The Ultimate Facebook Marketing Guide

This guide is a step-by-step instructional guide that teaches readers with little to no social media experience, how to use Facebook to market their business. This guide contains the free tools and templates you need to create a Facebook marketing strategy and action that strategy to produce real, measurable results.

The purpose of this guide is to allow the reader to manage a Facebook page for a business. There desired end result of a customized Facebook strategy with a step-by-step action plan of how to implement that strategy. Consequently, we have developed a workable template that the read should fill out whilst reading this guide. This template is called “The Facebook Marketing Cheat Sheet” and this document is a guide on how to customize the cheat sheet to suit the needs of your business.

Social media is starting to play an increasingly significant role in the marketing mix of businesses, both large and small. There is a lot of information on the internet and in books about how to use social media. I (Max Doyle) have read a lot of them and discovered that whilst the knowledge I gained was significant, there were several issues, including:

The focus was not on practical application

There was ittle information was relevant to small businesses

A lot of the case studies seemed successful because of luck or chance and were not duplicable

Most the information was from America where the use of social media so different to Australia, most of the information was irrelevant

Hence The Social Managers wanted to create a guide that was relevant to all businesses, large and small, would provide practical steps, not just fluff, and was relevant to business in Australia, with an Australia based target market.

Hence this guide was created.

I hope you enjoy and gain some benefit from it and please remember to fill out your cheat sheet as you work through this guide.

A lot of businesses say that they need to be on social media, without knowing why or what they actually intend on achieving. They know their daughter uses Instagram and they see these strange symbols (#TweetThis) on their TV screens at night, but what does it all mean? Is it relevant to your business? What practical results can it achieve? And how can you make it happen?

Consequently, it is important to understand why social media can help your business, how it can help, and what does success look like.

There are a lot of marketing and communication channels available to a business, why should you choose to invest time and money into Facebook. Well here is a collection of statistics of why social media and more specifically Facebook, can be so important to Australian businesses:

52% (11.2 million) of people in Australia use Facebook every month

Facebook is one of the most targeted platforms for advertising, ever

95% of social media users in Australia, use Facebook. Only 15% use Twitter (http://digiocial.com/2013/05/state-of-australian-social-media-2013-infographic/)

On average, for every hour a person in Australia spends on the Internet, 14 minutes is spend on social media (http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/the-state-of-social-media-usage-in-australia-41342/#.UjKXhKv0-Fc)

Approximately 46% of online users rely on social media when making a purchase decision (http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/the-state-of-social-media-usage-in-australia-41342/#.UjKXhKv0-Fc)

Facebook users spend seven hours per week on the site (http://about.sensis.com.au/Media-Releases/?ItemID=1225)

Discounts and giveaways are the key reasons why consumers follow brands however only 28 per cent of small businesses and 33 per cent of medium businesses that have social media sites, offer such incentives (http://about.sensis.com.au/Media-Releases/?ItemID=1225)

36% of SMEs using social media report an increase in sales (http://about.sensis.com.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/Yellow%20Pages%20Social%20Media%20Report_F.PDF)

Users aged between 45 – 54 years old represent the fastest growing demographic on Facebook (http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/06/21-awesome-social-media-facts-figures-and-statistics-for-2013/)

Over 50% of Australian Facebook users access the site daily (http://www.homebusinesshub.com.au/15-stunning-2013-australian-social-media-statistics/)

In summary, there is no doubt that some of your customers are on Facebook right now and they could be looking at your products, services or reviews before deciding what to purchase.

Here is how Facebook can actually generate revenue for your business. Some methods a direct, others are indirect, such as improving ranking in Search Engine Optimisation. However all are important in building a business and creating sustainable sales for now and in the future.

Improving Search Engine Optimisation: Search engines such as Google and Bing monitor interactions on Facebook pages. These interactions are called “Social Signals” and when a link to your website is interacted with on Facebook, a signal is send to the search engines stating that the content is relevant and consequently, there is an improvement in page rankings for your site.

Build Brand Awareness: Facebook is a great channel for building brand awareness as you can economically send messages to your specific target audience, with a high frequency, allowing your brand to stay front of mind in the eye of potential customers.

Appear in Facebook Search (Facebook Graph): Having an engaging page will ensure that your page will appear on search results of Facebook.

Increase foot traffic: Customers who see your content online are more likely to visit your physical stores or locations and ultimately make a purchase.

Drive traffic to a website: Facebook allows you to share content from your website, such as blog posts, products or services, that your target audience wouldn’t usually see.

Sell Products/Services (which is what you really want): Drive traffic to your e-commerce store, encourage customers to walk into your shop or get a customers to call your business.

Increase your database: Install a data collection application on your Facebook page to populate your email database and collect information consumer preferences as well as feedback on your products and services.

Generate positive business/product/services reviews: Facebook is a great platform for customers to post positive comments ,which potential customers can see when researching your business.

o   Even negative comments, when dealt with correctly, increase customers loyalty

Targete
d and economic advertising: Facebook offers one of the most targeted forms of advertising and it is significantly less expensive than other online advertising platforms such as Google AdWords.

Build Relationships with Customers: Forming relationships through discussions with customers is nothing new, these same relationships are now being formed online through Facebook. The end result is still loyal customers.

Please note, some of these factors are objectives which will be covered later in developing a strategy

Determining your Facebook Objectives:

Based on all the many benefits of having a Facebook page for your business, you will next need to decide what results you are looking for from setting up a social media presence. Tick which of the following your wish to achieve:

Improve the page ranking of your website (SEO)

Increase brand awareness

Increase “Likes” on your Facebook page

Gain customer insights into your products and services

Drive traffic to a particular website, product or website

Build and strengthen relationships with your customers

Drive sales of particular products or services

Run a social media campaign/competition

Improve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):

An important factor of search engine optimization is the number of pages that link to your website, this is known as a “Backlink”. Search engines such as Google are now starting to take into account social media interactions with links, as a positive indicator that that link is relevant to search queries. Hence, by having URL’s from you website interacted with on Facebook, your page rankings will increase.

Interactions include “Shares”, “Comments” and “Likes”, all of which are KPI’s in the world of Facebook, the more the better. So when you are posting content, it is important to encourage the audience to interact with posts that link back to your website. See example below:

To-Do’s:

Include links to your homepage in the description of your Facebook Page

Include links to your website when you post of Facebook

Encourage your users to “Share”, “Like” or “Comment” on the content you post

Increase Brand Awareness:

To build brand awareness amongst your specific target market is made easy and economic on Facebook. The first step is to determine exactly who your target market is, by answering all the questions in the “Who is the Target Market” section in the guide. These segmenting factors can then be input into the Facebook advertising platform to determine the size of the audience you want to reach.

You can then run through the Facebook Ad set system to create high converting, economic and targeted ads to boost your brand awareness amongst your target market.

To Do’s:

Determine target market

Create Facebook Ads

Update content regularly

Increase “Likes” on the page:

One method of increasing the amount of “likes” on a Facebook page can be achieved via posting strong and powerful images. This is essential

Gain customer insights into your products and services: utilise a variety of sponsored related stories to get other individuals within the online community to share their insights to your products and services.

Drive traffic to particular website:

Build and strengthen relationships with the audience: this is essential aspect of engaging with your “fans” in regards to any posts they post to the page. If you demonstrate an active approach to engaging with your audience on Facebook they will realise your an “actual user” not a “spambot.”

Drive sales of particular products or services:

Run a social media campaign / competition: this is essential in order to engage with your audience in a way that you as a business give to loyal fans a prize of a select value or quantity.

Now you have figured out why your creating your Facebook Page, you need to keep this list with you at all times. Regardless of what goals you selected from above, increasing your “Likes” should always be important to you, try and set a numerical target to reach for the first 3 months. These goals need to be considered when making your content for your page and in deciding how much to invest in Facebook Advertising.

Although many would argue that Facebook is only for brands that target younger consumers, however recent data has proven this isn’t the case with the 45 to 54 year age bracket being the fastest growing demographic currently[1]. With more than 75% of Australian’s using Facebook[2], most of your target market would be using the platform. Based on this, you must figure out which physiographic, geographic and demographic features your customers possess. These personality traits can be targeted using the Facebook Targeting feature, which can be used to promote posts and to determine who views your Facebook Ads.

So, who is your businesses primary target market?

Demographic FactorsLocation:AgeGender %Relationship StatusFamily StatusEducationInterested in Men or Women Psychographic FactorsInterestsHobbiesMusic TastesFilm GenresSport Preferences 

Demographic Factors

Location: This demographic focuses on the different residential areas of where individuals can potentially reside in (suburbs or city living). This is essential to realize this due to the fact you can better target your audience by identifying the different residential areas that individuals live in.

Ages: this demographic focuses on the various ages brackets that the target audience that may potential fall into (e.g. 18 – 25 years old). This is important to acknowledge this due to the fact you can better understand the various age brackets, which will useful in deciding if your product/service appeals to young audiences or older audiences.

Gender: this demographic focuses on either appealing males and or females. This is essential to realize this as some products may appeal more to one gender than the other (e.g. beauty products – female & new technology products – male).

Relationship status: this demographic focuses on the various relationship types that co-exist within society today. This ranges from single, single parents, married, de facto and divorced individuals. This is essential to understand as products/services can be targeted accordingly to fit the right type of person.

Family status: this demographic focuses on if individuals have children or not. This is essential to understand as this allow for better targeting for products, services and promotions (e.g. targeting families for a pass to a recreation water park may work well in comparison with a single individual).

Education: this demographic focuses on the educational backgrounds that various individuals have acquired. The education background may range from High School Certificate (HSC), Undergraduate degree, Tafe, Postgraduate degree and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).

< p>Interested in Men or Women: This demographic focuses on individual preference for their potential life partner which may be either men or women.

Psychographic Factors

Interests: this psychographic focuses on area(s) that attract individual(s) attention to acquire further information about a particular thing (e.g. cooking).

Hobbies: this psychographic focuses on an individual participating in an activity which is completed in leisure time for a level of pleasure (e.g. Dancing, football ect)

Music tastes: this psychographic focuses on an individual particular interests in a variety of music. This may include, hip hop, house, disco, rock n roll and or country.

Film Genres: this psychographic focuses on individual preference towards watching movies. The range of genres may include action, drama, comedy, sci-fi and or romantic comedy.

Sport Preferences: this psychographic focuses on individual preference towards the variety of sports that may provide a level of entertainment / knowledge. The range of sports may include tennis, baseball, hockey, basketball and or football (NRL).

(This will be laid out like a Facebook page, showing dimensions ect/ pointing out where each element of the page is and its functionality/ importance/ how to)

When initially setting up your new page, make sure you choose a CATEGORY appropriate for the products/ services you provide. This category indicates to the public what industry or field you are in.

Facebook Profile picture

–       Should be of your business logo or something to do with your brand you’re your existing customers would recognize.

–       Make sure the image is high definition and the correct 160 x 160 pixel dimensions; this will ensure that when users view it from a mobile it will be perfectly positioned.

Facebook Cover photo

–       Choose a cover photo that showcases your brand, products and services, all cover photos can be viewed by the public so it’s important to make a great first impression.

–       Stick to the 851 x 315 pixel dimension and use a high quality image

–       Cover photos cannot be ‘deceptive, misleading, infringe on anyone else’s copyright’[3].

–       Cover photos may not include images with more than 20% text

–       You may not encourage people to upload your cover photo to their timelines.

Filing the about section

–       Determining what you will need displayed in the “About” section will be subject to what type of business you are. If you are a bricks and mortar store you should include a line about your business, with a contact telephone number and address of your store. If you are a ecommerce site, obviously its crucial that you have a link to your website in this section.

Vanity URL

–       Cannot apply for one until you have reached 25 fans

This is the most important part of managing your Facebook page; the content you post is the crux of social media marketing, it is what will drive engagement, encourage people to your website or to use your service’s. You need to demonstrate to consumers why your services/ product is better than any other in the market and why they should choose you. 63% of companies said posting content on social media have increased marketing effectiveness[4].

You need to ask yourself the question why are people following my brand on Facebook? What are they looking to get out of it? Are they there to get exclusive deals? To view entertaining content? For product reviews and feedback? You also need to have an understanding about the common values and interests that the people following you businesses pages have. For example if you are a café, people who follow your Facebook page are likely to share interest in food, coffee, dining ect, so your content should be based around these topics. A good way to figure this out is to research what you competitors or businesses within your industry are doing on their Facebook page and get ideas that way. What types of content are they posting? Which content is receiving the highest engagement?

The first few months of posting content will be a bit of a testing phase, where you will be able to see what type of content your audiences wants, this of course will be based on the amount of engagement received by each post. Make sure you take into account what, on average, people want from brands on social media (see figure 1.1).

 Create a content plan:

–       What is it?

A content plan is a document that explains all of your content categories for your business Facebook page, where the content will need to be retrieved from and what the frequency of the category will be. Some types of content that you could post are:

Ask your audience a question – Asking your questions relating to your product or service is a great way to get information about what your customers want from you as a brand, not to mention these types of posts usually have quite high engagement.

Fill in the blanks – Getting users to fill in the blanks in a sentence is a fun post idea to encourage engagement. An example might be:

“ Fill in the blank –

Today I had _______ for breakfast”

Trivia Tuesdays relevant to your brand or industry – Trivia can be a great way to engage your audience, especially when it’s in a branded image, which makes it highly shareable and extends your brands reach.

Post a link from your blog or website – Post a link from your company’s website or blog is a great way to drive traffic to your website and encourages sales/ conversions.

Discuss current evens related to your business – If there is a topic trending in the news relating to your industry, ask your community about it and get there opinion. This could be new legislation, regulations or even a technological achievement ECT.

A quote – A inspiring or helpful quote by a well known figure in your industry, or even a member of your team.

Share information about your services and products (images/ videos as well) – Like in any form of traditional marketing, you do need to occasionally post about your products or services. Show or explain to your followers what makes your business different from competitors and why they should choose you.

Humorous content such a memes or a funny photo – Having humorous content incorporated in your content is a great way to display a playful side to your business. This type of content is also highly shareable and engaging so it can be a great way to spread brand awareness if it is a branded image.

Industry related articles – An important aspect of have a presence online is trying to establish your company as thought leaders in your industry. A great way to do this is to post trending articles relating to your industry and encouraging discussion amongst your community.

Office photos/ staff photos/ factory photos – Posting content such as this can be a great way to humanize your company, introduce to your audience the people that make up your team. Doing this can result in your community feeling more of a personal connection to your brand.

Interesting statistics relating to your field of work –

“Caption this” posts – Try posting an entertaining image and ask your audience to “caption this”. It’s a great way to engage people in your pages content.

For
more examples, please visit: Insert link to list of examples

Acknowledge holidays such as Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Christmas, Easter, Hanukah ECT – Posting about holidays is great content especially if you relate it back to your brand such as posting a photo of a special dish in your café for available for Mother’s Day only. This encourages people into your store and to associate it with the holiday.

Media articles – Any positive media articles/ award announcements about your business covered in the press should be the shared on your page. You want as many people to see the articles as possible.

Exclusive Facebook promotions and offers – 83% of surveyed users said they want exclusive offers from brands on Facebook’s. For this reason it is very important to give out exclusive deals to your audience to entice them to use your business.

Conduct polls – One of the great outcomes of having an active Facebook page for your business is the real time feedback you can get from your customers.

Random facts – share interesting statistics or knowledge about any random topic. If you post it every week on the same day such as having a “Fun Fact Friday” post it will keep people coming back to your page regularly to view your content.

Photo’s of customers in your store – If possible take photos of your customer’s using your products or experiencing your services.

Instructions on how to use your product/ service functionally

Highlight the great aspects of your business – Does you business do a lot of charity work or do you use all organic products? Share

The list goes on!

A great way to get ideas for categories though is to go have a look at what your competitors are posting, figure out what’s working (based on levels of engagement), and put your own twist on it. Keep in mind that 70% of customers prefer getting to know a company through an article rather than an ad[5], so blogs and any type of media about your company is highly valuable content.

–       How to make one?

Write a small paragraph about all the different content categories and how it relates to your businesses Facebook goals. A great way to get inspiration for your categories though is to go have a look at what all of their content categories are.

Include where you will retrieve the content (the content source) e.g will you need to take photos of the staff in your shop yourself, or will you need to do some research to find some interesting industry articles ect.

Put in the frequency of this type of content. I.e. Will this type of content be posted on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Communication calendar:

–       What is it?

A communication calendar is a fortnightly schedule of when you will be posting the content on your Facebook page.

–       How to make one?

You need to figure out how frequently you would like to post, most businesses post either once a day or every two days. This is of course subject to the amount of content you have and how interesting your content is. Use the example below as a template to create you own two week cycle plan, simply create your own in Microsoft Excel. 

Types of content:

–       Just copy

Just words and no images, links or video.

To optimize engagement, you need ton include a call to action in your post, which is getting your audience to do something.

For Example (IMAGE NEEDED):

Tell us how your business is effectively using Social Media?

OR

‘I love social media because it exists in the intersection of humanity and technology’ – Steve Jobs

“Like” if you agree!

–       Copy and a link (dimensions and rules)

Words and a preview of a link

It is very important to make sure the thumbnail image display’s either a logo or an attractive image.

EXAMPLE POST ^

–       Copy and image (dimensions and rules)

Words and an image

The image needs to be high resolution and the dimensions of 403 x 403 pixels, so when viewed through a tablet or mobile the image is clear and not cut off.

EXAMPLE POST ^

–       Branded content (dimensions and rules)

Branded content is a highly shareable, engaging, branded image or video created for entertainment purposes.

The image itself can either be in the regular 403 x 403 pixel dimensions or highlighted post dimensions (843x 403).

The benefits of branded content is that it can be promoted, and because of its branding it’s a great way to spread brand awareness and to gain new likes. WARNING: any promoted post will not be approved by Facebook to be promoted if it has more than 20% text in the image.

–       Copy and Video (dimensions and rules)

This post consists of text and a video link preview

EXAMPLE POST ^

Helpful tips:

–       Posts between 100 – 250 characters get about 40% more engagement from users

–       Images and video content tend to get 180% more engagement

–       ALL POSTS SHOULD HAVE A CALL TO ACTION!

–       Remember just 16% of your pages fan base will view your posts organically so the content needs to be highly engaging in order to drive that statistic higher and increase your brands reach.

–       Use Bitly Links (bitlylinks.com) for every link you post so you can see how many clicks you’re getting on each post.

EXAMPLE OF BITLY LINKS ^?

 Scheduling:

Obviously, posting on your Facebook page regularly can be quite a timely job for someone to do, so the best way to manage your posting is to use the scheduling function on Facebook.

Create your post like you normally would on your Facebook page, all copy, images and videos included. Instead of pressing “Post” like you normally would, click the little clock in the corner as shown below:

Select the Year, Month, Date, Hour and Minute that you want it to be scheduled to post on your wall.

Press schedule and Facebook will now automatically post it for you.

The most effective way to utilize this scheduling tool is to prepare and scheduling a months worth of content all at once, then you only have to monitor your page for the rest of the month and respond/ interact with your audience.

INVEST IN YOUR PAGE

Like anything in business, you need to spend money to make money through your Facebook presence. The best part about Facebook however is that, you can select how much you want to spend on the various channels to promote your business on the platform. Below outlines the different ways to effectively market your brand through Facebook:

The importance of branded content

–       As mentioned earlier, branded content can be a great way to grow you “Likes” through promoted posts and through organic reach.

–       61% of consumers say they feel more comfortable about a company, which produces branded content, and feel like they are more likely to make a purchase with the brand[6], which shows us how important branded content is to produce.

–       90% of consumers find custom content useful and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them[7].

 Promoted posts

–       When you promote a post, you’re essentially paying for that particular post to be displayed on other Facebook users News Feed, who are NOT fans of you already.

–      
The great part about promoted posts is that you can select a budget that your business can afford and depending on how much you select to spend Facebook will also tell you by how many impressions you will increase your reach.

–       You also have the option to target a specific audience, much like the targeting tool you can use through Facebook Ads.

–       To get the most value out of this feature branded content is the best type of posts to promote, because if you stick to one branded content template, consumers will begin to recognize your brand

Facebook Ads

– Refer to PDF

Promote page

–

Having a “Like” button on your website / EDM’s/ In Store marketing collateral

–       If you have a website, make sure you put a “Like us now” button on your page. It’s a great way to increase your followers; it’s also a way to convert visitors into transactions by impressing them with your content.

–       This “Like Us Now” button should also be on all EDM’s that get sent out or your Newsletter.

–       To gain “Likes” you have to let you existing customer base know that you now have a Facebook page.

–       In store marketing collateral is also important – refer to PDF for a our already made in store marketing collateral.

Competitions / campaigns:

Data collection à referral to Hello Social? Or a third party competition APP? 

–       What stats are you looking for to determine if the page has been successful or not?

–       How to use this information to optimize your content plan and conversation calendar?

–       Why do we need to optimize?

[1] http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/06/21-awesome-social-media-facts-figures-and-statistics-for-2013/

[2]http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2010/australia-getting-more-social-online-as-facebook-leads-and-twitter-grows.html

[3]https://www.facebook.com/help/www/315809258465467

[4]http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/01/16/5-cool-content-marketing-infographics-you-shouldnt-miss/

[5] http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/01/16/5-cool-content-marketing-infographics-you-shouldnt-miss/#t8GGpYPBzZmxjEjy.99

[6] http://www.inboundwriter.com/content-marketing/25-content-marketing-statistics-that-will-blow-your-mind/#sthash.cJH6GRDr.dpuf

[7] http://www.inboundwriter.com/content-marketing/25-content-marketing-statistics-that-will-blow-your-mind/#sthash.cJH6GRDr.dpuf