Simple & Effective tips for successful Marketing on Facebook Business Page

Facebook is the largest and most active social platform in the digital world. The network is developing into the No. 1 communication tool in our digital society.

Why should you use Facebook with your company? The high reach and activity rate understandably arouse great interest among companies. In most cases, your customers or potential customers can be found on the platform. Small companies in particular can use Facebook as an opportunity to give the company a “voice” and to communicate directly with their customers – be it for recruiting specialists, building product and brand awareness or direct dialogue with customers on service issues.

1. The right strategy

Before you become active on Facebook, you have to answer a few strategic questions in advance. First of all, it is important to fix the goals and expectations you are pursuing with your Facebook engagement. The goal should be in line with your own corporate goals. It is best to formulate the goals in writing.

• What are your plans for the coming months and years?
• What do you want to achieve on Facebook?
• Can your target group be reached on Facebook at all?
• What moves your target group?
• Which topics are relevant for your targeted fans?

Analyse existing competitor pages and check which topics are played there or which successful postings can be found. In addition, you can access current studies and simple research tools (e.g. Google Alerts, Social Mention). Another good way is to survey your regular customers. This way you get a first strategic roadmap; it forms the basis for your Facebook action plan. It is advisable to review the strategy, especially at the beginning, and to optimize it if necessary.

2. Engagement on a Facebook page

As you can already see: social media takes time. So also think about your own resources. Not just for strategy development, but above all for the ongoing implementation phase. Do you have any free resources for Facebook in the form of employees, know-how to operate the platform – but also in monetary terms? Access to Facebook is free of charge, but the channel has to be served and marketed qualitatively with topics, layouts, possibly with IT systems. Running Facebook on the side creates suboptimal basic requirements. Always keep in mind when you are involved in Facebook: Your company uses this channel to communicate with regular customers or potential new customers. Thus, the page strengthens your brand and creates trust.

If resources are scarce, you can also work with external partners. You bring the necessary expertise to build your page, successful community management and regular updates from Facebook. However, always build up interfaces for your company. Experience has shown that external partners can never transmit your unique company DNA. The monthly editorial conference can be an interface to your company. And last but not least: Facebook is a rapidly changing platform, individual functions change almost every week; this means that you should also continuously adjust your strategy – not every day, but at least once a month in the initial phase.

Depending on the size of the company, it is advisable to communicate your social media strategy openly to the employees. A proven means is, for example, the social media guideline, which ensures a motivating set of rules for good communication inside and outside of Facebook. Your employees are usually very good brand ambassadors for your company. Your employees can be very helpful in times of crisis.

Speaking of Shitstorm: Social content is new territory for most companies, i.e. they are confronted with uncontrolled opinions in your marketing channel. If the worst comes to the worst, prepare a master plan for crisis communication and correct behaviour in advance. Then you are well prepared for the possible storm. But for your reassurance: It is seldom to expect a violent so-called shit storm. If you have done good preparatory work, you should start your journey in calm waters.

3. Content planning and editorial control

One of the central keys to marketing success in social networks like Facebook is the creation of conversation pieces. Facebook users want fun, entertainment, exciting stories and added value about your company on this platform. Preferably content that they can share with their friends. There are only one thing users do not want: another advertising channel with clumsy advertising messages. Facebook is primarily a dialogue medium and not a sales channel.

Facebook sees itself as a modern marketing instrument with its own communication rules! So the motto for companies is: don’t just broadcast, but above all listen to your fans. This creates a direct exchange at eye level between company and customer. Your fans expect an open and authentic dialogue with you and love to interact.

The fans usually only come to your Facebook page to like you. Afterwards they only come by to communicate directly with you, for example for service questions or complaints. That’s why it’s important to get your posts in your fans’ news feed. You can achieve this by offering interesting topics with added value. A varied, target group-relevant editorial plan is crucial for a successful social media concept. In addition, your fans demand fast reaction times to comments and possible inquiries. That is why you value efficient production processes right from the start. This includes recurring tasks such as:

• Topic research
• Content production
• Editorial control
• marketing
• Success measurement

The centrepiece is the editorial plan. Here you define interesting and relevant topics for your fans. Your annual business calendar provides you with the first basic topics. You can discover other thematic blocks in the individual departments. Events attended also offer good thematic blocks. So, you already get a good overview of possible editorial topics. The important thing here is to develop exclusive content for Facebook. Simply displaying the website content 1: 1 on Facebook leads to nothing.

Dialogue means talking and exchanging ideas. Combine your posting activities with entertainment features. Special campaigns that encourage participation and provide topics for conversation. Use sweepstakes, competitions, votes, videos about the company or checklists with tips and information – that is, a healthy mix of fun, useful information and other added value such as product tests or exclusive sales campaigns. Always make a connection to your company; otherwise you will generate fans who will not become customers.

However, there is an important formula for starting a Facebook page: Trying is about studying. Test different measures and evaluate the results. These findings will support you in future editorial planning and channel optimization.

Afterwards, the results of your topic determination must be prepared for a Facebook page in a readable manner. You should enrich your posting texts with pictures, videos and relevant web links. Most of the time, it is important to put one value on the posting texts: short posts thank the fan (max. 100 characters). The thanks of your fans will be the interaction and at best the recommendation of your page.

4. Facebook Marketing

It is time to make your Facebook presence known to your potential fans. Especially at the beginning, building a community has to be given top priority. The marketing and fan building of a Facebook page is not a sure-fire success. Use different ways to win fans. Carry out plenty of marketing at the point of sale and generate attention: for example, with a small flyer at the cash register or by speaking directly to the customer. Invite your customers as fans – on all the advertising materials you use: e.g. website, flyer, brochure, e-mail newsletter, business letter, receipt, invoice, e-mail signature.

Another and very successful option is the placement of Facebook ads. This performance marketing tool offers you a very targeted marketing option because your target group selection can be based on socio-demographic data or a field of interest. Facebook ads attract a lot of attention and your marketing budget is usually only charged when you actually click on your ad. Facebook offers the possibility for a variety of advertising formats with different goals. Here are the main objectives:

• Increase brand awareness
• Increase the reach of the Facebook page
• Link from Facebook to your own website
• Market business app
• Local environment – reach local people
• Lead generation
• Post and market offer
• Promote an event

The choice of ad format naturally depends on the goal set, for example increasing brand awareness or regional awareness or creating website visits, likes or leads. For more information, see the Facebook Ads Guide.

These formats can also be split between desktop and mobile view. The teaser, title and ad text must be formulated briefly and promptly and have a beneficial effect. Always enrich your ads with a picture and a call-to-action (e.g. “book now”). It is best to always set up several variants of your advertisements (e.g. different advertisement images or text), because Facebook plays the advertisement with the best performance independently the most frequently.

5. Metrics to Measure the Success of your Facebook Business Page

The expectations of companies on Facebook are often very high – especially when it comes to the “fan growth” indicator. Of course, your fan base must reach a certain size. However, quality over quantity counts on Facebook. Or is your circle of friends infinitely large? Which key figures do you want to collect and in what time rhythm? The goal of measuring success is the constant optimization of your page. This also takes time, but especially in the start-up phase, you will go through a steep learning curve through monitoring. That is why it is important to test various posts for relevance and gain experience during this time. The freely available Facebook page analysis is helpful.

The topic of patience should not be missing here either. To carry out a final evaluation of your Facebook channel, you should allow at least 12 months as a test phase. Building your community can take a long time. Therefore, do not throw the shotgun into the grain immediately after a few weeks. As your community grows, your virality will grow too – exponentially. You might be interested in these KPIs and figures when measuring your success:

• Number of fans
• Interaction rate per post (likes, comments, shares)
• Contribution range
• Pageviews per post
• Traffic to your website via Facebook

13 Essential Tips for an Engaging Facebook Business Page

• Are your potential customers on Facebook at all?
• Set goals for your Facebook page.
• Make a target group selection of your potential fans.
• Make decisions regarding the organization of your Facebook page.
• Develop topics and build the editorial plan.
• Set a budget.
• Market your Facebook page with your potential fans.
• Offer your fans added value and interact with your fans (promotions such as competitions, competitions, question-and-answer sessions).
• Measure your results month after month.
• Continually optimize your strategy and action plan.
• Visit other pages to generate new ideas.
• Be patient and persistent.
• Observe the legal regulations (imprint, data protection etc.)!

Success factors for Facebook community management

• Take your Facebook page seriously. Be professional.
• Don’t just spread, but interact.
• Treat your Facebook page like a hotline.
• Optimize your response time and react quickly.
• “Personalize” your Facebook Page.
• Use your local influence and your local expertise.
• Use offers wisely – they increase the reach but do not strengthen the loyalty to the company.
• Let your fans become part of the marketing team.
• Integrate Facebook into the marketing mix.
• Don’t give too much importance to the number of your fans.

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