With over 2 billion users at your fingertips, you wouldn’t think that Facebook would be considered among the most affordable forms of online advertising, but it is. And this is great news for Singapore advertisers, a country in which consumers spend a great deal of their time on this platform. However, this doesn’t mean that this form of marketing is simple. To the contrary, when it comes to its algorithm there is a lot to be considered. This is especially the case since this social media platform has recently made it more difficult to ensure that your posts are being seen.
Nonetheless, this platform is still the ideal method for targeting a certain audience through paid advertising. That’s because Facebook knows a lot of information about its users. It uses this information to help you promote your business to your potential clients. Below are a few of Facebook’s most basic features as well as how you can use them to your advantage.
Creating your page
It’s pretty easy to set up your own Facebook business page. This platform offers thorough step by step instructions. And even if you have questions, you can visit its help center for extra assistance. Just remember that if you want to create your own business page, you must first have a personal account.
Aside from the most general information such as your username, name, and business category, you should also include details about your business. Make sure to include your social accounts, a link to your website, cover photos, your hours of operation, and an about section. When setting up your account, you should pay close attention to the following features.
Buttons
If you want to encourage your visitors to interact with, you should add a call-to-action button to the very top of the page. This is the space in which you can ask them to get in touch with you, shop at your store, sign up for your newsletter, or download your latest app or game. In fact, Facebook recently introduced a few new call-to-action options which offer a wider selection of buttons.
Reviews
You’ll notice that on the left side of your page, you can add links for your reviews. This is where all o your customers can leave their review and give you a star rating. These ratings and reviews will show at the very top of the page. This is a great way to show social proof.
Community
The community page is where all of the videos, photos, and posts from your customers will show up. This is also where your customers will be able to check into your store. This is the ideal place for your company to interact as well as learn more about your business.
Messages
The messages features give you the ability to check the messages that you have received from your audience. This is much like the chat feature on Facebook, however, you will actually be able to respond as your business. Just remember that in order to get your messages, you’ll need to download the Facebook iOS or Android Page app because they don’t come through on messenger.
Facebook Messenger is another important customer service tool. Not only do customers want you to use it, but Facebook actually tracks your response rates and times so that customers know how quickly you answer their questions. However, it can be difficult to keep up with these messages if your business is large.
Messenger features multiple new updates and tools which can make it easier for you to engage with your customers, including Natural Language Processing which you can use with messenger chatbots. This can be especially helpful if your customer is making a purchase. Facebook allows users to pay directly on its platform using Payments on Messenger. It’s convenient because it’s a one-step checkout process.
Insights
Insights is a Facebook analytics tool. This free tool shows data on actions taken like your page views, how many people you have managed to reach, how many post engagements you have and more. This is a great way to ensure that your social media marketing effective.
Publishing Tools
Facebook Publishing Tools give you the ability to schedule the posts that you would like to go live in the future. It also gives you the ability to advertise your business, create videos, promote your events, make offers, write notes and post your job applications.
Polls
Facebook’s new polling features gives you the ability to ask for your followers’ opinions. It’s much like Twitter’s polls. You can give your respondents two options and you can set up a certain timeframe in which you would like your poll to run, whether it’s days, weeks or custom. If you want to create a poll, visit your Page Manager and choose “create a poll” from your icon menu.
Tips for Effectively Operating Your Facebook Page
Once you have completed your Facebook page setup, the real work begins. Luckily, there are a few tips that will help you along the way. Take a look:
1. Know your audience
What makes Facebook the ideal promotion tool is its targeting features. You can get specific information on locations, demographics, and interest groups. It’s important that you know exactly who you’re selling to. After you have your ideal audience in mind, you can use these targeting tools.
2. Be personable
Of course, you’re creating your Facebook page in order to earn new business. However, your audience can recognise when their being sold to. And many won’t respond well to this. So instead of putting a emphasis and salesmanship, try being personable. You need to make them feel comfortable with you, which means that you need to share more than marketing materials.
3. Hold contests and giveaways
One of the best ways to get organic traffic is to hold giveaways and contests. Services such as Rafflecopter gives your customers incentive for following or liking your page. If they share your page, they qualify to be entered into the content. Just make sure that you give away something that is relevant to your business.
4. Create and advertise your events
Create events on Facebook. Use your Facebook page to invite your customers to your special event. You may even pay a little extra for promotion.
5. Share content from other sources
Most Singapore business owners understand how time-consuming it can be to create fresh content. That’s why they often turn to content curation when scheduling their posts. This means that they share relevant content that comes from other sources. And the best part about it is, this is a great way to network with other businesses in your industry. In some cases, these business may share some of your content as well.
6. Hold conversations
Remember, Facebook could be a two-way conversation. You should never simply share your posts and then go silent for a week. You need to share posts that engage the audience and get them talking. Answer their questions and respond to their comments. The more you speak with them, the more likely they are to become customers. Facebook recently announced that it would be prioritising these types of interactions.
7. Highlight milestones
When you’re interacting on Facebook, you should always remember to make a big deal of your milestones. Whether you are celebrating your first 1,000 followers or your business anniversary, get people engaged. This can help to give your business a little personality. You can also promote special promotions on your page.
8. Use tracking and analytics
If you want to know how well your posts are performing, refer to Facebook’s insights and analytics. Pay attention to whether or not your posts are engaging your audience. Adjust your strategy based on the response.
9. Schedule your posts
Perhaps you are becoming overwhelmed with daily posting. In this case, you could always schedule your posts. You could either do this through Facebook or a third-party platform such as Buffer or Hootsuite. This may take time upfront, but it will save you a considerable amount of time in the end.
10. Use Facebook ads
There is no better to reach your audience than with ads. They may take a portion of your budget, but they can ensure that you target your audience based on their behaviours, demographics, and contact information. Choose overall or daily budgets. Decide how long you would like your ad to run and then make adjusts to your desired audience. Facebook tracks these particular interactions on every promotion that you run.
11. Create Facebook videos
What’s so effective about Facebook videos is that they tend to stand out in the timeline. You can create yours on Facebook live and broadcast it for free. This allows for real-time conversations. And it can also give your followers an inside look at your business. Also, Facebook puts a priority on videos and one of its main objective is to keep video creators on its site. In fact, in March of 2018, it launched a new video creator subscription feature. This features gives users the option of paying $4.99 a month to a video creator in exchange for being able to watch their content.
Conclusion
If you want to ensure that you get as much online visibility as possible, then it’s crucial that you consider Facebook advertising. There are a countless amount of users on this platform and Facebook provides every tool that it can in order to ensure that you reach your audience. The key is to know which features you have available to you and how you can should about using them. You should also be sure to engage your audience. This means that you should focus on creating posts that spark conversation. You should respond to comments and questions. You should take polls and surveys.
