Marketing on Facebook seems to be all the rage these days, but because it is so easy to set up an account and start advertising on this platform, many people assume that it doesn’t take a whole lot of skill to market effectively. If you want to make sure that your efforts are rewarded when you turn to Facebook to declare your business to the world, you might want to take note of a few novice mistakes that could end up causing you to fail before you even had a real chance of success.
As Lauren Drell put it:
There’s actually a science behind this – yes, it’s an art, but we have found some strong conclusions that there are levers that marketers can pull to be more successful
Just by being aware that marketing on a social platform isn’t about luck, it is about hard work and dedication, as well as knowing how to effectively reach out to your chosen audience, and this information alone is enough to give you a head start in terms of marketing your business.
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If you aren’t taking advantage of every possible feature of your Facebook page, you are missing out. Brand pages contain everything from addresses to photos about your business and the more you add to your page, the more information you’ll be providing to your customers, so don’t waste a good opportunity.
Choose Your Cover Photo Wisely
One of the biggest mistakes a professional can make is using an unappealing or even an illegal picture as a cover photo. Keep in mind that this photo is the very first thing a consumer will notice when they look at your Facebook page. When you pick your photo, be sure to stick to the guidelines outlined by Facebook, otherwise you could be setting yourself up for disaster. Firstly, make sure that your profile picture doesn’t contain purchase information, since this is strictly forbidden by the site. Secondly, you can’t put a call to action as your profile picture, and this includes information such as “tell your friends”, among others.
Switching up your profile cover photo is very important, since this can get dull over time. Businesses don’t often do this because they think that once they have picked a specific picture, they’ve done their work, but the trick is to continue appealing to customers so that they have a reason to come back to the business’s profile page.
Run Legal Competitions
One thing that many businesses forget to do is check whether they are adhering to state laws when they run competitions, and keep in mind that Facebook has its own set of laws. You cannot, for example, host a competition without declaring that Facebook doesn’t sponsor, endorse or even associate with the competition in any way. This is only one of the many guidelines that need to be followed; it is best to go through each one to ensure you follow the guidelines exactly.
Don’t Overdo The Advertising
You don’t want to advertise to your clients constantly, otherwise you could end up annoying a large portion of your fans. The experts recommend that you advertise about 20 percent of the time and simply connect to your fans about 80 percent of the time. Focus on posting great posts, rather than begging for attention; this should draw your fans to you, rather than the other way around.
Don’t Chase Likes
Chasing likes is what most professionals do when they sign up for a Facebook page, but this can be a big mistake. As Jeff Bullas put it:
The reality is that this is only a small part of social media marketing and its power is diminishing fast.
Likes aren’t the “be all and end all” of successful marketing, and you can’t increase brand loyalty by “buying” these online; you need to work at impressing your customers and this takes a lot more effort. Likes are easily achieved by promising your clients the world if they only like your page, but when the time comes to purchase a product or service, will they turn to you for it?
Using Offline Marketing Concepts
When you invest in social media marketing, you should expect to have to put a lot of time and effort into many of the same tasks as if you were marketing offline, and this includes establishing a brand identity.
Read The Terms And Conditions
If you don’t want to lose your Facebook page altogether just because you failed to make yourself aware of the terms and conditions associated with setting up and running your account, you need to make yourself aware of them.
Anna Gervai explains:
As Facebook says “We reserve the right to reject or remove Pages for any reason.” And they’re not kidding. Don’t think you’ll get a warning either! Poof! One day it could just be gone.
If you assume that they won’t delete your account just because you didn’t know you were contravening a rule, think again; this small mistake has cost other businesses thousands of likes.
Don’t Ignore Paid Advertising
You can go a long way naturally advertising your Facebook page, but more and more businesses are using paid advertisements to draw attention to their company and so you shouldn’t ignore this option. The great thing about this form of advertising is that you can cap the amount that you spend and this makes it a very appealing option.
Facebook is a new and exciting way to connect with your fans on a much more personal level, and in terms of marketing, there is no better way to start establishing a strong brand name. Remember, however, that you can actually damage your brand identity if you are not careful, which is why you need to go about this the right way. Successful marketing is not only about taking the right steps to advertise effectively; it is also about not making mistakes that could end up negatively the image of your business, and your profits in the long run.