How to use Facebook to your business's advantage
By Sulabh Puri
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When we want our business to grow we do not leave any stone unturned. We try every path, every road and every way to boost sales and profits. In the fight to get to the top spot digital social media platforms, such as Facebook, have become a neat and fine way to garner loyalists and spread brand awareness.
India is slowly waking up to the digital dream. With the ever increasing smartphone penetration and people adapting to internet rapidly, businesses need to quickly adapt to the Facebook culture and use it for maximum benefit. So what do you need to do to market your brand on this digital platform? Read on.
Build a product/service page
Ok so now you have a store or a product available in the market, you need to quickly and efficiently market it amongst the masses? Make a fan page for your product and start putting at least 1 relevant post a day, to a maximum of 6-8 in a day. These posts should be interesting enough to bring in more people to your page and also share it. Use pictures wisely as that is the first thing one looks at when they see a FB post. Spread the word with your family and friends first and then target others.
Use lots of videos
Make short videos of your product or service and post it on the community page or your own timeline. The auto play feature of videos is working beautifully on FB and as soon as one scrolls and stops at the post the video automatically starts playing (without audio) in the recipients news feed. So, having sub titles is not a bad idea.
More fans equals to more reach
So you have a fan page, but are not able to grow it beyond a point. Now is the time to spend a little cash on it. Promote your page and product using the Facebook ad manager. It is a simple tool to use that will enable you to promote your brand amongst the right people. Once attached they hardly end up leaving. Do not go for any third party software, as most of them are just bot services and would not help your business grow in any manner. Stay away from them! No matter how low the price is. Here is a great guide to Facebook ad manager from Jon Loomer.
Boost a post
Whether there is an event coming up or you just want to promote a great product quickly. Make a post on your page and boost it. There is a small blue button under the post that does that. However, if you want more control on your boost then head to the ads manager and then use this feature from there. Select the audience you want to target, the locality, country and set a price with duration, and you are ready to go. Remember for boosts and fan likes, our recommendation is to have a brilliant image attached to the post. Also, Facebook only allows 20% text in the image, hence use that space wisely.
Join relevant groups and promote your business for free
We kept the best for last. This is a quick, effective and free way to promote your service and brand. A bit of an effort would be required to find the right groups on Facebook for the push. For example if you have a food delivery app, pushing a post or two out on a food lovers group with thousands of members makes perfect sense. As any post in a group (not a fan page) usually appears on the timeline of that groups members on that particular day or the next day. Again, a great image here will do wonders.
