There are over 200 million small business pages on Facebook and 9.1 million of these use Facebook advertising to promote their business. But is a Facebook business page worth the time and money? Let’s dive into how Facebook can help businesses reach a wider audience, build brand awareness and increase engagement.
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Benefits of having a Facebook business page
Whether you love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Facebook has offered many opportunities for businesses. To some extent, Facebook business pages have become social media versions of a website and can be highly beneficial. Here are six major benefits that having a Facebook business page can have:
Allows you to reach more people
It helps to be where your customers are and that means being on social media. Facebook currently sits at more than 2.9 billion monthly active users so it’s effective for audience targeting and increasing your digital presence.
Helps you identify your target audience
With Facebook Page Insights, you can learn a lot about your potential customers by looking at factors like their location, age, interests and more. This can be extremely useful in identifying your target audience for the purposes of community building.
Builds brand awareness
Given the competitive market, brand building is crucial to make people aware of what you do and why you exist. By showcasing your products and services online, sharing information and even running competitions, you can attract people to your page and gain recognition.
Directs traffic to your website
Adding your website link to your business’s About section and including it as a call-to-action on your posts will assist to promote your site and increase traffic.
Customers can share their feedback
People often use social media to share their opinions and experiences. Positive and negative reviews from customers can affect your brand’s reputation and also help you implement any changes.
Run targeted ads
Facebook ads are considered to be one of the more targeted and affordable forms of advertising. At Cariad Marketing, we run paid advertising campaigns which will help boost your brand presence and drive more leads.
Acts as an additional online storefront
Shops on Facebook allows you to sell your products and is therefore an extra route to marketing online. You can showcase your items, bring your brand to life and sell from anywhere.
Increasing customer engagement through your Facebook business page
A Facebook page for your business enables you to tell your story and create relationships with customers. Posting content that is informative, entertaining or emotional can encourage users to engage with it. When you post video content on Facebook, it will automatically start playing as followers scroll through their feed. The key here is to keep the video short as Facebook videos that get the most engagement are between 30 seconds and 2 minutes long.
Going live on Facebook is also a great way to shoot to the top of your followers’ news feed. People who regularly interact with your page will get a notification letting them know you’re going live. The boost in the news feed plus the notifications equals engagement!
Another way to gain your followers’ attention is to offer content that is exclusive to Facebook. Post special discounts or release news or launches on Facebook before posting it anywhere else to increase engagement on your posts. Once you receive comments or messages, it’s essential to respond. Provide insight and guidance when people ask questions and thank them when they praise your brand.
The role of your Facebook business page in building brand credibility
Your Facebook page can be super useful to build brand credibility. Gaining trust amongst your target customers is the key to creating a positive brand image. Credibility is directly related to conversions, so the more credible your brand is, the higher the conversion rate.
Social media marketing is highly beneficial in gaining credibility through relevant, authentic and shareable content. People find content shared by peers to be more reliable and for your business, this means increased exposure online and more leads to your marketing funnel for free. User-generated content is trusted by 92% of consumers so it’s important to monitor which of your Facebook posts gets shared the most to earn more engagement.
Creating a Facebook business page: Cost and Time considerations
Creating a business Facebook page allows more than two billion people on Facebook to discover your business. It’s an excellent way to increase your visibility online and grow your reach, especially if you’re a small or local business. But, with smaller businesses especially, it’s necessary to consider your budget and how much you’re willing to invest in your social media campaign for brand awareness.
Business owners with a large social network can attract the attention of Facebook users by announcing new products and services while nudging them towards calls-to-action. Small businesses can do this with little upfront cost, especially if they optimise their Facebook marketing strategy in accordance with their budget.
Do you have to pay for a Facebook page? The answer is no. The cost for setting up your Facebook business page is zero pounds! All you require is a personal Facebook account and of course, a business. Your personal account will remain separate from the business page and your information will remain private.
So, if business pages are free then why isn’t every business thriving online? Well, the secret to success is using a mixture of both free and paid tools to make the most of your page’s visibility. The ROI of running a Facebook page for your brand can be greatly rewarding if your marketing strategy involves the right elements.
Quality images like your Facebook cover photo, profile picture and logos can vary in price and you can choose to pay for custom visuals created by graphic designers or photographers. Every Facebook page needs to fill its feed with quality content. You can leverage the help of an experienced social media manager to regularly create and post relevant content on your page.
Consistency and quality: Keys to success for your Facebook business page
There are tips and tricks on how to improve your Facebook page to ensure you’re utilising the platform to its fullest potential.
- Update your “About” section with business details
- Use high quality, professional images for your profile picture and cover photo
- Display a Call to Action button to redirect your page visitors
- Define your target audience so you can market to the right people
- Use a social media management tool to schedule posts
- Plan your posts and stay consistent
- Add a link to your store so your products are visible on Facebook
Tips for optimising your Facebook business page
Features such as Location Pages, Messenger and Feature Images are just a few of the many tools you can use to optimise your Facebook business page. It’s also important to keep Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in mind when developing and optimising your page. Including relevant keywords in your Facebook posts and throughout your page will help to get your Facebook page higher up on Google’s search results.
The Facebook algorithm can determine what people see every time they check Facebook and in what order the content shows up. This is known as “personalised ranking.” As a result, your followers may not necessarily see every one of your posts just because they follow you.
Facebook uses three main ranking signals and this impacts what posts users see on their feed:
- Who posted it: users are more likely to see content from accounts they’ve interacted with.
- Type of content: if the user mostly interacts with video, they’ll see more videos.
- Interactions with the post: the algorithm will prioritise posts with a lot of engagement.
There are things you can do so that the Facebook algorithm works in your favour. This includes understanding what your audience wants to see and creating accurate and authentic content. Avoid trying to manipulate the algorithm and don’t use clickbait or deceptive landing pages as this will only work against you. Engage with your audience and encourage them to engage with each other too. Post at the right time to maximise the chances that people will see your post and lastly, expand your reach by getting employees to also share your brand’s content.
Measuring the success of your Facebook business page
If you’ve taken the time to learn how to effectively use a Facebook page for marketing as well as set up and optimise your business page, then you definitely need to take a look at your analytics to see what’s working and what needs improvement. Knowing which of your posts receive the most engagement helps you to tailor your content. Facebook Metrics can be found in Insights or Creator Studio in your Business Manager so you can track how your posts or Page perform.
Our team of digital marketing experts can assist in optimising your Facebook page and will keep you fully informed with regular, detailed, monitoring reports.
