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Facebook is the largest social network in the world. Ignoring Facebook isn’t an option anymore!

Facebook is big.

Facebook is the largest social network in the world. It has more than 500 million active users, half of whom log in on a daily basis. There are an estimated 4 Million South Africans registered on Facebook. Worldwide people share more than 30 billion pieces of content every month, including links, news stories, blog posts, photo albums and notes.

Ignoring Facebook isn’t an option anymore!

As great as Facebook is, it can be confusing and a real challenge generating tangible marketing results from Facebook. The following guide is aimed at the beginner. If you want to take things to the next level, have a look at our Facebook marketing services.

Who’s On Facebook?

Let’s get one common misconception out of the way right off: Facebook is no longer the place where school & university kids hang out. Facebook started out dominated by younger people but has grown to include almost all social demographics. Worldwide the largest segment of Facebook users is actually between the ages of 35-54. While the fastest-growing segment is over 55!

How Can You Market on Facebook?

Facebook has three tools that can be used by anyone. Each of these options has its own purpose and can be combined for greater impact.

1. Pages

Facebook Pages are similar to profiles, but are used for businesses, organizations and public figures. Pages can be ‘liked’ by anyone, without a requirement for the page creator to accept a fan. Pages don’t have the same restriction as normal profiles in terms of the number of friends/fans they can have. (Normal profiles are limited to 5,000 friends).

Advantages:
• They’re free and easy to set up
• Functionality can be extended with apps and custom tabs

Disadvantages:
• Can be hard to get a foothold and build a fan base

2. Ads

Facebook offers an advertising platform whose strength lies in its ability to precisely target a specific demographic. You can create ads to target specific geographic areas, age groups, and even things like education level. Facebook also allows you to advertise to friends of people who have liked your Page or Group.

Advantages:
• Powerful targeting parameters
• Option to only pay when someone clicks on your ad
• Control your budget with daily maximum spend limits

Disadvantages:
• Can get expensive, depending on your goals

Groups

Facebook Groups are similar to discussion forums but they have additional features similar to those found on Pages and Profiles (like a Wall, for example). You can create Groups related to your industry or product offerings as a way to connect with existing and potential customers.

Advantages:
• Free to setup with high levels of user engagement

Disadvantages:
• Can be very time consuming to maintain

How to Market with Pages

Facebook Pages are the simplest, easiest way to get started marketing with Facebook. They’re free, relatively easy to set up (at least in their default format), and incredibly flexible. There’s not much of a downside, either. Unfortunately, many companies don’t use Facebook Pages to their full potential – or worse, they use the platform badly.

These guidelines will help you make the most of your Facebook Page:

Don’t Ignore Your Information Tab

Think of the information tab on your Facebook Page as the equivalent to the “About Us” page on your website. It’s where people go if they want to know who you are and what your company does.
Make sure you put relevant and accurate information here. Include your contact details and website address. A good shortcut is to use an edited version of the text from your “about us” page of your website. Just remember to keep it short, conversational and informative. “An informal / casual tone usually works best on Facebook.”

Post Useful Information to Your Wall

What you post to your wall will show up in your fans news feeds, just like when you post something to your personal profile.
So, make sure what you’re posting is useful and interesting to your fans. Don’t post endless updates about the same thing, or post too many updates overloading your fans with too much information.

Here are some ideas for the kinds of things you could post on your wall:

• Links to interesting articles related to your product or industry
• Discount codes for fans to save on your products
• New product announcements

Again, make sure that your posts are useful. Also, don’t post more than a few times each day unless there’s some special event going on.

Ask Your Fans Questions:

Getting your fans involved with your page is a great way to inspire loyalty and improve your interaction rate. Asking questions in your updates gets people involved, but on their own terms. What to ask depends largely on your product or service, but asking simple questions usually garners the best responses. Asking opinions on a new product idea or project can also be a good way to show your customers that your company cares about what they want.

Run Competitions

Competitions can be very effective in attracting new fans and generating hype around your products. Use Facebook ads to get more people interested in your competition. Ads can be very cost effective if implemented correctly.

Some guidelines for your competition:
• Get people involved – try to make the competition about the experience as well as the prize
• Encourage people to share the competition details with their friends
• If possible, make the prize something decent. Nobody’s going to put that much effort in for a R20 prize
• Run the competition over a two to three week period. This will give people a chance to get involved without becoming bored
• Make it fun!
• Make sure you don’t contravene Facebook’s policies

Don’t Spam

Spam is one of the quickest ways to lose fans. If you do nothing but send out promotional blurbs about your company, without ever adding anything of value, then you’re going to have a hard time getting and keeping fans.

Before posting an update, ask yourself – “is this honestly adding value to your fans”. If not, don’t post it.

Study Your Statistics and Results

Facebook offers some really great insights for Pages. Pay attention to them – you don’t want to post about the latest eye liner on the market when your audience is 95% male.

Targeted Advertising

Facebook gathers a vast amount of demographic information about its users which is made available to marketers through the Facebook advertising portal. You can target potential customers based on virtually anything you might find in their profile, as well as track your success within each of your target market segments.
Ads can be run on a per-impression or per-click basis. You can set daily limits so there’s no risk of blowing your budget.

Types of Facebook Ads

There are a number of ad subtypes you can choose from, each with their own pros and cons. It’s important to know that you can use ads to send people to either your Facebook Page, or to a specific page on your external website (i.e. not on Facebook). However, some of the ad types are only available if you’re sending people to your Facebook Page. You can also create ads to promote a Facebook event, complete with an RSVP link.

Targeting Options

As already mentioned, Facebook has some of the most powerful targeting tools of any online advertising program.
Lets give an example: You have a line of t-shirts made for woman who like surfing and outdoor sports.
You can create an ad that will target, woman between the ages 18 and 30 who live near the coast, are single and enjoy sports, fitness, surfing and outdoor activities.
 The potential uses are limitless.

Don’t have time to create you own highly-targeted ads – Use our Facebook Ads Service

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups are a great way to foster a community around your company and products. While groups are generally much less commercial than Pages, there’s still room to use them for marketing. The major advantage of a Group is that they can often encourage discussion and participation better than a Page would.
Don’t create a Group based on your company. Instead, create a Group based on your industry or the niche your company serves. For example, if you sell extreme sports equipment make a Group that discusses the latest trends or the best place to practice the sport in your local area.

Fostering Interaction

A successful Group is one with an active discussion tab. This is just like a forum – the more people voice their opinion, the more successful the Group will be.
Discussions do require some moderation and care. Make sure you include a clear set of content policies prior to starting your Group – post the policies where all your members can see them. You’ll also want to moderate the discussion boards to make sure you’re not being spammed.

Facebook in South Africa

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in South Africa with 4 Million active users.
• There are more woman than men on Facebook in South Africa
• The fastest growing segment of Facbeook users in South Africa is over 55 years old
• With many smart phones having dedicated Facebook Apps, marketers can interact with those South African’s without internet at home.

Conclusion

No matter what type of company you run or products you sell there is a marketing option to fit your brand, your budget, and your time constraints.
Facebook is still evolving at a rapid pace, and making the most of its marketing tools will require time, but its quickly becoming a must-have marketing tool.