Engage, interact and learn about your target business market with Facebook
Facebook is an online social networking service founded by Mark Zuckerberg (and others) in 2004. The website’s membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but later expanded in 2006 to anyone. Facebook has now grown to over 1.23 billion monthly active users and 2 million active business advertisers.
The social media site allows a business to engage, interact, and learn from its target audience. It is the best form of free market research. The platform is useful to demonstrate to potential and existing customers that a business is made of real people that customers can relate to.
Rules for using Facebook for business are:
- Create a Facebook business page. Do not use your personal Facebook profile.
- Use a profile picture and cover photo that accurately reflects your brand such as your company logo and brand colours.
- Complete the company’s ‘About’ section and include relevant information about your company — what you sell, your website, opening hours, etc.
- Make original, genuine, personalised posts to your Facebook page. It is a social platform. The more genuine you seem, the more followers you will engage and retain.
- Post no more than three to five times per week. Posting too often will annoy your audience. Focus on quality, not quantity. Visual and multimedia content is essential to succeeding on social media. Research has shown the use of visual content in Facebook campaigns can generate 65% more engagement after only one month.
- Engage with your audience by allowing guest posts, reviews, and by replying to and liking comments from participants on the page.
- Allow both negative and positive comments on your posts. Only delete spam, profanity, and hate speech.
- Use Facebook’s ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) advertising to increase brand awareness with your target market, encourage potential customers and fans to engage with your posts, and encourage your followers to take advantage of your products and services.
- Use analytical tools such as Facebook’s ‘Insights’ to analyse page performance and audience engagement.
Facebook can generate positive results for business if professionally managed, developed, and resourced.
