Facebook is not the only company looking to monetize its community – companies are in the thick of strategizing on how to best use their social network to make more money. While companies like GM may have doubts on the efficacy of Facebook’s ad campaigns for lead generation citing that people don’t click advertisements, a recent study found that Facebook has at least gotten one thing right. That one thing is brand awareness.
Luckily for just about any sized business and their marketing teams, Facebook is a free megaphone, magnifying glass and a central hub for branding. If leveraged correctly, the Facebook reality can be an effective tool to find out more about your customers, to stay connected and to build brand awareness – here’s how:
Integrate Facebook with Optimized Website
Whether it is your corporate site, blog or other social site – integrate and optimize. The first step to leveraging Facebook to build your brand is to let customers know you have a Facebook page – reach out to them in any archived email, or through existing social networks. Embed a Facebook Like box and optimize your meta for Facebook’s Open Graph at a minimum.
Get more Facebook Fans
Motivating Facebook users to like your company’s page is a long-term effort. Facebook users and consumers respond particularly well to incentives with the following reach-out facebook strategies working the best:
- Offer discounts and promotions through Facebook
- Ask for customers to show their support on Facebook if they were happy with your product or service
- Offer a give-away or freebie – coupons, samples and any other physical incentives
- Offer exclusive access to content or offerings
- Remind people to stay up-to-date about company news, future products and upcoming sales
- Offer an element of joy or entertainment on your page.
Post timely and relevant content – always include a Call-to-Action
Consistency is central to any marketing campaign. For Facebook, consistently posting relevant posts, news, updates or offerings is essential to brand building. At first, you may find nobody liking, sharing or commenting on posts but if you are persistent you will eventually get results.
Run Facebook ad campaigns for awareness – not leads
Be sure to do your market research before you roll out a Facebook ad campaign. Find out what your market’s consumers want – particularly what will incentivize them to visit, like and share your page’s content. Also, remember the two-types of current Facebook ads – Fan Ads, Page Post Ads and “Page Liked” sponsored stories. In terms of click-through rate, users are more likely to actually click on a sponsored stories ad as they are interested in why their friends have liked it.
Develop Accurate Metrics and ROI Effect
Understanding your brand building strategy on Facebook is critical to pinpointing what is working, and what is not. While a few years ago social media ROI may not have been important but today’s matured social market is attracting more calculators.
Primarily, counting your Facebook page’s followers and fans is not an accurate way to measure the impact of your social marketing strategy. Rather, measure social ROI through comparing sales or lead metrics before and after your Facebook efforts.
About the Author
Zach Kremian is a writer for Marketing Weekly. Check out MarketingWeekly.com for more insights into social media marketing and how to best use Facebook for marketing.