If you are finding yourself grinding your teeth lately over your poor Facebook stats, consider yourself not alone. Many Facebook Business Page users are finding it harder and harder to get their updates seen and have been watching their organic reach dwindle. A spokesperson from Facebook has even gone as far as addressing these concerns, and has confirmed that organic reach is dropping and will likely continue to drop.
“We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site. We’re getting to a place where because more people are sharing more things, the best way to get your stuff seen if you’re a business is to pay for it.”- Facebook.com (source)
Though many business page users are threatening to throw up their hands in defeat and abandon Facebook altogether, take a moment to think about the strength, power and reach of this social media giant. Currently over 1 billion people are registered as users on Facebook and that number grows each day. The rule of thumb with business marketing and social media is; go where your ideal client is. With one billion users and counting, how many of those people could be your newest customer?
Here are 7 ways to help boost your Facebook Page
It’s no secret Facebook has been moving towards a “pay to play” model for quite some time. The solution to this problem, according to many on-line marketers, is tapping into the effective resource of Facebook Ads. According to Facebook, most on-line advertising reaches only 27% of its intended audience. Facebook’s average is 91%. So basically your business gets more value from every ad…IF done correctly.
Here are some tips and strategies to help your Facebook Ad efforts be as productive as possible.
Set a Budget: Facebook offers the ability to set bids based on either Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM). Facebook ad users can also set daily or lifetime budget according to their business criteria.
Use Your Words Wisely: Use your 90 characters to not only include a call to action, but be clear with Facebook users what they can expect to get if they click.
Do Your Research: Study what other ad users are doing and which ones are working. Current ads serving your demographic can be viewed here
Use High Quality Photos: Since Facebook Ads provides a very small area for text (25-character headline, 90 characters in the body) your best chance to grab attention is with your 110 x 80 pixel picture. Make it count!
Combat Ad Fatigue: Refresh your ads every few weeks to prevent viewers from tuning you out. Split testing also critical in discovering which ads provide the cheapest clicks and which ads are performing the best.
Set Expectations: A typical click-through rate on Facebook is 0.04-0.05%, and with that mind, watch spending and make sure your ad campaign has the ROI that you need.
Target Audiences: Blasting an ad out to everyone is a little like spitting on a forest fire. Laser in on your target audience by using Facebook Ad’s targeting options to reach a similar or desired audience.
– Are they male or female?
– How old are they?
– Where do they live?
– What is their relationship status? (Single? Engaged? Married?)
– What are some of their interests?
Know your Why: Facebook ads can be used for a variety of things, but studies have shown that advertising something free that requires an email opt-in can be a great strategy for growing your business’ mailing list. Those new optins can then be marketed to via your list and social media.
Done correctly Facebook advertising can help your business to succeed on-line. I recommend giving it a try – what are your thoughts on it?
