Facebook marketing is the practice of promoting a business and brand on Facebook. It can help businesses build brand awareness, grow an online following, gather leads, and sell more products or services. Facebook marketing tactics can include; Organic text, photo, or video content.
Facebook marketing isn’t optional. Facebook is the most used social platform in the world, pulling in 2.29 billion daily active users.
It’s not all vacation pics and humblebrags either. For 53.2% of internet users ages 16-24, social media is their primary source of brand research. And, 66% of all Facebook users check out a local business Page at least once a week.
The truth: You need to be on Facebook.
But what should you do first? Do you need to run ads? What should you post about? Does creating a business Page mean you’re in the metaverse?
The answers to all your questions are ahead, plus a step-by-step process to start your Facebook marketing journey off right.
What Is Facebook Marketing?
Facebook marketing is the practice of promoting a business and brand on Facebook. It can help businesses build brand awareness, grow an online following, gather leads, and sell more products or services.
Facebook marketing tactics can include:
- Organic text, photo, or video content
- Paid, or “boosted,” text, photo, or video content
- Facebook Stories and Reels
- Facebook ads
- Facebook GroupsContests and giveaways
- Facebook Messenger chatbots or auto-responders
- Influencer marketing campaigns
Facebook ads now come in several varieties. You can promote your Page, posts on your Page, actions users took, or your website itself. Despite Facebook’s increasing focus on native ads and keeping traffic on its site, you can still be successful in sending users to your website.
There are also several ad formats including images, videos, carousels (multiple images), Instant Experiences, and collections.
Facebook ads are targeted to users based on their location, demographic, and profile information. Many of these options are only available on Facebook.
After creating an ad, you set a budget and bid for each click or thousand impressions that your ad will receive.
Users then see your ads in the sidebar on Facebook or in their newsfeed.
As marketers, our main goal is generally to drive traffic to our own websites. Building your Facebook presence is great, but when you bring someone to your website, you control the medium, and this gives you the best chance of converting to your goals.
Facebook’s other ad options are great for driving engagement and brand awareness, but ads driving users off-site are still the best option for direct response advertisers looking to make a sale.
Types Of Facebook Ads
You can choose between different Facebook ad types and formats to suit their campaign goals, including:
- Image
- Video
- Carousel
- Instant Experience
- Collection
- Lead
- Slideshow
- Stories
- Messenger
The wide range of Facebook ad formats means you can choose the best ad type that matches your business goal. Each ad has a different set of CTAs to guide users to the next steps.
How to set up Facebook for business
For those working with a limited or zero budget: You can do Facebook marketing completely for free.
Optionally, you can accelerate your growth with paid services, like Facebook ads, boosted content, or influencer/partnership campaigns.
Let’s start at the beginning: Your business’ Facebook Page. Whether you only do this and share organic content, or follow the rest of the tips in this article, you need to have a Page.
Setting up your Facebook Page
To create a Page:
- Go to facebook.com/pages/create.
- Enter a Page name and Category. You can also add a Page bio.
- Click Create Page.
- If you want to customize your Page, you can add your bio, a profile picture, and a cover photo.
- Click Done.
Anyone can create a Page, but only official representatives can create a Page for an organization, business, brand, or public figure. We may also limit how many Pages you can create.
Creating a Facebook ads account
It’s a good idea to set up a Facebook ads account even if you don’t plan to use it right away.
Once you have a business Page set up, go to Facebook Ads Manager (now part of Meta Business Suite). You can add an existing Facebook ads account or follow the prompts to create a new one.
Now you can start an automated campaign, create your own campaign from scratch, or promote (“boost”) existing Page content.
For more information on Facebook marketing, you might want to check out Next Level’s Facebook Marketing services here.
Facebook Marketing Strategy
How to Create An Effective Facebook Ad Strategy
First, you need to understand who your customer is.
- Who are they?
- What does their family situation look like?
- How much do they make?
- Where do they live? (Both geographically and whether or not they own or rent).
- Where do they work?
- How do they spend their free time?
Once you understand who they are, you’ll want to take it one step further and understand how they think.
What keeps them up at night? How is their emotional state and what needs are they looking to have fulfilled? How do they identify themselves? The way they see themselves is often more important than how you see them (even if your view is more realistic).
Next, you’ll want to walk through the average customer journey.
For each customer, this journey may be slightly different. However, they generally fall into 3 categories:
- Awareness Phase (top of the funnel)
- Consideration Phase (middle of the funnel)
- Decision Phase (bottom of the funnel)
Why does this matter to you as an advertiser? Because you will tweak your content, offers, verbiage, and Call to Action based on whatever stage of the customer journey your potential buyer is in.
Finally, you’ll want to break your audience up into segments based on where they are situated in the customer journey. This will allow you to make the right offers to the right people at the right time.
Here are a few examples of potential audience segments:
- Any new customers in the “prospects stage” are entering your funnel as warm leads because they are interested in your product.
- Lukewarm leads visited your website but didn’t engage, you may wish to use Retargeting to remind them that you are there, waiting in the wings, with the solution to their problems.
- Engaged blog readers like your blog and keep coming back for more. They’re more likely to share your content on Facebook or make a purchase.
- Landing Page visitors came to a specific landing page and are therefore probably interested in that particular product.
- Shopping cart abandoners were so close to making a purchase… but something stopped them. They may just need a gentle push to finish their purchase.
- Return customers love your brand. They’ve already purchased from you in the past and come back time and time again for more. These customers can serve as brand advocates, singing your praises and recommending your product to their friends.
- As you learn more about your own audience, you may uncover different segments that will require different messaging.
Now, consider how your Facebook strategy will differ based on who you are advertising to and where they are in their journey (and in your funnel). Consider these possibilities.
When you are looking to attract prospects, you may create ads around your brand or content that will help them understand their problem (and position you as an expert).
As your goal shifts and you want to CONVERT the prospects, you will utilize contests and giveaways, free trial offers, and lead ads.
When it’s time to CLOSE the prospects, you’ll incorporate lead nurturing campaigns, discount offers, sales campaigns, and limited-time offers to encourage them to buy.
Once prospects become customers, it’s time to DELIGHT them with premium offers, referral programs, upsell campaigns, and helpful information about their purchases.
There’s one more step before we dive into Facebook Ad Strategy. It’s called a Facebook pixel and if you want to track your conversion (which you definitely do), you need to install it.
The Facebook pixel is a string of tracking dots that you take from Facebook and embed in your website. It then tracks what visitors do when they get to your site. This allows you to better hone your advertisements based on actual user behavior.
Not super techy but still trying to handle your own website? Facebook has step-by-step instructions to help you install a Facebook pixel on your website.
Is Facebook Marketing Still Relevant In 2023?
Facebook’s market share is unmatched. In the US, they are the third most visited website, right behind Google and Youtube. They were the top-visited social media site in 2021, a spot claimed since 2010.
Facebook doesn’t just drive a ton of traffic – they also have the most users of any social media site. Facebook has an estimated 2.7 billion monthly active users worldwide. That’s roughly two-thirds of the US population. Compare this to the social app TikTok, which currently has one billion active global users.
Facebook has a massive market share
The huge user base is a major reason businesses are currently advertising on and will continue to advertise on Facebook. We don’t see that changing any time soon.
Our point is: Facebook is massive. If you need a social media platform that reaches a wide audience, converts more customers, and generates new leads, Facebook ads are worth it.
Facebook advertising is still relevant in 2023.
Leaving Facebook out of a paid social media strategy means losing out on its huge user base, market share, and technological capabilities. Advertising on Facebook will continue to adapt as new ad formats emerge, privacy and data regulations loosen or constrict, its user base fluctuates, and social media trends come and go.
The brands that have thrived are the ones that share high-quality, engaging content and advertisements. With the right expertise and strategy, Facebook ads can move the needle and produce the results companies are looking for.
If you’re keen to learn more about Facebook Marketing or work with an accredited Facebook Agency, contact Next Level here.
