Facebook reached the one billion user mark in June 2013, according to Facebook announcements, which gives your business a broad range to reach different people and markets. While the amount of traffic is the highest out of any social networking site, the trick is getting your users to actively engage with you on your page. When you have users who want to interact with you and your brand, you’ll benefit from higher impressions, a better connection with your potential buyers and a platform that allows your visitors to easily share your content and word of mouth recommendations.
Create Engaging Content
You can talk at your potential customers all you want, but you aren’t going to get them to stick around on your page unless you give them a reason to do so. The first order of business is to produce engaging content that helps to promote user interaction. Don’t talk at your customers, talk with them through your content, giving them posts that they want to engage with, whether that’s a funny video or an insightful comment, recommends Pagemondo, an online tool for designing Facebook fan pages. You can schedule posts in advance with many third party social media software apps, with HootSuite, Sprout Social and PostCron. These tools also work with Twitter, so you can coordinate your Facebook posts and other social media interactions. These tools also allow you to create a large marketing campaign at once, instead of doing small amounts day by day.
Facebook Post Promotion
Part of Facebook’s paid advertising tools is a feature called promoted posts. Your standard Page posts only reach a certain percentage of your page followers, along with anyone who has added your page to a specific interest list. With a promoted post, you expand the number of people who see your post. The pricing on this varies greatly, depending on how big your page is and where you’re located at. It’s easy to see exactly how much promotion will cost, as you get the figure as soon as you click the promote button by a post. Use small business cards for any marketing efforts so you keep track of how much you spend on advertising and earn points on the card for other purchases and perks.
Utilize Hashtags
Hashtags are a relatively new addition to Facebook and one you need to utilize for your small business page. Like Twitter, Tumblr and other social sites that use hashtags, these phrases connect your content with that particular tag. Users can look through tags and see all of the content across the site that has a hashtag with those particular words. Focus on trending keywords that are relevant to your business, as well as overall keywords that represent you.
Provide Incentives
Nothing gets Facebook sharing content such as free prizes and contests, says Social Media Examiner, an online social media magazine. Not only do incentives allow your customers to get excited about your brand, they also allow you to get your product in the hands of new customers. You might end up converting someone from being on the fence to being a loyal customer in just one step. Another way incentives provide long-term engagement is through regular coupons.
Contribute to the Conversation
Once you get the conversation started, don’t let your customers run with it alone. Provide insightful commentary into what they’re talking about. Working with a marketing company like iAcquire can help you develop and tailor information that allows your customers to see where you’re coming from. If it’s an issue that relates to your industry, providing good commentary allows your customers to see that you know what you’re talking about. It’s all about building trust and authority within your niche. It doesn’t happen overnight, but with time you’ll end up showing your customers that you know your industry inside and out. This helps with customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendations, which tend to grow your customer base rapidly.
Author Bio
Joanna Moore – Joanna runs social media campaigns for local charities.
