Social Media Best Practices: 5 Ways To Maximize Facebook For Business

Social media is always a key component in any successful marketing campaign, and it has proven itself the most cost-effective.

While some aspects of brand promotion require significant cash and a good web design to engage visitors, social media doesn’t.

Facebook, in particular, if used well, can provide brands with significant exposure even for just a couple of dollars.

Facebook has over a billion unique monthly users, offering the largest pool of prospective clients. Failing to tap into it can hinder your ability to build and grow your brand.

If you’re not yet using it for business, take a look at these best practices to maximize your business potential with Facebook.

1. Create a custom tab

This requires a bit of programming but creating a custom tab has been proven to draw more visitors to your page and add value.

While you’re at it, integrate live chat and sign ups (when organizing upcoming events), and make sure to put in your background information, shipping information, policies, subscriptions, downloadable content, and webinars.

2. Interact and engage other Facebook pages

While this may appear self-defeating to your marketing efforts, commenting on other related business or personal pages may in fact raise awareness about your own brand.

Keep it within your own network of colleagues, established brands, and companies that you work with, though. Tagged and Liked pages often trigger the same response in the name of cross-promotion. Any page you like with your own business page is displayed on the left side of your page as a vertical tab.

3. Share exclusive offers with fans

The goal of engaging your Facebook fans is to keep them loyal to your page, hopefully bringing with them new visitors.

One simple way to do this is by offering giveaways and special offers that expire in a relatively short period of time — preferably 24 hours or less.

Brands that have a large, active following on Facebook typically offer much shorter expiration times such as 20 minutes, or in some instances as little as 5 minutes.

Alternatively, have other users vote for a single winner among fans submissions (e.g., the best selfie with the product wins a prize).

4. Run an interesting contest

The best part about Facebook users is that they spend a significant amount of time scanning through profiles and they are in no particular hurry; also, they do expect some level of entertainment.

One way to keep them glued to your company page is to run a contest. Keep in mind that some of the most effective contests don’t even require a cash reward at the end: just publish a funny photo and run a caption test, or set up a similar challenge to keep people engaged.

At the end of it, choose one or more winners and give them a fair amount of coverage on your wall, as this will encourage participation.

5. Upload tons of behind-the-scene photos and videos

Everyone likes to see what’s going on behind the scenes and you can use this to get closer to your Facebook fans.

Brands that fail to offer snippets of behind-the-scenes moments often remain distant and too “proper” as their marketing approach is too scripted.

People appreciate real moments captured on camera: that’s the way to show what your company is really like or how your team members operate.

This strategy doesn’t devalue the “About Us” section of your page. It is still important for new visitors; however, existing fans will appreciate exclusive segments of video and pictures that show your team members unveiling a new product, a fun company trip, and how-to tutorials, among others.

If the videos are not embedded from YouTube, you can create a playlist that will show up on people’s timelines.

Bonus Tip: Always celebrate major milestones

Let your community know when you have something to celebrate. Is your company a year old today? Let everyone know and make sure your team members eat cake to celebrate (the pictures should be uploaded to your page).

Even the simplest milestone should be celebrated as it gives you an opportunity to walk everyone through your brand history, showing every achievement you’ve had, and more importantly, it allows you to appreciate your customers for their contribution.

The more special and unique the milestone, the more you want to put into celebrating it.

Remember, everyone likes a good party and will undoubtedly respond positively when you present it on Facebook as an occasion for all your fans.

It’s also a good time to give away some free products and services, so find a way to give something back to your loyal customers. If possible, start mentioning it earlier on and set up contests and such to build up momentum before the actual day, so as to engage more people.

A little bit of effort and a good web design can draw customers and potential customers to your website. Keeping them following you, however, requires knowledge of social media, Facebook in particular. Implement these tips and make sure to maximize Facebook for business to leverage social media’s drawing power!

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Originally published at www.bookmark.com on October 20, 2016.