So, you’re ready to start a Facebook page for your business. Taking the time to get this right, and understanding how to use it to really help your business is the key to success – which is why we’ve put together this quick Facebook small business marketing guide.

In this article

What is Facebook marketing?

For small businesses, investing in Facebook marketing can offer a treasure trove of benefits, making it an essential component of any digital marketing strategy. With over 2.8 billion monthly active users globally, Facebook provides unparalleled access to a vast audience, enabling businesses to connect with potential customers easily and cost-effectively.

Small businesses can leverage Facebook’s sophisticated targeting tools to reach their ideal audience based on factors such as location, interests, and user behaviour. Furthermore, Facebook’s cost-effective advertising options make it an attractive choice for those with limited marketing budgets. The platform’s robust analytics tools provide valuable insights into ad performance, allowing businesses to refine their strategies and maximise ROI.

Engaging content and community building efforts can also enhance brand visibility and foster loyalty among customers, translating into increased sales and business growth. For start-ups, micro businesses and other organisations looking to expand their reach, Facebook small business marketing offers a dynamic and versatile solution.

Do you need a Facebook business page?

The first, and most important question to answer is whether you need a Facebook business page at all. While you might think it’s important to have one because ‘everyone has one’, this is not necessarily the case. Your product or service might be better suited to promotion on another platform, such as LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok.

For that reason, it’s worth making sure that your target buyer is on Facebook, is interested in posts for the type of product or service you use, and that you’ll be able to reach them using this platform. If you can answer positively to all these points, then you can make Facebook work for you.

The key is to see Facebook as a business channel. In fact, two-thirds of all Facebook users visit a local business Facebook page at least once a week and many of them are far more engaged than that. So your opportunity is huge if you plan properly, have a strategy, stay consistent and review your results. And remember that, unless you choose to advertise, it’s free to use! Always a great thing for small businesses, whether you’re managing social media yourself or using a virtual assistant for Facebook.

A Facebook business page can be an indispensable asset for small businesses aiming to enhance their online presence and connect with a broader audience. A dedicated business page not only boosts your brand’s credibility but also offers a versatile platform to engage with customers through posts, videos, and events. It also acts as a digital storefront where potential clients can easily access your contact information, product offerings, and business hours. By making the most of Facebook’s robust analytics and advertising tools, businesses can tailor their marketing strategies to target specific audiences, ensuring that promotional efforts are both effective and cost-efficient.

Ultimately, maintaining an active Facebook business page cultivates a thriving online community, fosters customer loyalty, and drives traffic to your website, significantly contributing to your brand’s growth and success in a competitive marketplace.

Your Facebook small business marketing strategy

When tailoring your Facebook small business marketing strategy, harness the platform’s robust targeting capabilities to improve your reach and engagement. Begin by clearly defining your audience – you can use Facebook’s demographic filters to target users based on age, location, interests, and behaviours, for example.

Once you’re happy with your targeting, you need to create your strategy. This includes elements like the type of content you’ll use, the frequency you’ll post with, the way you’ll respond to queries, the content you’ll share and the action you want your audience to take. Think about:

  • Creating compelling and visually appealing content that resonates with that audience, encouraging interactions such as likes, comments, and shares.
  • Designing a consistent posting schedule, to ensure your brand remains visible and top-of-mind.
  • Building genuine relationships with your followers to encourage customer loyalty and referrals.
  • Using Facebook insights to see valuable data on how your content is performing, allowing you to refine and optimise your strategy.
  • Taking advantage of Facebook Ads for a cost-effective way to amplify your message.

Once your strategy is in place, use these steps to get started:

  • Create your business page: set up a dedicated Facebook business page to establish a professional presence, allowing customers to easily find and interact with your company. This is a step-by-step process where you are guided through each area you need to create.
  • Post regularly and consistently: maintaining a consistent posting schedule keeps your audience engaged and helps to reinforce brand recognition.
  • Engage with your audience: regularly interact with followers through comments, messages, and posts to build a community and foster brand loyalty.
  • Offer exclusive promotions: entice and reward your Facebook followers with special deals or promotions available only through your business page. This helps to increase engagement and sales.
  • Use Facebook Ads: once you are comfortable on the platform and you have your strategy in place, using Facebook’s targeted advertising options will help you to reach specific demographics. This increases visibility and improves potential customer engagement for your small business.
  • Join relevant groups: an important part of Facebook small business marketing is being part of a community. Participate in industry-related Facebook groups to connect with potential customers and partners while increasing your brand’s visibility.
  • Invest in eye-catching content: create visually appealing and informative posts, using images and videos to increase engagement and shares among followers. You might need to invest in photography, design or videography, but it’s worth it to give your brand the impact and credibility you need.
  • Create a Facebook shop: if you are a product-based business, you can set up a Facebook shop to give your customers the ability to buy your products directly through the platform, simplifying the buying process and giving you an additional income stream.
  • Collaborate with influencers: partner with local or sector influencers to expand your reach and build credibility among their followers. Some influencers may charge to promote your business, so make sure you do your research before you commit.
  • Share customer testimonials: post testimonials and case studies from satisfied customers to build trust and encourage potential clients to buy from you.
  • Run competitions and giveaways: encouraging participation with contests or giveaways, boosts engagement and attracts new followers.
  • Engage with trends and topics: tap into trending topics and events that resonate with your audience, making your content timely and more shareable.
  • Share user-generated content: Encourage satisfied customers to share their experiences and feature this content on your page to add authenticity and social proof.

Our top Facebook business page tips

We’ve been working with Facebook for many years – here are our top tips on how to make the most of your Facebook presence:

Do your research– spend some time on Facebook, looking at the business pages of companies like yours. What do they do that is successful? How do they present themselves? Which of their posts get the most likes, responses and shares? Like any new channel, the more you know, the more effective you can be. Our blog social media strategy planning – our guide to success might also prove useful.

Create your page– you can do this yourself, or work with experts, like virtual assistants specialising in wordpress and social media, who can do it for you. You’ll need a personal profile first, if you’re not already o Facebook. Once you’ve set that up, you can create a business page.

To create your page, just sign into your personal account, and click on the grid of dots on the top right-hand corner of your Home page. You’ll get a drop-down menu – select the flag icon for ‘Page’ – or you can go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/creation/. From here, you can create a new page, selecting the page type that describes you best, and then just follow the instructions to add good quality photos, an engaging biography and the best contact details for customers – don’t forget they can also contact you via Facebook Messenger, which is how a lot of Facebook enquiries are managed.

Get your branding right– Facebook allows you to upload a cover photo and a profile photo to your page. Keep these professional and in line with your branding, so that you present a consistent image to your customers. Make sure the pictures you use are good quality so that they are sharp and focused, and are the sizes Facebook requires. Have a look at our blog Improve your profile social media wise – tips to make you stand out online.

Use all the options– Facebook allows you to describe your business, add a link to your website, create a photo gallery, add a button for quick buying and much more. Take advantage of all of these options so that there is as much information about you as possible, and it’s easy for customers to contact you when they want to.

Invite people to like your page– to begin with, especially for Facebook small business marketing, you need to ask people to like your page. You might start with friends and family, so that you’ve built up some likes, but also ask your networking contacts, suppliers and customers to like your page too – people usually do it if you ask them nicely! You can also post in shared interest groups or ask other users based on their location.

Like other pages– using Facebook as your business, you can like the pages of other businesses, which raises your profile and helps you to start interacting within the business community. This might be businesses like yours – don’t be afraid to like competitors’ pages – or local businesses you know, work with or go to.

Make a content plan– the key to successful Facebook small business marketing is the content you post. Many businesses use scheduling software to plan posts in advance, and some of these sites, such as Hootsuite, SocialBee, Buffer and SproutSpcial, will help you to see where there is content you can link to or refer to. You can also set up Google Alerts for subjects that are relevant to your business, giving you plenty of ideas of things you can talk about and helping you to keep your content engaging. For further information on this, see our blogs – Social media marketing ideas – how to keep content engaging and Marketing content strategies for small business or visit our page on content maintenance.

Make it relevant– you need to share content that is interesting and relevant. People use Facebook as an escape, so they want to be entertained and educated – not sold to. No matter what your business, you can find a way to do this – even if you need a little help from a professional virtual assistant who is Facebook-savvy. Images and videos are particularly engaging on Facebook, so make sure you structure your content around something eye-catching that will make people stop as they scroll down their newsfeed

Used pinned posts – this is a post that you can ‘pin’ to the top of your Facebook news feed so it’s the first thing that new visitors see when they come to your page. This is a great – and easy – way to get your central message across straight away, without potential customers having to scroll down to find out what you’re all about.

Make your content engaging – posts with images see much higher engagement than simple text posts, and videos are even more attractive. It might be worth investing in photography so that the images you use are unique to your business – they will be more attractive to customers and are more authentic than stock photos. Good images or videos, backed by the right messaging, are also great for users to share, helping your company page to be seen by more people.

Interact– don’t put a post up and forget about it. If people comment on your post, you need to be able to reply to them – and quickly. You must be human, whilst staying within your business persona.

Measure– Facebook offers its own analytics and there are other ways of measuring response too. Because you can immediately adapt the way you do things, knowing what your users are up to is incredibly useful information. Measure, analyse and change what isn’t working.

Advertise– you might want to consider boosting some posts, which is Facebook’s entry level advertising; or you might want to look into higher level promotions. It’s worth getting your business page settled first though, with a good number of likes and some good content.

Think about action – what do you want your audience to do? It might be to buy direct from Facebook, or visit your website, or make a direct enquiry, or book a service. Make this as easy as possible – and if you’re sending people to your website, make sure that is up-to-date, loads quickly and has useful content for them to engage with.

Be prepared to change your approach to Facebook

Small business marketing is no different to any other marketing approach. You need to know what is working – so you can do more of it – and what’s not, so you can stop. If you’re not getting the responses or engagement you need, take a step back and look at what you’re doing. What could you change? How can you do more? What’s missing? By constantly reviewing and reflecting on the way you use your Facebook business page, you can be more flexible and make it work for you as a serious and successful marketing channel.

This brief guide to Facebook small business marketing should help you to get started – but if you are short on time and think a Facebook administrative assistant would be a useful addition to your business feel free to talk to us about our social media assistance service. And if you’d like to know more about our UK based virtual assistants feel free to call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above.

 

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