what you say. It's as much of a piece of the marketing puzzle as your website, which is your biggest sales tool. People might not flock to your webpage in droves from social media no matter how hard you work at it, but you can convert them to brand advocates with exclusive Facebook-only offers. Creating a sense of urgency is also vital for these tactics to work, so think about how to ramp up that intensity. Coupons and offers that are only good for 24 hours or less will get them talking and moving to your homepage or store.
Don't Forget to Showcase Other Social Media
So many marketers forget to fill in the simplest of blanks and showcase the other social channels on Facebook. Unless something is crazy and you have more adoption anywhere other than Facebook, your Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest pages are secondary in terms of adoption. Your engagement can be much higher based on the sample size, but overall, one would venture to guess that you are big on Facebook and good everywhere else. As a result, do not forget to create tabs that showcase those other channels on the brand to offer glimpses into corporate culture. Different social media strategies work on different channels so it's important the consumers are aware of where you have a presence.
Share Snippets of Blogs
Now that you're supercharging that Facebook page and sharing social channels, don't forget your blog. Since content generation is such a vital part of the overall SEO strategy and you're putting a lot of time, effort and maybe even money into the process, you need to show this off. Share a fragment of a piece as a teaser for your content and drop a link to the piece at the end. It will really increase the interest in the post and will drive traffic. Even a view from social media is one more view than the day before and the possibilities of new backlinks increase.
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