The complete guide to facebook marketing

The complete guide to Facebook Marketing kissmetrics.com The landscape of Facebook marketing is constantly changing In the last year, there have been major changes to several aspects, including page design, the advertising platform, organic reach, groups, and much more In this guide, we’re going to look at how businesses can get the most out of Facebook marketing today Facebook Pages Create a Facebook Page Facebook marketing starts with creating a Facebook page for your business To get started, you will choose your business type from six main categories to create your page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing Local businesses will choose a subcategory and then enter their name, physical address, and phone number Other business types will choose a subcategory and then enter their name The exception is the cause or community type, which simply requires entering a name Next, you will be taken through a quick four-step wizard to set up your page First, you will enter your page’s basic details and choose a customer URL The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing Second, you will upload a profile picture for your page Ideally, this will be a square image (180px x 180px) that represents your business, such as a logo; or a picture of yourself if you are a freelancer, consultant, or solopreneur Third, you will have a chance to add your page to your favorites list for easy access from your Facebook homepage The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing Fourth, you will be given the option to create a page promotion ad to start building your page’s fans The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing We would suggest skipping the fourth step and going directly to your page because there are a few more things you should before releasing your page to the masses For starters, you will want to add a cover image This is an 851px x 315px header image for your Facebook page The following portion of an infographic by Jon Loomer shows specific dimensions for your cover photo If you follow the above guide, you will ensure that important parts of your cover photo are not obscured by the profile photo, the page name and category, and the like/follow/share buttons for your page As an example, you might want to use your cover photo to promote a new product, like Toyota does on their Facebook page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing Or, you might want to use your cover photo to promote a specific marketing message, like Snickers does on their page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing Click on both your profile photo and cover photo, and add a description that includes a call to action to visit your website If your cover photo is marketing a particular product or message, make sure the page you link to on your website matches For your profile photo, a link to the homepage will suffice Next, be on the lookout for the Call-to-Action button This feature allows you to add a call-to-action button to your Facebook page next to the Like button overlaying the cover photo The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing Once set up, Facebook will record the number of clicks from the call-to-action button to your website When you get this feature for your page, you may consider removing calls to action in your cover photo Post Your First Updates The last thing you should before starting to promote your page is post a few updates This way, people can decide whether they want to become a fan based on your updates The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing There are four types of updates you can publish on your Facebook wall Each engages your audience in a different way, so it’s important to experiment with all of them The first is a link update To post this type of update, you will enter some descriptive text about your link in the “What have you been up to” box, and then paste in your link Facebook will pull the title, description, and an image from the URL you paste in the box The result will look like this: The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 10 You can use this information to target ads toward people with demographic information similar to your custom audiences, or use it to get to know your customers, leads, and other connections better Note that this works only for custom audiences with more than 1,000 people Conversion Tracking If you want to use the “increase conversions on your website” objective for a Facebook ad, you will need to install a conversion tracking pixel on a page within your website that represents the completion of a goal For example, if you want to create an ad with the conversion goal of a lead submission, add a conversion tracking pixel to the thank you page that leads reach when they submit a form To this, go to your Conversion Tracking Manager and click the Create Pixel button You will then configure your pixel Facebook will give you code that signifies a conversion to place on the page Once you have created conversion pixels, you can utilize them when creating an ad, in the area where you configure your ad creative, under advanced options in the bottom left corner The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 46 Power Editing The Power Editor in Facebook Advertising allows you to take advantage of advanced Facebook Advertising functionality, such as creating unpublished post ads (posts shown only to target ad audiences) or creating ads in bulk Facebook suggests this tool for large advertisers that need the bulk ad creation functionality, but even smaller advertisers will like the ability to create an unpublished post ad You can learn more about the Power Editor in Facebook’s Help section Facebook Advertising Insights When you go to your Facebook Ads Manager, you will get an overview of the performance of your recent ad campaigns The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 47 You can click on an ad campaign to get a detailed report of its performance The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 48 If you had multiple ads for a particular campaign, such as an ad in the news feed, an ad on the right sidebar, and an ad for mobile browsers, then you can click on the ad set and get detailed information on the performance of each ad If your ad is still running and you want to edit the creative, targeting, and/or pricing, you can so by clicking the Edit link at the top of the preview The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 49 For example, if you notice you are getting good results from the news feed ad but not the right column ad, you can turn off the right column ad Or, you can change the audience targeting or bidding objective It’s a quick way to update your ads to ensure you are spending money on what works The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 50 Facebook Personal Profiles Most people overlook the use of their personal profiles as a way to market their business on Facebook We’re not talking about creating a Facebook personal profile for your business, as that is against Facebook rules What we’re talking about is using your personal profile on Facebook to market your business in the following ways: Link to Your Facebook Page When people visit your personal profile, you want them to discover your business while they are there To make this happen, link your current employment status to your Facebook page To this, go to your personal profile’s About tab and add your current workplace to the Work and Education section The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 51 You must make sure this workplace is set as the place you currently work in order for it to appear on your profile Once set, your company page will be linked in the About box at the top in the left sidebar of your Facebook profile It also will be linked beneath your name in Facebook search results The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 52 And, it will be linked next to your name when you leave comments on websites using the Facebook comment platform Essentially, anywhere you get exposure for your personal profile will allow you to get exposure for your Facebook page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 53 Reach Out to People Have you ever received comments on your Facebook page that you wanted to follow up on? Using your Facebook page, you can’t privately message someone unless they have contacted your page first This is a situation where your personal profile comes in handy You can attempt to send a private message to the person using your personal profile If you’re not friends with them, your message may end up in the Other folder But, at least you can reply to the person’s comment on your page and say that you sent them a private message This approach could help you solve customer service issues in non-public space Utilize Facebook Groups The best way to use your Facebook personal profile as a part of your business marketing strategy is to utilize Facebook groups Facebook groups have a much higher organic reach in the news feed than pages have While there may not be studies on the reach of Facebook groups just yet, if you belong to a Facebook group, you know that you see updates from that group more than you see updates from your friends or the pages you like To utilize Facebook groups for your business, you have two options: join pre-existing groups or create your own group Market Your Business in Facebook Groups To get familiar with Facebook groups, start by joining pre-existing groups related to your business, location, or industry In other words, groups that your customers are most likely to join For example, local business owners can join word-of-mouth or business referral groups in their area These are groups that locals join to get recommendations for products and services in their area To get the most business exposure in a Facebook group, you will want to be a valuable contributor to the group In particular, you will want to keep an eye out for updates related to your business An The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 54 accountant in a local business referral group could start by answering any finance or tax related questions that pop up By building a helpful presence in the group, people are likely to recommend you to anyone who asks an accounting related question or anyone who is looking for an accountant Create Your Own Facebook Group If there are no groups that mesh well with your business, or you want to get more out of Facebook groups, you may want to consider creating your own group Your best bet is to create a group that your potential and current customers would want to join You have three options when it comes to Facebook groups: public groups, closed groups, and secret groups Public groups are those that anyone can find in search and join freely Closed groups are those that anyone can find in search, but memberships must be approved by the group owner or moderator Secret groups won’t show up in search; you would need to invite people To market your business, you most likely would want to choose a public or closed group Depending on the nature of your group, you may want to choose based on the privacy that members would want when posting to the group You can refer to the following chart about Facebook group privacy options The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 55 For example, a local wedding photographer could create a local wedding group for people to join and discuss their upcoming nuptials in a particular city The advantage of this approach is the group would be a hotbed of potential leads! The people most likely to join the group would be people planning their weddings, and the more you could answer their questions, the more likely they would be to ask you about your services The disadvantage of this approach is the group would also attract competitors Hence, you would have to be on top of your game in your group You’d need to be the first to answer questions, and you’d need to provide the most valuable answers You also would have to create rules to prevent businesses from blatantly posting advertisements, leaving the group open for discussion instead of letting it be turned into a spam fest Website Content Another important aspect of a successful Facebook marketing strategy is sharing content from the business’s website When website visitors share content with their networks, it increases the business’s exposure on Facebook Here are some ways you can encourage and customize shares for the content you create: Use the Facebook Like Button You know you need to use the Facebook Like button to get fans for your page Be sure to also use the button on every page of your website that you would like people to share with their Facebook connections If you prefer, you can change the word “Like” to the word “Recommend” in order to distinguish liking content from liking your page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 56 Implement Facebook Open Graph Tags Facebook Open Graph tags allow you to customize the Facebook shares from your website You can use tags to specify the page’s title, URL, description, image, type of media, locale, author, and publisher These tags can be added manually to the HTML code of each of your pages between the tags, or you can use plugins WordPress users, for example, can use plugins like the official Facebook plugin and WordPress SEO by Yoast to add Facebook Open Graph functionality to their websites The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 57 If you visit the documentation page for Facebook Open Graph, you can see how each tag works, as well as good and bad examples of how to use them This page includes tips on image optimization It also links you to the Facebook Open Graph Debugger to test your pages to make sure Facebook Open Graph has been implemented correctly The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 58 In Conclusion We hope you have learned some new strategies for using your Facebook pages, personal profiles, and groups to market your business And, remember, there is no one-size guide to social media You should always experiment with different tactics to see what works best for your business and your industry About the Author Kristi Hines is a freelance writer who develops blog content, ebooks, and indepth guides for businesses Her work is regularly featured on KISSmetrics, Social Media Examiner, Search Engine Watch, and Search Engine Journal She is also HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certified and a Google Analytics Qualified Professional Learn more about her at kristihines.com and follow her on Twitter @kikolani The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 59 Track User Acquisition and Engagement with KISSmetrics You won’t just be looking at aggregate data with KISSmetrics You’ll be able to drill down to see each person who has interacted with your business You’ll also be able to track various other metrics to improve app engagement and ultimately build a better business try kissmetrics for free [...]... contests, and other custom content When you add custom apps to your Facebook page, they will appear in the left sidebar of your Facebook page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 14 You can organize the order of the boxes in the left sidebar by hovering over the top right of your apps box, clicking on the pencil icon to get the Manage Sections option, and then dragging the boxes into the order you... other words, if you want to promote a business, then you will need to use Facebook Advertising to get exposure to Facebook audiences The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 35 Create a Facebook Ad To get started with your first ad, you will want to click the green Create Ad button on your Facebook ads dashboard Then, you will choose your ad objective The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 36 ... mostly so Facebook can promote this feature to other pages The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 25 Likes The Likes section shows you a detailed analysis of your Facebook page’s fan growth The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 26 In addition to the simple growth chart, you will find detailed information about your net likes and where people like your page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing. .. will want your updates to include quality information that is not completely self-promotional The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 13 Add Custom Apps Facebook custom apps (also referred to as custom tabs) allow you to incorporate custom content on your Facebook page beyond your updates, photos, and videos You can use Facebook custom tabs to introduce your Facebook page visitors to a wide variety of... that manage their email list with GetResponse can use their Facebook Web Form App to integrate an email opt-in form as a custom tab on their page Shopify offers several Facebook integrations that allow you to add an eCommerce store to your Facebook page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 16 As you can see, there are lots of ways to increase the functionality of your Facebook page through Facebook. .. business with your Facebook page The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 34 Use Tools to Manage Your Page Because Facebook is the largest social media network, there are hundreds of tools available to make many activities simpler, from publishing updates to researching competitors Here is a small sampling of popular tools utilized by businesses to help them with their Facebook page and marketing strategy:... Like Button or Box to Your Website While you can use an image icon to link to your Facebook page, you will get more likes from your website by adding the Like button or the Like box Both will enable visitors to like your social page without having to leave your website You can embed the Like button or Like box anywhere The box looks like this: The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 18 The button, if... you how many visitors come to your Facebook page and what content they view The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 30 In the Page and Tab Visits graph, you can click on a particular date to see where visits that day originated You also can see an overview of your Facebook page’s traffic sources The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 31 You can click on a particular date to see the breakdown of... order you would like them To get custom apps for your Facebook page, you can use platforms such as Pagemodo, AgoraPulse, and Woobox These platforms will allow you to create and install custom apps for your Facebook page and maintain them for a monthly fee The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing 15 You also can look into the services you are using for your business to see if they offer Facebook integrations... Guide to Facebook Marketing 24 Beneath the detailed analysis of your latest updates, you’ll find Pages to Watch This is a tool you can use to monitor the activity of your competitors You’ll see their audience growth, number of updates to their page, and overall engagement When you add Facebook pages to Pages to Watch, they will be notified that someone added them, but not that you added them The notification