6.01 – Using Facebook for Engagement That Builds Sales
Marketing with digital channels today is like trying to hit a moving target, as tools, tactics, and trends change more quickly than most can imagine. Because nearly all marketing today is connected to a digital channel, platform, analytics tool, or device, the term digital marketing is somewhat of an oxymoron.
No matter what business you’re in, the role you play, or the size and scope of your market, understanding and staying on top of digital marketing tools is essential to success.
Digital technology offers exciting opportunities to open new markets and engage with customers like never before, but it also presents challenges:
Constantly changing tools
As soon as marketers master one tool, another emerges.
High expectations for personalized communications
Customers now expect personalized interactions, making traditional marketing methods less effective and increasing the pressure on marketers to keep up with rapidly changing technological developments.
Managing digital channels
The breadth and depth of digital channels require marketers to identify the best opportunities within numerous channel categories for several customer segments, customize campaign elements for each segment, adapt formats for each channel, and deploy campaigns quickly and frequently. Additionally, marketers must monitor social media dialogue and online review sites and respond quickly to maintain consumer interest, reputation, and sales.
Managing these challenges is possible with a detailed plan based on how your customers use and respond to digital channels. This plan should guide how you allocate your time and resources for communication, ad placement, and creating meaningful online experiences. Once you have a plan for which channels to use and how to use them, you can determine which technology investments make the most sense for your desired reach, outcomes, and budget.
This lesson provides insights into several digital channels that drive customer engagement and sales, along with tips for integrating them into your marketing plan.
Using Facebook for Engagement That Builds Sales
Facebook is a crucial marketing tool. To effectively use Facebook for customer conversations, promotions, and relationship building, you need a content marketing plan specific to this channel and an advertising plan. Avoid posting without a messaging plan, as meaningless posts can cause you to lose likes, follows, and readership, which are difficult to regain.
Below are guidelines for creating a content and advertising plan for Facebook. These tips also apply to other social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others.
Developing a Successful Facebook Plan
Facebook is where many people document their life story and share their greatest moments. It’s also a great place for brands to tell their stories in ways that resonate with their core customers. As you build a plan to tell your story and engage with customers, remember that Facebook is for stories, not sales pitches. Using this channel as consumers do will help you achieve greater success and return on the time you spend posting, sharing, liking, and more.
Here are key elements to establish for your Facebook marketing plan:
Define your purpose
Determine if your Facebook page will be a place for meaningful dialogues with customers, a platform for promotions and discounts, or a space to share stories about your people and business to humanize your brand. Prioritizing these questions will help make your Facebook efforts more effective.
Set your goals
Franchises can be categorized into three main types:
Business Format Franchises
Facebook offers various opportunities and outcomes for businesses. Set specific goals and create a plan to measure your progress. Goals may include discovering trends, interacting with customers, attracting prospects, driving website traffic, growing your email database, communicating with customers without email addresses, building a social presence, and creating a community around your brand.
The following sections provide tips and examples to help you reach these goals. Remember, you need followers and friends connected to your page to achieve any of these goals. Use all your social channels to invite people to connect with you on Facebook and post shareable content to build your base. Include links to your Facebook page on your website, emails, and marketing materials. Consider an email campaign solely to get people to follow you on Facebook and other channels.
Determine Your Metrics
Ensure you have a mechanism to measure the impact of your efforts toward your goals. Facebook Insights, available on business pages, provides valuable metrics and analytics for your page. It helps you see what your followers liked, engagement levels per post, and the sources of your likes and shares. Pay attention to trends and comments on your page to discover what matters most and identify potential problems early.
Learn by Asking Questions
Facebook offers numerous opportunities to gain valuable insights. Engage with your followers through dialogue, questions, comments, and by observing competitors. Asking questions can provide great insights from follower responses.
For example, if you’re a carpet cleaning company, you might ask:
“What motivates you most when it comes to cleaning your carpets?”
- Having your house look clean and fresh?
- Getting rid of germs that can affect your health?
- Restoring the brand new look of your carpets?
People often respond if they like you, want to voice their opinion, or if you offer an incentive. Facebook has a poll application that makes it easy to create and monitor polls. However, if you have a small following, be cautious with polls as a low response rate can signal a lack of engagement.
Make your questions open-ended and thought-provoking rather than simple yes-or-no questions. For example, instead of asking, “Do you like watching soccer?” ask, “What do you like most about watching women’s soccer matches?” This approach helps you discover your customers’ values and motivators.
Interact with Followers
You can interact with customers in many ways on Facebook, limited only by your time and imagination. The key to building relationships on Facebook is twofold:
- Post content worth reading and commenting on.
- Respond to the good, the bad, the funny, and the serious.
Ignoring or not engaging with consumers on your page can lead to losing them.
To encourage shares and build your reach, post engaging, humorous, or interesting content. Cool photos, funny videos, and inspirational stories often get the most shares.
Build Trust and Rapport
The best content strategy isn’t always about driving sales but about engaging and creating rapport, trust, and communication with your followers. When you achieve these attributes, sales will follow. Post fun, positive, inspiring, and relatable content that tells a story in which your customers can see themselves.
Creating Content That Gets a Response, Dialogue, and Leads
Creating a story that readers can see themselves in is the best way to spark interaction, dialogue, and new leads. Simply posting a well-written status update may not generate many new prospects, but inviting response and interaction will. Here are some tips for lead-generating content on Facebook:
Be brief
People typically have short attention spans. Keep your content short to increase engagement. Provide links to full articles for more information.
Direct to your website
Directing people to your website for more information and asking for their email to get the full story is always a good idea. Post about special sales and discounts available on your website.
Invite a response
Don’t just post a point, opinion, or fact. Spark dialogue by asking followers what they think. Encourage them to share their stories.
Provide tips
People like how-to tips and will often follow a page to get more. If you have valuable, actionable tips, post them. Break up your list of tips into a series to keep people coming back for more.
Use hashtags
Hashtags increase the chances of your post being seen on Facebook and other channels. Include at least one or two hashtags for better visibility.
Prepare a content plan and stick with it. It’s easy to spend all day posting and reading comments on your page and others’, but ensure your content is meaningful and actionable.
Advertising on Facebook
If you’re not able to build your base through organic tactics or want to grow quickly, consider advertising on Facebook. Options include boosting posts for a nominal fee, purchasing Page Likes, or using Offer ads. Here’s a brief overview:
Boosting post
Pay a nominal fee to push your post to a chosen demographic. The more you pay, the more people see your post.
Page Likes ads
These ads include a Like button for your page and are sent to audiences of your choice. When users click the Like button, they become followers of your page.
Offer ads
Use Facebook’s Offer function to post offers on your page. Pay to boost the offer to non-followers for more exposure.
By following these strategies, you can effectively use Facebook to engage with your audience, build relationships, and drive sales.
