By Laura DeVries Networking 0 Comments

How Brands Are Missing Out on Facebook

It’s no secret nowadays that successful brands make the most of social media marketing– especially on Facebook.

You see advertisements every time you log on, whether they be sponsored ads or ads that pop up on the sidebar. Facebook makes sure you see them because it makes all its revenue off of selling your information to businesses.

Maybe you have even previously created a Facebook ad for your business. But if Facebook ads aren’t created with the right goal in mind, they won’t be helpful to you in bringing quality potential customers.

There’s considerably more that you can do on Facebook to maximize your marketing efforts. Here are a few tips:

    1. Make Your Website a Priority
      When creating an ad, many businesses will place focus on the metrics Facebook offers – Likes, Reach, Engagement – in order to measure the ad’s success. This isn’t wrong, but these metrics can be meaningless unless you’re driving quality traffic.What is quality traffic?

      Quality traffic is people who have a legitimate interest in your brand. These are the people who will answer your call to action and yield legitimate leads to sales. This is an audience that actually cares about you.Anyone can see a post, like it, or comment and share it. But unless your content inspires people to go a step further and make it to your website, your Facebook metrics won’t mean very much to your salespeople.But how do you actually build a quality audience? That brings us to the next tip.

    2. Create Original and Helpful Content
      Sure, sharing funny memes, videos, and photos that regularly circulate Facebook can get you more attention. But unless your brand offers content that’s original, relevant, and useful, there’s no motivation for your audience to have a genuine interest in you as a brand.

      Creating original content will provide a value to your brand for your audience. Most of this content should have little to do with your product. Depending on your industry, you will want to create content generally based around it. For example, if you are a real estate agent, you could create content answering questions like…

      a. What are some common real estate misconceptions?
      b. What is a buyer’s agent?
      c. What are some tips for first time buyers?

      With this type of content, you will be able to start creating a quality audience base that ultimately ends up at your website.

    3. Share, Promote, Build!
      Once you’ve created your content, you have to share it and get back to focusing on your Facebook metrics. At first you won’t get very much engagement. This is because most people aren’t interested in your content – but the people who are will be the people who click, and those are the people you really care about!

      Promote this content – this is what you want to spend your ad dollars on. The more value you have to offer, the higher the quality of your audience will become.

      Building a quality base that will respond to your calls to action is key in Facebook marketing.

So don’t just make your Facebook marketing about what happens on Facebook – create original content that drives people back to your website. Create actual value that will attract a quality fan base. Once you have a quality fan base, your opportunities will expand.

 

By Laura DeVries Marketing • Networking 0 Comments

Facebook Ads: Why and How to Use Them

Surely by now, you’re familiar with the advertisements that pop up on your Facebook Newsfeed. They can appear on the right hand side or within the actual feed while you’re scrolling. Some of these ads can seem targeted specifically, sometimes too specifically, for you. If you’ve experienced this before, you have experienced the magic of Facebook ads.

 

More and more businesses are moving away from traditional advertising channels to advertising on Facebook. But why? Because it works! Facebook ads are able to target audiences that no other medium can – not even Google!

 

Yes, it’s true, not even the almighty Google has the targeting power that Facebook has.

 

The truth of the matter is that with Google, you can only advertise to the people who search for keywords related to your product. That’s a pretty limited audience and there are a limited number of keywords that you can use for any product. Then, when you take into account that your competitors will also bid on these limited keywords, Google Adwords can get pretty pricey.

 

Do you really want to be pouring money into a bidding war on an already limited audience? Maybe not.

 

Here’s where Facebook is different than Google: It doesn’t matter what your users are searching, all that matters is who your customers are. Rather than targeting web users with keywords, you’re targeting real people with jobs, interests, and personalities.

 

The Custom Audiences feature on Facebook allows you to target or retarget a very specific niche of users. This laser-focused type of advertising has proven so successful that even B2B companies are finding Facebook ads useful.

 

It’s fairly simple to create your own Facebook ad. You can go to Settings in your Facebook account and then ‘Facebook Ads Manager.’ First, it will ask you what your objective is. Do you want to promote your Page? Send people to your website? Increase conversions on your website? Raise attendance at your event? Reach people near your business? There are 12 different objectives you can choose from.

 

Once you’ve selected an objective, it will prompt you to name your ad campaign and fill in some basic information. Then you can start defining your audience. After selecting the basic demographics of your audience — locations, age range, gender, and
languages spoken — you’ll move onto the detailed targeting where you can select specific demographics, interests, or behaviors or your audience. This is where you can get creative! You might be surprised how specific you can get, and just how much of an audience each of these specifications has.

 

For example, if you wanted to target an audience that buys eco-friendly and environmentally-conscious products, you could do so by entering the drop down menu and selecting Behaviors > Purchase behavior > Buyer Profile > Green Living. This specification on its own yields a Facebook target audience of over 33 million people. Not, bad huh? You can also add Connections, or people who have a specific kind of connection to your Page, app, or event.

 

Once you have specified your audience, a little meter on the right hand side will tell you whether your audience is broad or narrow, and about how many potential users your ad will reach. All that’s left to do is to select ad placement (it’s recommended to set this on “automatic”) and set your budget and schedule. You can set a daily or lifetime budget, and you can make your ad run continuously or have a start or end date.

 

Once you’ve done all that, you create the Facebook ad, place the order, and you’re good to go! Facebook makes tracking your ad’s success easy, allowing you to customize the notifications you receive. So give it a try and watch your conversions grow! If this seems daunting or you simply don’t have the time, contact us and we can help connect your business to the rest of the world using Facebook Ads.

 

By Laura DeVries Networking • 0 Comments

The Importance of Networking

When we’re busy running our businesses, we hardly think we have the time to build relationships with other businesspeople. But the truth is that your success really is dependent not only who you know but who knows you. The connections we build with others are ultimately what drives our ever-changing realm of opportunity.

 

Networking is about making connections that lead to enduring and mutually beneficial relationships. There are many networking groups and resources out there established for the sole purpose of cultivating these connections. Whether it be your local chamber chapter, a prestigious international networking group such as BNI, or just a virtual network like LinkedIn, there are many chances to begin reaching out to other businesspeople.

 

When we build these relationships with other businesspeople, we’re giving these other people a unique position in their minds. We become more than just “that guy who runs the carpeting and floors business”; we become “Brian, that guy who runs the carpeting and floor business with the wife and three kids and heck of a golf record.” When you’re associated with more than just a business in someone’s mind, when more of your personality is remembered by others, then your business begins to stand out. We rise and remain at the top of mind.

 

Networking also makes doing business much more friendly. When you know and like the person you’re doing business with, you’re much more happy to do it. People do business with those they like and trust. The more people who know not just your business, but you, the more your referrals you will get. You want to be on people’s minds — that’s where REAL advertising takes place.

 

So make sure you get out there and communicate with businesspeople in your communities. And if you personally don’t have the time to get out there and network, send someone to do it for you. Get someone out there who will be a good face for your business. The more relationships you build, the more opportunities for success you will have.