How to use Facebook to promote your business
There’s no doubt that Facebook can be a very powerful tool for promoting your business. It’s hugely valuable for raising the profile of your business, particularly to a large, local audience. Here are our top tips for running a Facebook Business Page:
Fill in all of the required information
Fill in as much information as possible – about your company, contact information, services, the lot. Make sure you properly categorise your business e.g. web design company, highlight your awards and tell your story. More people are turning to Facebook to search for local service providers – you don’t want your page to be incomplete or they might just go elsewhere.
Add profile and cover photos
Again, they are a must. Not only that, they must look professional and be the correct sizes. You can get correct sizes for Facebook (and all other social media profiles) here. If you’re not confident in designing something yourself, don’t worry, we can help. Make sure to use relevant images for your business, something that’s recognisable and helps raise awareness of your brand e.g. your company logo and a photo of premises.
Add a call-to-action
The whole point of having your Facebook business page is to drive business – you therefore need to make it easy for prospects to get in touch by showing a clear call-to-action. Facebook makes this very simple through it’s “big blue button”. You can set it up to drive people your website or send you a message, whatever is the best fit for you.
Invite your friends to like your page
You’d be surprised just how much business your friends and family can help generate – this is the viral beauty of Facebook. Once you’ve filled in all of the information, added your call-to-action and profile and cover photos, you’re ready to publicise your page. Invite your friends to like your page, add some posts and ask them to share these posts. It’s a simple but effective tactic for raising awareness of your business to a relevant, local audience.
Encourage reviews
Reviews are important for instilling trust in potential buyers, and also an important ranking factor for local SEO. Again, ask your friends and family to help you out by giving you a 5-star review. You can also ask your customers to do the same and use these as testimonials.
Post interesting content
Don’t be a bore, post a mix of interesting content on a daily basis. This can in the form of blog posts, special offers, funny photos, videos and more. Make it interesting enough that people want to share and tag their friends, again taking advantage of the viral nature of Facebook.
Encourage two-way communication
Probably the most important aspect of social media, conversing with your customers / potential customers. Ask questions, run polls, respond to queries – show that you care. Take advantage of a great market research tool.
Run a competition
You’ve no doubt seen (or taken part) in a few Facebook competitions – there’s no doubting the effectiveness of this simple tactic. Make the offer really outstanding and encourage group participation (tagging friends) for the best results. For exmaple, if you run a spa, run a competition for one lucky winner and their friends to enjoy a free spa day. All they need to do is like your page and tag who they would bring along with them – watch the post spread like wildfire! Just make sure the competition is legitimate, you choose a winner fairly and you make a public annoucement afterwards.
Facebook Advertising
Facebook Advertising is whole different ball game and if done correctly, with a little investment and good targeting, can go a long way in raising the profile of your business – watch out for future posts where we will cover this in depth.
Also published on Medium.
About the author
Digital Marketing Consultant and founder of JD Business Marketing.