Top 8 Facebook Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

When it comes to running a small, but successful business, you need all the help you can get. Between invoicing customers, acquiring new leads, and managing your staff members marketing your business is a challenge that requires time and energy. So, where do you find that extra push?

With social media marketing networks, such as Facebook, and Snapchat, you can get that extra boost for your marketing department. Social networking for business has become the norm and is accepted in almost all aspects of society. But how exactly do you use it to your advantage?

How Facebook Marketing Helps Your Business

According to Facebook’s official report, there are over 90 million small businesses there. Knowing this makes Facebook one of the most important marketing channels for small businesses. That’s because it’s a quick and efficient way to reach out to prospects and share your business updates with local customers. Both new and old customers will learn about what you are offering them as well as how they can benefit from using your services or products.

The only problem is that going this route may be difficult if you don’t know where to start. But don’t fear. We are going to share the best Facebook Marketing Tips for Small Businesses that you can implement today in order to get the ball rolling today.

Tip #1: Try Look-A-Like Audience In Paid Ads

Easily one of the top tips is the lookalike audience and it’s is one of Facebook advertising’s best features. It’s an easy way to find people that are more likely to be interested in your products and services without having them opt into Facebook ads.

Getting started with Facebook ad targetings can be tricky to master. You might confuse lookalike audiences with standard, broad targeting, but they are quite different in their approach to ad creation.

With regular targeting, you choose a few users who will represent your target audience or cold audience. By selecting just a few people from your current customer base, you find out about the most engaged customers you have and what made them come back for more once they purchase from you.

By running ads using that information as parameters, you build up trust and familiarity with potential clients who visited your site and also gave personal information such as phone numbers and emails (if they did).

Tip #2: Create Ads That Will Catch Attention

There was a time when Facebook was used for checking in on friends from far away. Nowadays, swiping on Facebook has become an involuntary action that people do without thinking about it or analyzing the content they are viewing. To get get their message across in marketing, businesses need to make sure their posts break the pattern and stop users from scrolling through them.

When it comes to creating ads that can create attention without being too salesy, there are a few important things to keep in mind.

• If you want to catch people’s attention with emotional content, it’s important to make sure that your ads are easy to understand and contain a simple message, that’s instantly clear. Don’t be too clever.
• Write engaging headlines and short descriptions for Facebook Ads is key, so the ad can reach its goal.
• Use Pictures that Complement your Content. Photos increase engagement by more than 80%, which means you should include them as much as possible in your marketing strategy.

Tip #3: Use Testimonials In Ads

People love to see that people are happy with the products they bought. They want to be part of the club – they want to be part of a winning team. A testimonial ad is your chance to show social proof and build trust for more potential customers. It’s essential to choose testimonials that are convincing, but not too specific and show that your business offers the best solution for potential clients.

To do so, try and secure testimonials from people who have different interests and represent different types of customers. An excellent way to secure testimonials is by asking existing customers if they had a positive experience with you during customer service interactions or while they’re consuming content on your blog or social media pages. Or, you can – of course – simply call up your top 10 clients.

What’s better than a happy client telling their story about how great your company is? People will naturally be more trusting if they see that other people had the same problem and used your product or service to solve it.

Tip #4: Use Subtitles In Video Ads

Video is one of the most powerful ways to get your message across. That being said, it can be easy for potential viewers to skip and not see that amazing video you want them to enjoy and consume, so they get introduced to your business, service, or product.

Utilize the power of words on video ads on Facebook, and you will get more views from your potential clients. Using subtitles can help you convey what matters the most in your video ad.

Tip #5: Use Relevant Hashtags In Advertising Posts

According to a study from Hootsuite, people are more engaged and respond to relevant hashtags that are used in social media marketing. If your company sells, clothing items use #fashion. Suppose it’s a tech startup, use #technology, and so on. Getting the right audience for your business is immensely important, so try using an appropriate number of relevant hashtags whenever possible.

Hashtags help you break into organic reach, which means you don’t have to pay for advertising your posts. Another benefit is that if you use relevant hashtags consistently, people will start recognizing your brand. In the long run, this will improve your ranking with keywords in search engines, and Facebook Ads targeting, which can help you increase traffic.

Tip #6: Create Horizontal And Vertical Content

Facebook marketing is more than just posting on timelines. You can reach a larger audience with story posts and keep your followers engaged by having them know when you post new content. With the blue circle around the logo, people will always know that there’s something they should check out in Facebook stories.

Along these lines, Facebook Stories is an excellent tool for you to increase your reach and gain a bigger audience. You can post pictures, videos and use text to promote your business. Another way to do this is by creating vertical content. If you’re creative enough, you can create a lot of different content by making a collage or using some other resources on the Internet.

Tip #7: Create A Customer Journey

You need to know your audience and how you want them to feel, even before their customer journey begins. You greet strangers with a friendly tone, so why would you not approach first-time visitors the same way? Make your customers feel like they’re part of the family.

With customer journeys, you can create the right tone from day one, and your followers will feel like they’re part of your tribe from the beginning. With a customer journey, make sure that people see only relevant content, so your prospects don’t lose interest by being bombarded with messages that aren’t relevant to them.

Tip #8: Put Your Business On Facebook’s Maps

One of the most powerful things you can do for your business on Facebook is to use “Check-in.” It may seem like a trivial, passive way to connect with customers at first glance. But trust us: it’s immensely powerful and a hidden gem.

In fact, it has huge implications as people are more likely to follow back when they see someone from their area or industry checking in somewhere new and exciting. It’s also a chance to get yourself verified since Facebook won’t allow you to use the feature until your business is officially in their database.

People like to see what others are doing and they want to benefit from other people’s suggestions, so be sure to check in as often as possible. You can also use local groups to promote your business with this feature. This is truly one of the most under-rated Facebook marketing strategies for small businesses.

Does Facebook Advertising Work For Small Businesses?

Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. According to statistics, there are more than 2.89 billion users on Facebook, and they spend a lot of time on the platform. Businesses can’t ignore such a huge potential audience, and many small business owners continue to use the platform for their marketing strategy for a good reason: it works!

Since Facebook targets people based on their interests, advertisers pay less for each click, and acquiring a new customer via Facebook is relatively inexpensive. As a result, Facebook marketing is very appealing to small businesses that don’t have big budgets. It makes sense since advertisers know how to allocate their advertising budget properly and Facebook helps them target their potential customers effectively and in a very targeted way.

With better targeting, you can show your ads to the right audience and increase your conversion rates, which means that you’ll pay less for advertising thanks to Facebook’s quality scoring. In addition, Facebook ads are relatively easy to create and use, so small businesses can start using them without hiring a marketing specialist or having extensive knowledge about social media advertising.

It makes Facebook ads great for startups already familiar with the platform or even those just starting out. There’s no doubt that Facebook is an excellent platform for advertising, and small business owners should certainly consider implementing it into their marketing strategy.

Bottom Line

  This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jock Breitwieser.
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Author: Jock Breitwieser

Follow @MrSocialSelling

With 20+ years of international communications expertise in agencies and in-house, Jock Breitwieser is an award-winning communicator. He focuses on Digital Marketing and Communications. 
Throughout his career, Jock worked in agencies and in-house, running global marketing programs that deliver business results. He is currently based in Silicon Valley, California.
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