We live in times where competition for business exposure is at its fiercest. If you want to hold your own in the small business ring, you need to have a solid marketing strategy. More importantly, you must utilize social media. Facebook for business is one of the most effective ways to accelerate your business growth, but how can you go from ten followers to 1000?
Steps to Grow Your Business
According to Brandwatch, there are 60 million business pages on Facebook, so you can imagine how hard it is to build a loyal following. Of all the business pages out there, why should people follow yours?
If you follow these steps, you can increase your brand identity and build a useful page that people want to follow.
Step One – State Your Name
Your business name is central to your brand identity, and when you create your Facebook page, you should request a personalized Facebook address to reflect your business name. You might know of them as vanity URLs, and claiming one is a simple process.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Head to the Facebook Username page. You can do that by using this link: www.facebook.com/username.
- Use the dropdown menu to choose the page you want to customize.
- Once you’ve found your page, type in the URL you want to use.
- Facebook will tell you if the names available or you might need to make some changes.
What if my business name isn’t available?
With 60 million business pages on Facebook, you might find your chosen name is unavailable. Don’t panic, because there’s an easy way you can overcome this. Why not add the word hub or social to your business name? After all, your business page is the hub of your business.
2. Monitor Your Ad Campaigns
Facebook is a fantastic place for advertising your business, and their campaigns are easy to set up and monitor. You should always check what’s working so you can adjust your campaigns. Use the admin panel, or the advert creates tool to keep track of your engagement.
3. Make Sure People Can Connect With You
People reading your posts is excellent, and it shows you’re doing a good job. However, you need to make it easy for visitors to like your page and connect with you. Add like buttons wherever you can and use the messenger tool.
In recent years, we’ve seen a surge in companies utilizing chatbots, and Facebook is one of the latest platforms to make them available to small businesses. Statistics from Salesforce show how useful chatbots can be to increase your conversions.
You can learn more about how to use Facebook messenger chatbots here (link to other blog).
4. Master Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the most effective B2B strategies, and when used correctly, it can rev up your engagement and sales. Providing useful information to your visitors is essential. You need to be an authority within your market and don’t be afraid to use the platform to create detailed posts.
5. Use Special Offers
Everyone loves a special offer, so you must use them to increase your followers. One excellent example of companies utilizing special offers is a Mexican restaurant chain that posted free burrito offers to their Facebook page. People could only find out which restaurants were offering free burritos by visiting the page, which increased customer engagement.
6. Partner With Others
Don’t forget, other companies are also trying to accelerate their business growth, and you can use this to your advantage. For example, if you offer hairdressing services, you could ask a beauty business to team up with you and cross-promote each other’s pages.
You can create a joint offer, share each other’s blog posts, and mention the other company to your customers. Doing this can double your engagement and introduce your business to audiences that might not know you exist.
7. Get an App
One of the best things about technology is how easy it is for businesses to create apps now. You don’t need to be a tech genius to get an app for your business, and companies such as BuildFire have created an easy-to-use app builder.
The Bottom Line
It isn’t easy for business owners to build a Facebook following, and it takes a lot of time and commitment. If you’re short on time and would like some help, BuildOut Marketing can work with you to generate brand identity and create a workable Facebook marketing strategy.