If you want Facebook marketing to work for your business, you must develop a strategic plan of action for increased ROE, return on engagement. Simply posting content on Facebook and hoping for significant social media return on investment in your time, effort and advertising won’t work. Businesses approaching Facebook marketing like generals going into battle will have much greater success with the platform than those randomly posting content and hoping to find raving fans. If you want to develop a killer Facebook marketing strategy this year, be sure to include the following five tips in your plan-of-action.
1. Double Down on Facebook Insights
Like all things in business, your numbers tell the story and Facebook Insights is one of your most powerful tools to unveil yours. Too many businesses focus on what they ‘think’ their fans want and spend a lot of time creating content for their Facebook community that doesn’t resonate. Instead, I recommend you take the time to look at the insights Facebook offers and use that information to drive your actions on Facebook, not the other way around.
Checking your insights is not only limited to Facebook. You will get the best out of all your marketing by implementing a stats reporting approach across other social networks and most importantly your website. But we’ll leave that for another day.
If you are hearing about Facebook Insights for the first time and don’t know where to find it I have taken some screenshots below to help you find it on your desktop and via the Facebook Pages Manager App.
Finding Your Facebook Pages Insights on Desktop:
Your insights in your desktop version will show you an overview of your activity in the last 7 to 28 days. At a glance, insights defaults to the last 7 days and you can see how your content has performed, how many people you reached and how you compared to the previous week.
Exporting Your Data:
You can also set a date range to the 7, 14, 28 days, monthly or quarterly to gain a greater insight on your page.
Finding Your Facebook Pages Insights via the App:
To view you your insights via the app you must first download the Facebook Pages Manager App with the orange flag.
Once on the main page of your Facebook Page you will see a line graph on the bottom of your page next to the blue flag, which is your home page.
2. Be Specific in Your Goals
Specificity, is a formidable tool for increased social media marketing engagement on Facebook. Know exactly what you want to accomplish with each post and who you are targeting. Integrate specific keywords and keyword phrases into your Facebook posts to connect with targeted customers. Use Facebook’s search function (facebook.com/search) to gain a clearer understanding of conversations happening that are relevant to your business sector. Use your new-found knowledge to make your Facebook posts even more specific to your target audience. Casting a wide net on Facebook won’t do anything for your brand; be specific for maximum ROI.
3. Share Your Facebook Posts on Other Networks
If you want to supercharge your Facebook marketing strategy, share your Facebook posts on other networks. Pin your posts on Pinterest (make sure you have an awesome image). Add your Facebook posts to a Google+ community relevant to your target niche (yes, Google+ communities are alive and well). Spotlight an image from your Facebook wall on your brand’s Instagram page. The more you share your Facebook posts on other social networks, the greater your chances are of increased engagement on your company’s Facebook page.
4. Stop Automatic Posting from Twitter
Speaking of sharing Facebook posts on other social networks, stop auto-posting your Facebook posts to Twitter. Automatic posting of your Facebook URLs on Twitter is a major turn-off for many Twitter users. Manually post your Facebook posts on Twitter and your chances of engagement of both platforms will increase. If you want Twitter users to check out your Facebook posts, don’t tick them off by showing you can’t even be bothered to manually engage with their favourite social media networking platform
5. Focus on Your Fans
Focus on your fans is another essential element of creating a killer Facebook marketing strategy. It might sound obvious, but you would be surprised at how many businesses focus on their latest product/service or event announcement instead of focusing on the needs/wants of their fans. Before you post anything on Facebook, ask yourself “will this truly matter to my fans?” and then tweak your posting efforts to maximise fan connections.
Remember these five tips and chances are good you will see an increase in your Facebook marketing ROI. Focusing on these five factors will mean your brand’s return on investment won’t change, regardless of what Facebook does with their algorithms or news feed priorities. Facebook marketing can offer substantial rewards to savvy brands, but strategy is everything if you want to win the battle.
About Despina:
Thank you so much for reading this post.
If this is the first time we have met, I have been contributing direct initiatives and input to the small business community of the tourism industry for the last 20 years. Igniting excellence in people is the reason I get out of bed every morning. It is also the reason why I started InstituteOfExcellence.com in 2014.
Since then I have developed over 30 courses in tourism, digital and social media marketing and proudly work with leading training organisations Monarch Institute, Institute of Digital Marketing, Holmesglen and Tourism Tribe to serve and support hundreds of small businesses around Australia grow their business and themselves.
Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
Get Your FREE eBook “Top 10 Marketing Mistakes Made by Small Business” and How to Overcome Them
If you have an unwavering passion for tourism and would like to connect with over 300 tourism professionals come over and join the conversation at the Your Tourism Excellence Private Facebook Group
