In general, times are pretty uncertain at the moment. Economically we are living in unprecedented times and for many business owners, 2020 is proving exponentially more stressful than expected. With instability the general theme so far in 2020, many entrepreneurs are reluctant to invest in advertising online at the moment. However, as with every economic downturn or crisis, there are some opportunities to emerge from it all more successful and profitable then the difficulties began.
Organic reach (the impressions your Facebook posts get) has been steadily declining over the last 5 years, as Facebook looks to push their advertising platform more. However, smaller, local businesses may have several advantages in that they know the local audience, they can turn-around content quickly without having to get it approved by stakeholders in a brand team etc. and they can often risk posting things that bigger organisations would not. We take a look at some strategies for advertising with no, or very little budget…
Create Engaging Content
The new Facebook algorithm which influences your organic reach – looks at how engaging your content is. Business owners can take advance of this by posting more video content.
According to Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith, Facebook is pushing to be the next video streaming platform. This makes sense when you look at the growing popularity of TV apps such as Facebook Watch that they have on platforms such as the Amazon Firestick. Mari recommends posting 70% video content, 20% pictures and 10% links. Instead of putting links to your site in your posts, add them to your video and image-based posts so that they get more engagement.
Facebook Live videos get 6 times the engagement that regular, uploaded video gets. Try and post live videos at least once per week. This might seem difficult for certain local businesses, but you could start by just talking about your latest offers and/or products. Watch Parties also get substantially more engagement than standard video content and these can be pre-recorded and uploaded.
Also consider creating video playlists, as these can also appear in search results. Moving away from video content, in text posts you should look to ask questions – asking short, highly relevant questions can increase your engagement and reach.
If you do have a post that performs particularly well, allocate some ad budget. For your best performing posts, consider amplifying the reach using Facebook paid ads, even if you just use a few dollars the difference in reach can be substantial.
Insider Information
Get nerdy about what you do. Have insights and tips that appeal to your niche. For example, if you sell wine, you may want to write articles and produce videos about glassware, the primary styles of wine and the different types of grapes. Using content like this should help you reach an audience who are interested in, and love drinking high-quality wine.
Another tip is to provide quality to Facebook users. Carrying on with the wine example, you should look to be more like the Wine Spectator magazine, than QVC. Be informative and entertaining, not ‘salesy’.
Regular content also tends to do better. You could produce a weekly Youtube show that also airs live on Facebook.
Photo Opportunities
People will literally organise their weekends around what photo opportunities they can find.
A funny sign, a statue, a celebrity lookalike, a cartoon character that children would want to be pictured with – if you can think of a relevant photo opportunity, it is certainly worth trying out on Facebook and other social media platforms.
Other Tips
Optimise your Facebook page. Ensure that your profile image is optimised and get a logo created if you don’t already have one. Your cover photo can be changed regularly and should represent what your company has to offer. For example a picture of the type of experience that you offer, or simply a current promotional offer. You can find high quality, free images from a website like Pixabay.com that you could edit on a website such as BeFunky.com. Make sure that all your contact details are filled out and up to date. If you work from home, consider using a virtual address and a virtual receptionist service such as Moneypenny.
Make sure to use a vanity URL. This will help people find your business via Google and Facebook’s search engine. It also looks more professional when you are sharing links in emails and posts.
Schedule your posts. Scheduling your posts once per week can be a much more time-efficient way of doing things. You can always add ad-hoc posts during the week, but having everything lined up can help provide a solid foundation and presence on Facebook.
You can also join relevant groups on Facebook. Join groups that allow ‘pages’ to join them. If you hover over the “Join Group+” button, a popup annotation will tell you whether or not ‘pages’ can join that group. Post high-quality images of your own to each group, then come back 24 hours later and whoever has liked your image or post, can then be invited to like your page. Just don’t post too often in the same group as you might be seen as a spammer and get banned.
Consider TikTok
People are saying TikTok is a fad and that it will be gone in a year. That may be the case, but if you can leverage a platform to build your brand effectively it does not matter if it will be popular in a year or two. Marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk gives an analogy/example about MTV– Pdiddy built his brand on MTV decades ago, and he’s still trading & making money off the back of it. Striking a platform whilst its hot is more important than if it exists in 12 months’ time.
You may also learn specific skills that are helpful on social media in the future. SocialCam may not be around or popular today, but Gary Vaynerchuck says he learnt new vertical-video skills that he used on Vine and used to dominate Instagram.
Even if your target audience is not using TikTok at the moment, it can be worth establishing some kind of presence on the platform, so that you are already in the game when it does.
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