The complete guide to facebook marketing

Facebook Pages Create a FaCebook Page Facebook marketing starts with creating a Facebook page for your business.. Or, you might want to use your cover photo to promote a specific marketi

Facebook Marketing

The compleTe guide To

The landscape of Facebook marketing is constantly changing In the last year, there have been major changes to several aspects, including page design, the advertising platform, organic reach, groups, and much more In this guide, we’re going to look at how businesses can get the most out of Facebook marketing today

Facebook Pages

Create a FaCebook Page

Facebook marketing starts with creating a Facebook page for your business To get started, you will choose your business type from six main categories to create your page

Local businesses will choose a subcategory and then enter their name, physical address, and phone number Other business types will choose a subcategory and then enter their name The exception is the cause or community type, which simply requires entering a name

Next, you will be taken through a quick four-step wizard to set up your page First, you will enter your page’s basic details and choose a customer URL

Second, you will upload a profile picture for your page Ideally, this will be a square image (180px x 180px) that represents your business, such as a logo; or a picture of yourself if you are a freelancer, consultant, or solopreneur.

Third, you will have a chance to add your page to your favorites list for easy access from your

Facebook homepage

Fourth, you will be given the option to create a page promotion ad to start building your page’s fans

We would suggest skipping the fourth step and going directly to your page because there are a few more things you should do before releasing your page to the masses For starters, you will want to add

a cover image This is an 851px x 315px header image for your Facebook page The following portion of

an infographic by Jon Loomer shows specific dimensions for your cover photo

If you follow the above guide, you will ensure that important parts of your cover photo are not obscured

Or, you might want to use your cover photo to promote a specific marketing message, like Snickers does on their page.

Click on both your profile photo and cover photo, and add a description that includes a call to action

to visit your website If your cover photo is marketing a particular product or message, make sure the page you link to on your website matches For your profile photo, a link to the homepage will suffice

Once set up, Facebook will record the number of clicks from the call-to-action button to your site When you get this feature for your page, you may consider removing calls to action in your cover photo

web-Post Your First uPdates

The last thing you should do before starting to promote your page is post a few updates This way,

There are four types of updates you can publish on your Facebook wall Each engages your audience

in a different way, so it’s important to experiment with all of them

The first is a link update To post this type of update, you will enter some descriptive text about your link in the “What have you been up to” box, and then paste in your link Facebook will pull the title, de-scription, and an image from the URL you paste in the box The result will look like this:

The second is a photo update To post this type of update, you will click the camera icon below the

“What have you been up to” box, upload a photo, enter some descriptive text about your photo, and paste in a link if it is relevant The result will look like this:

The third is a video update To post this type of update, you will click the camera icon below the “What have you been up to” box, upload a video, enter some descriptive text about your video, and paste in a link if it is relevant The result will look like this:

You also can post a link update to a YouTube or Vimeo video Videos uploaded directly to Facebook tend to do better in the news feed.

The fourth is a text update To post this type of update, you will enter your text in the “What have you been up to” box This is a great update type to use as a simple announcement, a teaser for an upcom-ing announcement, or an update to engage your fans It can include a link, too, but without the link preview box The result will look like this:

The goal of your first status updates is to show your audience that you plan to share information they will love You will want your updates to include quality information that is not completely self-promotion-

al

add Custom aPPs

Facebook custom apps (also referred to as custom tabs) allow you to incorporate custom content on your Facebook page beyond your updates, photos, and videos You can use Facebook custom tabs to introduce your Facebook page visitors to a wide variety of features, including contact forms, mailing list opt-in forms, YouTube videos, Pinterest pins, Instagram images, quizzes, contests, and other custom content

When you add custom apps to your Facebook page, they will appear in the left sidebar of your

Facebook page

You can organize the order of the boxes in the left sidebar by hovering over the top right of your apps box, clicking on the pencil icon to get the Manage Sections option, and then dragging the boxes into the order you would like them.

To get custom apps for your Facebook page, you can use platforms such as Pagemodo, AgoraPulse, and Woobox These platforms will allow you to create and install custom apps for your Facebook page and maintain them for a monthly fee

You also can look into the services you are using for your business to see if they offer Facebook integrations For example, businesses that manage their email list with GetResponse can use their

Facebook Web Form App to integrate an email opt-in form as a custom tab on their page

Shopify offers several Facebook integrations that allow you to add an eCommerce store to your

Facebook page

As you can see, there are lots of ways to increase the functionality of your Facebook page through Facebook app providers and the services you are using already

build Your FaCebook audienCe

At this stage, you should have your basic Facebook information entered, cover and profile photos updated, status updates posted, and custom apps added You are now ready to start building your Facebook audience Here are some basic ways you can start growing your Facebook audience:

add the like button or box to Your Website

While you can use an image icon to link to your Facebook page, you will get more likes from your site by adding the Like button or the Like box Both will enable visitors to like your social page without having to leave your website You can embed the Like button or Like box anywhere The box looks like this:

web-The button, if you’re looking for something simpler for a smaller space, looks like this:

Each can be customized to include or exclude the faces of friends who like your page, the latest dates from your page (Like box only), and an additional share button It’s a great way to convert visitors into Facebook fans from your blog, website header, or thank you page after they have submitted a form

up-or made a purchase

ask Your Friends to like Your Page

Another great way to quickly get fans is to invite your friends on Facebook to like your page To do this, visit your new page, and you should see a box that lets you invite your friends to like your page

This box usually appears only for newer pages or those with a small fan base For all other pages, you will need to click on the ••• menu at the bottom right of your cover photo.

Select Invite Friends, and you will get a popup that lists all of your friends you can invite to your page

Promote Your Page

The Promote Your Page option allows you to use Facebook Advertising to grow your fan base You’ll see it in the top box in the left sidebar for new and existing pages, and you’ll also find it in the drop-down menu under Promote Business at the top right of your page

When you choose this option, you will get a popup that allows you to create a simple page promotion

ad Targeting options include location, interest, age, and gender For additional targeting options, you can click on the settings wheel at the bottom left of the popup and choose Advanced Options

This will take you to the main Facebook Ads Manager, where you can create a more customized ad We’ll talk more about Facebook Advertising later in the guide.

keeP Your FaCebook Page uPdated

As you continue to build your Facebook audience, your main goal will be to keep your Facebook page updated on a regular basis Most businesses will choose to post at least once per day The easiest way

to determine what posting frequency you should start with is to look at your competitors Depending

on your industry, you might find your competitors post more than once a day, or you might find your competitors post only once a week

From an audience-building standpoint, updating your page once a day will ensure that visitors will know it is active; and thus, they will be more inclined to like it

From an organic-reach standpoint, updating your page once a day will give your fans more of a chance

to see your content

As mentioned in the Post Your First Updates section, you should aim to use different update types on a regular basis, including the link, photo, video, and text update types This approach will give your audi-ence variety and allow you to test which updates work best for boosting organic fan engagement

It’s also worth noting at this point that Facebook plans to lower the organic reach of promotional posts from Facebook pages in the news feed Promotional posts include those that solely push people to buy

a product or install an app, those that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context, and those that reuse the exact same content from ads If you plan on publishing posts that fit those descriptions, you will need to do so using Facebook Advertising

learn From FaCebook Page insights

Facebook Insights allows you to learn more about your Facebook page’s visitors, engagement, and content Facebook Insights is broken up into the following sections:

Beneath the detailed analysis of your latest updates, you’ll find Pages to Watch.

This is a tool you can use to monitor the activity of your competitors You’ll see their audience growth, number of updates to their page, and overall engagement When you add Facebook pages to Pages to Watch, they will be notified that someone added them, but not that you added them The notification is mostly so Facebook can promote this feature to other pages

The Likes section shows you a detailed analysis of your Facebook page’s fan growth

In addition to the simple growth chart, you will find detailed information about your net likes and where people like your page.

You can hover over a particular date and click on the line to see more information about the activity for that day.

Be sure to monitor the unlike activity on your page A higher than normal number of unlikes could cate your fans’ dislike for a particular status update you posted that day

indi-reach

The Reach section shows you a detailed analysis of the organic and paid reach of your status updates

Beneath the simple benchmark graph, you will find a breakdown of likes, comments, and shares, as well as the number of times you have had posts hidden or marked as spam in the news feed

Monitoring the number of hide posts, hide all posts, report as spams, and unlikes can help you identify status updates that your fans do not like Using this to analyze the updates you post can help you retain your fans and the reach you worked hard to gain.

Visits

The Visits section shows you how many visitors come to your Facebook page and what content they view

In the Page and Tab Visits graph, you can click on a particular date to see where visits that day nated.

origi-You also can see an overview of your Facebook page’s traffic sources

You can click on a particular date to see the breakdown of which sites drove the most traffic to your page

Posts

The Posts section shows you a summary of when your fans are online, what types of posts (link, photo, video, or text) perform best, and the top posts from the pages you watch

Beneath this information, you will find detailed engagement information for each of your status dates.

up-You can use the dropdown menus at the top of the table to see reach for fans versus nonfans and other engagement data, such as post hides and engagement rates

The People section shows you demographics for your fans, people reached by your posts, and people who engage with your posts This section will give you an idea as to whether you are attracting the right people for your business with your Facebook page

use tools to manage Your Page

Because Facebook is the largest social media network, there are hundreds of tools available to make many activities simpler, from publishing updates to researching competitors Here is a small sampling of popular tools utilized by businesses to help them with their Facebook page and marketing strategy:

• Hootsuite — Allows you to post and schedule updates to your Facebook pages, personal profile, and groups

• Buffer — Allows you to post and schedule updates to your Facebook pages and personal profile

• Post Planner — Helps you come up with engaging updates for your Facebook pages and personal profile

• Oktopost — Allows you to post and schedule updates to your Facebook pages, personal profile, and groups Also provides great analytics for all updates published on Facebook through the plat-form

• AgoraPulse — Allows you to add custom apps to your Facebook page, run contests, post and schedule updates to your Facebook pages, and monitor your competitors’ Facebook page activity

• Simply Measured — Provides free reports for in-depth analysis of your Facebook fan page, your competitors on Facebook, and the content you post on your Facebook page

• Rival IQ — Allows you to research and monitor your competitors’ strategies on Facebook and other social networks

• Cyfe — Allows you to create a dashboard with data from your Facebook Insights account, alongside analytics and data from your website, alongside other social networks

Facebook advertising

Facebook Advertising is now considered by most marketers to be a way to play the social network In other words, if you want to promote a business, then you will need to use Facebook Advertising to get exposure to Facebook audiences

Create a FaCebook ad

To get started with your first ad, you will want to click the green Create Ad button on your Facebook ads dashboard Then, you will choose your ad objective

Once you choose an objective, you will be asked to create an account if you don’t have one already.

targeting options

Next, you will configure targeting options for your ad

As shown above, you will set basic demographic information Then, you can use the More ics dropdown menu to choose from additional demographic data.

Demograph-You can target ads by Facebook users’ interests

You also can target ads by Facebook users’ behaviors.

And, you can target ad audiences based on their connection to your Facebook pages, apps, and events