251.405.2543
The coronavirus made its way into the U.S. fast and abruptly. Businesses across the country are being forced to limit their hours or even close due to restrictions set by the government. In such uncertain times, small businesses must think quickly and efficiently. Social media is a powerful and cost-effective tool to advertise your business and maintain revenue. Your services or products may be limited but utilizing social media in a variety of ways can bring in customers and boost your online presence.
Stay Consistent
Although your business may not being able to offer your normal services or products, it doesn’t mean you have to come to a complete stop on social media. Remaining active on your social channels lets your audience know you are still around. Also, posting consistently gives you the chance to increase your brand awareness, resulting in potential new customers!
Educate Your Audience
Use this time as an opportunity to educate your followers about your business. A great way to do so is by highlighting parts of your business most don’t know about. Make sure you’re focusing on something that will benefit your audience. For example, an HVAC company could make a post about how to change an air filter. Educating your followers and offering tips and tricks not only provides knowledge but also shows them you’re reliable and extremely qualified in your industry which builds credibility.
Highlight How Your Business can Help
Market your services on social media while keeping COVID-19 in mind. Most people browsing social media don’t know they have a problem until you present it. Address a problem your customers may have and explain how you can solve it. Right now, the biggest problem is social distancing. Inform your audience on how your services can be performed without direct contact. A great example of this is the restaurant industry moving to curbside take-out or delivery. Verizon reported a 20% increase in online traffic, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to advertise your business.
Take Advantage of Social Media Features
Facebook Live
Facebook Live is a feature available to all Facebook users and business profiles. It can be used for many industries, all it takes is a little creativity! Let your customers and clients know you are still available virtually. Retail stores can use Facebook Live as a “Virtual Live Try-on Session”. Gym owners can offer “Live Morning Workout”.
Instagram and Facebook Stories
These social features are another great way to reach your audience. Neglecting to use them can cause you to miss out on reaching parts of your potential audience. Not only can Instagram and Facebook stories be used to keep your followers informed, but it also increases engagement. Use these features to interact with your followers by asking questions, creating polls or designing fun challenges. Look at stories as a way to spread positivity and also get to know your audience.
Adjusting your current social media strategy during this challenging time can help your business in more ways than one. Use your spare time to take advantage of these simple yet effective tips. BIS Designs understands the impact COVID-19 is taking on your business and we are here to help. We are offering a free business consultation to go over repurposing your digital marketing strategy during this time. Visit https://www.askbisdesigns.com/ or call us at 251-405-2535 to schedule your consultation.
Sales, sales, and more sales - it’s the best thing about the holiday season, at least for retail stores. With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas Eve being the biggest shopping days of the year, the holidays are your time to shine as bright as that Christmas tree star. If you aren’t using your social media accounts to draw in holiday shoppers, you’re missing a big part of the action. In fact, over 95% of online shoppers say they are influenced by social media when making a big holiday purchase. That’s why using social media to promote your business during the holidays is even more important than the Christmas pudding.
If you aren’t social media savvy, don’t fret! Here’s our holiday gift to you: 3 ways to use social media to boost your holiday sales.
You may think that giving away your merch is a bad business move, but in the social media world (and the holiday season) you’ve got to give to receive. Do both with holiday giveaways for your social media followers. A giveaway is a great way to create interest in your product, boost engagement and attract new (and loyal) customers.
There are a few ways to do this. One idea is to ask your followers to share a post or tag a friend to be entered into a giveaway. This spreads awareness of your brand and helps you gain new likes. Another choice is to do a giveaway before the launch of a new product to create interest and demand days before it hits the shelves and sites. Whatever you choose, just be sure to ask your winner to share a review of their prize so your other followers know what they missed out on.
People love being part of an exclusive club. Give your followers that privileged feel with some social media promotional codes. Discounts, free shipping, or early access to new products are examples of social media promotions that will keep your followers glued to your page. They’ll also share your promotions with friends and family, drawing in more leads and more sales.
Take it a step further by creating promotional codes that are page-specific. In other words, vary your codes between your Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter pages. This way, you can promote your accounts across platforms and entice your Facebook followers to join in on Instagram (or vice-versa). It’s what we like to call two gifts, one box.
Holiday posts don’t have to be flashy or gimmicky. Simply promoting your holiday website discounts on your social media pages can draw people into your site - and keep them coming back for more. It’s a simple way to increase your website traffic and let your customers know that you’re full of holiday cheer. It also gives them a reason to check-in at your website in the future for more special deals.
Don’t forget to contact our social media marketing team to get a top-feed social media presence during every season of the year!
You’ve been using social media to promote your business. Smart move! Social media marketing has taken the business world by storm. You’re making posts, sharing great content, and drawing in followers. Promotion is great, but these days it is not enough. You’ve got to share your business story to really connect with your audience. And that’s where the new story feature for Instagram and Facebook comes in.
A story is a relatively new feature for Facebook and Instagram that can help your business connect with your audience in a personal way. Stories are pinned to the top of your followers’ newsfeeds and last for a maximum of 24 hours. Businesses aren’t penalized for stories, so they are sure to be seen (unlike posts, which are quickly lost in the newsfeed shuffle and have limited visibility due to algorithm updates).
If you’re looking to grow your audience and increase your brand awareness, then stories are a tool that you can’t afford to ignore. But how do you use them effectively? Let’s take a look at 4 ways to use Instagram and Facebook stories for your business.
Post Authentic Content To Engage With Your Audience
The stories feature is meant for...well, stories! A story is more personal than a post and it is most effective when it is used for authentic content. Remember that your stories are only seen by your followers, who are already interested in your business, so there’s not as much need for direct promotion or marketing. Instead, use candid content to give your audience a glimpse into a side of your business that they can’t see anywhere else. Making your business seem real and relatable drives engagement and instills trust in your audience - after all, you’re just like them!
Here are a few ideas for authentic content:
- ”day in the life” snapshots that show the daily goings-on of your business
- candid photographs of your team or working space
- informal interviews with staff and management
Pro Tip: Remember that the goal is to be authentic, so don’t overuse the photoshop or filters in these types of stories. Your audience can tell when your images and videos have been highly doctored, and this can hurt your engagement. Keep it simple to achieve the best results.
Use Teasers To Promote Upcoming Events Or Sales
We aren’t saying that you can’t ever use promotions in your stories. Your goal is business growth, after all. Stories are a great way to share information about future happenings in your business. Upcoming events, product launches, or sales are all great content for teaser stories that can interest and convert your audience. But keep in mind the 24-hour rule and don’t tease them too early or your audience might forget about it before the big day!
Pro Tip: Filters and effects can help make your teaser stories really pop and help you deliver the right message. Both Facebook and Instagram have story editors that allow you to insert text, graphic elements like countdown buttons or coupon codes, and all sorts of other fun designs!
Turn Articles And Blog Posts Into Bite-Sized Segments
Let’s face it, audiences today have a short attention span. That’s why social media gets more engagement than traditional websites or articles - it is a revolving door of new material. So use that to your business’s advantage by turning your website content into digestible chunks. Research your business content for pieces that can be divided into smaller sections and post them one at a time or in a slide-show story. This will help increase your website traffic if your content (and your story) is engaging.
Pro Tip: Graphic design is an important factor in these types of posts. Make sure that your images are relevant, attractive, and clean. Also be sure to hyperlink your story to your article’s URL or reference it at the end so your followers know where to go.
Use Stories To Connect Your Accounts
The goal is growth, and stories are a great way to grow your account followers. The majority of social media users have accounts on multiple platforms - that means an Instagram user also has a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest account, etc. Referencing your various social media accounts on your stories can drive audience members who may be following you on just one app to follow all of your pages.
Pro Tip: Teasing an upcoming Facebook event on Instagram is a great way to convert your Instagram followers to Facebook, and vice-versa. Doing this will increase engagement on both sides of the aisle. And due to social media algorithms, growth begets growth. But be sure to instruct your audience on how to follow you - don’t forget to provide the handle or page name for your referenced accounts.
If you aren’t using stories in your business accounts, start today! It’s a great way to up your content marketing strategy. Using the above tips will help you engage with your audience, increase your followers, and grow your business. For more tips on using Instagram to grow your business, check out our post on 5 Tips For Instagram Success.
Still have questions? Give us a call to discuss how BIS Designs can help with your social media and content marketing needs!
Google and social media platforms (like Facebook) continue to change their algorithms, making it increasingly difficult for a company to reach its audience. Stellar Content marketing can help your company jump some of the hurdles. In fact, Google and Facebook often reward companies with great content. That’s why it’s critical for companies to provide valuable and informative content on their website and social media pages.
If you’re struggling to create killer content, follow these tips to help guide you in creating successful content for your company:
Engage with your followers. You’ve probably heard it many times: engagement is crucial for online marketing success. Here’s why:
Establish thought leadership. Position your company as a thought leader that provides valuable resources to its audience. Highlighting yourself as an expert in your industry will draw your audience to you. Instead of going straight to Google for information about your industry, people will start going to your website, blog, and following your social media pages to learn industry trends, tips and tricks, and more.
Keep it fresh. Keep your content fresh by incorporating new and a variety of content for your customers to read and engage with. Consider mixing up your weekly posts with a guest post or a live product/service demo. Be sure to post on special holidays and incorporate seasonal content into your posts. Use catchy images and high-quality graphics to keep your page looking fresh and not like spam. Incorporate monthly themes, where you focus on certain topics each month, educating your audience beyond their expectations about each topic (thought-leadership!).
Be authentic. With the growth of the Internet and social media platforms, it has become increasingly important to be authentic. Advertising your product, service, or company falsely will always come to light through reviews and comments from customers. Your audience is far more informed than you think, and they will call out a scam without hesitation. One of the top influencers on the web, Neil Patel, put it best when he said, “Authentic businesses inspire and prosper”. Neil Patel advises people to be authentic by:
Engage with your followers. Establish thought leadership. Keep it fresh. Be authentic. Each of these tips will help you create a better content marketing strategy to help your company grow. In combination, these tips will help your company soar! So, give it a try, and if you’re still struggling, give us a call! We’re here to help you create content and manage your digital marketing in a way that will capture the attention of your audience.
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Should You Outsource Your Business Blogging?
Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.
About BIS Technology Group
BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design & Digital Marketing, Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit bistechnologygroup.com.
You may reach out to us at: Phone: 251-405-2527 Email: plong@askbis.com
With over 1 billion monthly users, Instagram is the largest and fastest growing social media platform for sharing videos and photos. 60% of users learn about new products directly through Instagram, 70% of users look up a brand on Instagram, more than 200 million users visit a business profile at least once a day, and if you don’t have an active Instagram account, you might be missing out on a lot of business.
According to Forrester, companies that are on Instagram have a 4.21% engagement rate, which is 10x higher than Facebook and 84x higher than Twitter. Whoa! That’s a lot of engagement, and it’s pretty remarkable for something launched only 9 years ago to be growing so quickly.
The importance of having, and maintaining, and Instagram account to reach more customers can no longer be ignored. But, how do you get started? How can your company break through the millions of content being posted to Instagram every day and increase your business? Here are some helpful tips to start implementing today:
1. Start with a Strategy - You have goals for your business, and you should have goals for everything you do in support of your business, including social media. A social media strategy defines how your company will use social media to achieve its communication goals. At the very least, it can be a simple statement of intent, outlining the goals, measurable objectives for using the platform, and the target outcomes you wish to accomplish. It’s critical to start with an Instagram strategy; otherwise you’ll waste precious time and money posting with no end goal in mind, nothing to measure your success, and nothing to improve upon.
2. Upgrade your Instagram account to a business profile – If you don’t already have a business profile for Instagram, it’s pretty easy to set up. First, sign up with a business email so your Instagram profile isn’t linked to your personal Facebook account. Next, follow the prompted instructions on Instagram to enter your account details. After you have completed your account set up, switch to a business profile. Just go to Settings -> Account -> Switch to Business Profile. It will then have you confirm your Facebook business page and update your Instagram account for you.
Upgrading your Instagram account from a personal to a business profile will give you insights into your audience that will help you reach them more effectively. You will be able to see how many people you reach on average, what posts are the post popular, what time of day your followers are most likely to be on Instagram and see your posts, and more. This is very important to guide you in adjusting your strategy for the best results.
3. Know how often and what type of content to post (quality over quantity) – This section could be the most important to your Instagram account success. Knowing how often and what type of content to post can be tricky. However, if followed well, these tips should help your Instagram improve.
The purpose of Instagram is to create visual inspiration for your followers. Therefore, following the rule “Quality over Quantity” is extremely important. It may seem like it’s better to post 3x per day for more engagement and followers. However, if you are posting poor content with low-quality images or videos, you might as well forget it. Utilize your Instagram account to tell the story of your brand in an ascetically pleasing way, even if you only post 2x per week. It’s far better to post less often and have high-quality images and videos than to post more often with low-quality work that will make your company look cheap and turn people off.
The amount of posts you make per week should also be taken into consideration when you are creating a strategy for your social media. You should never approach a week with no plan for your posts, or with a plan in mind to “just post what comes to you” because often times, you’ll get busy and forget to post. Planning monthly and creating a content calendar can help take the stress off of you.
It may surprise you to know, major brands post on Instagram on average 1.5 times per day. You should aim to post 1-3 times per day. An extremely important tip is to utilize your business profile to its full extend by digging into your insights and figuring out when your followers are on Instagram. You can adjust your strategy to post on the days and during the times your followers are most active. For example, if you find most of your followers are extremely active on Wednesdays at 7 AM and 9 PM, you should aim to post every Wednesday at 7 AM and 9 PM to reach the most people.
4. Post User-Generated Content – One of the easiest ways to keep posts running on your Instagram account, or even on your Instagram story, is to post user-generated content (UGC). In fact, 86% of Millennials say that USC is a good indicator of the quality of a brand, and 68% of social media users between the ages of 18 and 14 take into account UGC shared on social media while considering following a brand.
UGC is defined as any type of content that has been created and put out there by unpaid contributors or followers. This refers to images, videos, testimonials, tweets, blog posts, etc… where your followers promote your brand. Followers like UGC because it puts the customer front and center and makes your brand more about them. Just be sure to ask permission from the original poster before reposting.
5. Always add a compelling CTA - CTAs (Call-To-Action) direct people into what they should do after seeing your post. The key is to be as creative as you can in order to make people take action. A few CTAs to consider in your next post: ask people to tag a friend, make a comment, give your company a call, repost your post, fill out forms to get exclusive discounts, etc.
These tips should help your Instagram account improve. But, remember… gaining followers and seeing a ROI takes time. If you need help, the team at BIS Design’s is always here for you! Just give us a call to discuss your needs.
Algorithms: How Each Platform Keeps You Engaged
The social media marketing discussion is now dominated by algorithms – almost everywhere you engage, within almost every platform you use, machine learning and data sorting is used to decide what it is you see.
Now social platforms are in much the same position, which adds a more complex, technical element to the social marketing process.
With this in mind, what do you need to know to ensure you’re on top of the latest social algorithm shifts, and how can you best prepare yourself, and understand the focus of each platform to maximize your business page performance?
Here’s a quick overview of the current state of each platform’s algorithm, based on what I’ve studied of their workings.
FACEBOOK
The most influential social algorithm is Facebook’s. The Social Network was the first to implement an algorithm feed, in response to the flood of spammy posts and junk which had taken over the app as its popularity grew.
Facebook’s algorithm aims to show you the content you’re most likely to engage with – though obviously there’s a lot more to it than that.
To best understand Facebook’s algorithm, you first need to get your head around the basic engagement equation Facebook uses.
Facebook’s News Feed chief, Adam Mosseri, explained this in several webinars, conferences and online publications last year, comparing their selection process to choosing a meal for a friend at a restaurant:
This process, says Mosseri, is essentially utilizing an algorithm within your own head – Facebook’s system simply transfers these though processes to a machine, shifting the same core elements into more technical factors – Inventory, Signals, Predictions and Scores.
Here’s the same calculations with Facebook actions replacing restaurant options:
Facebook rates each post based on your individual usage patterns, which, along with a range of other measures, enable it to come up with a score for each post. That score then dictates where each will appear in your feed.
Sound confusing? Yes, it is. These algorithms change constantly so studying and keeping up with the social channel’s updates are crucial to any business social media marketing plan. In basic terms, Facebook measures the likelihood that you’re going to take a particular action which their data suggests is the most engaging, then shows each story to you based on that probability.
TWITTER
Twitter’s algorithm is less advanced than Facebook’s, but they are putting increased focus on their machine learning efforts to boost engagement.
Users were initially outraged that Twitter would even consider changing to an algorithm, but the data has since shown that the system has helped the platform boost performance – as algorithms have on virtually every platform.
Twitter’s main objective with their algorithm is to show you more content you may be interested in – similar to Facebook, though Twitter is more about showing it to you in addition to the other tweets you might see, as opposed to “instead of”.
Even with an algorithm in place, Twitter can still show you almost every tweet, due to the real time nature of the feed. Nowadays, when you first login into Twitter, you’ll see tweets you may have missed, which are basically the most popular tweets from the people you follow. Twitter has also been working to boost engagement by showing you tweets that people you follow have liked, too.
INSTAGRAM
Instagram is one of the hottest social platforms at the moment for social engagement. They have now also implemented a Facebook-style algorithm. Facebook actually owns both platforms now, so the algorithms are almost exactly the same now. Like Facebook, Instagram’s algorithm is based on your likelihood to engage.
LINKEDIN
Like Twitter, LinkedIn’s algorithm is not as advanced as Facebook’s. A good example of how LinkedIn’s feed algorithm works is their comment sorting tool – LinkedIn recently published an update on how comments are displayed on each post, based on engagement.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many other LinkedIn users, their algorithm needs some work. You’ll often see posts from weeks ago in your feed but they are refining their data, and working to show you more relevant content, slowly but surely.
PINTEREST
The last platform has a constantly evolving algorithm to uncover more relevant Pin matches. Their goal is to keep you searching and their system has been upgraded from its initial matching efforts to better highlight relevant content.
Do you have ideas of how these social platforms might improve their algorithms in the future? Tell us in the comments!
Why Your Business Needs A Paid Facebook Ad Budget
Author: Stephanie May - smay@askbisdesigns.com
If you’ve been keeping up with the national news for the last two weeks, you’ve heard the reports of political campaigns acquiring private data on millions of Facebook users. It has now sparked new questions about how the social media giant protects user information.
First of all, as a business advertising on Facebook, we are all thankful for the data which identifies personalities and buying trends of users. This doesn’t mean people’s personal information like credit cards, social security numbers and other secure information was ever shared via Facebook.
What does it mean?
This all plays a big part in Facebook’s algorithms, which have changed drastically in the last two years. The algorithms now only allow content that you are interested in to be in your newsfeed. To me, this isn’t a bad thing at all. It is a highly intelligent way of keeping users happy and engaged. For businesses, it also makes it more difficult to advertise because you need to pay attention to what users want to see on a daily basis and tailor your content to that audience. Otherwise, your content will go unseen. This is what I do on a daily basis for dozens of business accounts, study trends in order to make sure the business pages are reaching the most customers.
Now, back to Cambridge Analytica. What’s the big deal? The firm offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. This behavior was then, allegedly, used to target voters for the election. This app has since been removed from Facebook but there are reports that the data still exists, so this is why Facebook is being scrutinized.
What kind of information was collected and how was it acquired?
The data included details on users’ identities, friend networks and “likes”. The idea was to map personality traits based on what people had liked on Facebook, and then use that information to target audiences with digital ads.
Researchers in 2014 asked users to take a personality survey and download an app, which scraped some private information from their profiles and those of their friends, activity that Facebook permitted at the time and has since banned.
Facebook has always prohibited this kind of data to be sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker or other advertising service” so the question everyone has been asking is, was Facebook hacked? No one really knows for sure.
What is Facebook doing to fix the situation?
Really, there isn’t much they can do about it at this point. Once the data is out, there isn’t really a way to recall it. They can conduct all the forensic audits they want, but the information will remain out there in some form, and will likely remain useable and indicative. For damage control, Facebook needs to show users that it is improving, learned its lessons and their systems are actually now better for it.
We’ll see in the next year whether or not users pull away from the social giant or whether it will blow over and everyone will go back to using Facebook as usual. As already stated, no sensitive information was really obtained but it is simply a matter of users trusting Facebook to keep up with their social habits without exploiting it for political reasons.
What do you think? Does it bother you that Facebook tracks your likes and, in turn, creates a personality profile of your daily habits in order for businesses to advertise to you? We want to know! Let us know on Facebook!
12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy
Here’s a quick illustration of how SEO works…
Google has developed automatic algorithms that rank your website. They send out what are called “spiders” to “crawl” your site and check it for over 100 indicators that determine whether the website is valuable or useless. These indicators include things like backlinks, domain age, traffic, fresh content, etc.
SEO can be considered the art of making sure those crawling spiders are happy with what they find. It is a very complex field that is always changing but in all that chaos there are a few constants that have remained the same since the beginning.
1. You need your own domain and hosting.
One thing that beginners need to know is that you need your own domain and hosting. Free blog set ups don’t do any favors for your SEO efforts. Why?
People tend to speculate that if you were serious about your website you would get your own name and host it yourself. Google only wants to point to websites that are considered serious and trustworthy and so this is a basic signal.
Starting your own website, hosting and a business blog can seem intimidating but that’s why we’re here. We offer multiple packages to meet your needs, which saves you a lot of time.
2. Problem solving with original content.
Keep in mind that Google’s entire purpose is to provide their customers with relevant and useful search results. Everything they do is built around this goal.
To be realistic, the most important thing you can do for your SEO is create the most useful content that solves people’s problems. If you are solving problems that people are searching for then it is likely that you are going to get shared on social media and ranked higher in Google.
And “original content” means so much more than just blog posts these days. You can expand into:
3. Make sure your theme is SEO optimized.
Think of SEO as having two components: the off-site stuff like social media and backlinks and the on-site stuff like optimizing your theme.
Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site. It also helps Google find your content. Some of the things to keep in mind when optimizing are:
4. Build your social media profiles constantly.
You want to have a big focus on social media for SEO purposes as well as traffic building purposes.
Why?
Because Google is now looking to social media as a signal of an article’s authority and relevance. If people are sharing on Facebook or tweeting about it, you must have written something pretty good. The best way for this to happen is to build a strong following, keep them engaged and they’ll see your blog posts as they are shared.
Commenting and sharing other business blogs is always a great way to build a community and possible cross-promoting opportunities for the future as well.
Are you now ready to get a blog started and make sure your SEO is on the right track? Schedule a meeting and we’ll handle every detail from writing, optimizing your website and sharing to your social media!
Author: Stephanie May
5 Benefits of Business Blogging
Whether you’ve noticed or not, organic traffic on Facebook has dropped – and it’s likely impacting your company in a big way.
There are a few reasons that you need a Facebook advertising strategy and budget. Let’s start with the basics – because Facebook’s algorithm does not make it easy for business pages to succeed on Facebook.
What does the term “Facebook algorithm” actually mean? And how does it work?
Facebook’s algorithm controls who sees the content that you share. It’s not as simple as you posting a status update then Facebook pushing it out to all of your followers. That’s a thing of the past. Not everyone who follows your page will see your posts. Facebook is way more intelligent now. And, there’s a reason for that, but we’ll get into that later.
Adam Mosseri (VP, News Feed at Facebook) puts Facebook’s algorithm in layman’s terms for us. He says he thinks about it like he would when ordering his wife something to eat at a restaurant.
The Facebook algorithm process goes like this:
This process happens on millions of devices countless times each day. And, it’s also the reason why your Facebook business page’s posts aren’t getting as many views as it used to.
This makes a lot of sense when you think about it from a business perspective. The reality is that Facebook is a business. And how does a business like Facebook make money? You guessed it – paid advertising.
So why isn’t your Facebook business page making you money? Because the only way for company pages to succeed on Facebook is through Facebook paid advertising. Facebook’s only real concern is to find ways for more business pages to spend more money. You can’t blame them. Any CEO would do the same thing.
The truth is that social media doesn’t work the way it did in the past.
This is because posts were served in reverse chronological order. In 2009, Facebook changed the algorithm to be based on popularity.
As you might’ve guessed, the Facebook algorithm is changing more frequently than ever. Simply posting on your page every day without a Facebook advertising strategy or budget is a waste of time.
Here’s what you should be using Facebook for –
Facebook Paid Advertising
The new reality is that businesses on Facebook are unlikely to succeed without putting a budget toward Facebook paid advertising. In turn, this requires a Facebook advertising strategy similar to how you would strategize for billboard, radio or TV ads.
When creating a Facebook ad campaign, there are a few key things that you need to consider – like your goals, target audience and the content of your ad. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Facebook ad campaigns can get incredibly detailed and complicated, and the platform itself isn’t exactly user-friendly. We’d love to dive into the specific best practices for executing a Facebook advertising strategy, but that’s a whole other blog.
Its Database
What you’re really doing when you create a Facebook ad campaign, is using Facebook for its extremely extensive database. In other words, you’re using Facebook paid advertising to buy an audience.
Think about all of the millions of people that use Facebook. In fact, Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users according to the company’s website. That’s a lot of people – a lot of people that may be interested in your product or service.
Think about Facebook’s database as an untapped market. You may not have their email or mailing address but you have their Facebook profile.
When you use Facebook paid advertising, you are purchasing access to advertise to millions of people that you otherwise would have had no access to. Even better, you can segment your audience to the specifics of your ideal customer by choosing preferred age, gender, interests, etc. to give you an incredibly high customer value.
Organic Posting 2-5 Times a Week
Just because you realize that Facebook paid advertising is more lucrative than simple sharing updates on your company’s page (otherwise known as organic posting), doesn’t mean that you can give up organic posting altogether.
There’s a huge difference between social marketing and social selling. Social selling is where you can really see the return on your investment, and it includes your Facebook paid advertising strategy that we talked about in this blog post. However, social marketing is also essential.
Other than running Facebook ad campaigns, it’s still very critical to be active on your company page.
Think about this scenario – a highly qualified lead that saw your Facebook ad in their newsfeed now visits your company’s Facebook business page to learn more about you. But, you haven’t posted an update in months because you focused all of your efforts on your Facebook advertising strategy. That scenario isn’t exactly ideal because the customer doesn’t get any added value, in turn stopping their customer journey.
This is why it’s extremely important to pay attention to your Facebook advertising strategy as well as organic posting. It may seem like a lot to balance, which is why marketing companies like us (BIS Designs) are here to ease you into the process.
Fun Fact: Did you know that the average person will spend over five years of their life on social media. WOW! That’s a lot of time spent on Facebook!
The most common question from marketing clients is “How do I get more leads for my business?”
There are plenty of practical methods for generating quality leads. Blogging. Sharing and caring on social Media. Strategic landing pages. Event marketing. Email. Most marketers are using all of these channels and more. So why aren’t the majority of brands drowning in qualified leads?
Research shows that 65% of marketers are still struggling to figure out which content is effective. 60 percent are unable to produce engaging content. Only 23 percent of B2B marketers have moved to a customer-centric organizational structure. A lot of marketers are still missing the mark, using content to appeal to customers, rather than to provide value to customers.
If you want to get more quality leads, you need to do better quality marketing. The trick to doing that is to first step back, in order to move forward. Go back and refine your buyer personas. How can you better meet their preferences and expectations? Look at where you can improve your blog, email and social media content to better serve your audience.
No more bull running in a china shop approach and generating mediocre content and tossing it at your audience. No more throwing dollars at Facebook ads and waiting for the leads to roll in. Here are the hacks that will help you refine and improve your marketing and truly excel at lead generation.
UP YOUR CONTENT GAME
You should always be on the quest to enhance the type of content you are using. Content marketing goes far beyond blog posts. Consider investing more so you can deliver a premium level of content.
Your content should be engaging and “pretty”. All photos should be of great quality, captions should be short but interesting. Ever notice how television commercials use a short amount of time to catch your attention? The attention span of the average human is not very long, so you need to catch their attention with your graphics, photos and captions on social media within a glance. Blogs and email campaigns need to have clear and concise titles or subject lines.
SIMPLIFY YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN
Dynamic isn’t always a good thing when it comes to trying to get across a message. With website design, the more complex, the bigger disaster you may have on your hands.
Keep your website design clear and to the point. That doesn’t mean you can’t be creative. It does mean avoid excess text, confusing visuals and too many concepts. What you do what is a clear message and navigation bar. Lots of white space. Use website real estate for the essentials for getting leads, like forms and contact info.
You don’t want your design to scream when a prospect lands on your site.
BETTER PERSONALIZE YOUR EMAILS
How are your email open-rates? Small businesses get around a 2 to 3 percent open-rate percentage, and larger companies get closer to 10 percent or even more. Overall, the average hovers around 4 percent.
The goal should be to improve your email rates to help get more leads. How to do it? A simple trick is to use more personalized messaging. With the style and tone expectations of your target audience in mind, see if your emails make more of an impact with a more conversational tone. Try adding an image in the closing signature – a staff member whose name is on the emails. Use names and first person tone of voice in the subject line, greetings, and closings. Segment your emails with your marketing software to ensure the right people are getting the right messaging depending on where they are in the sales funnel.
Research has shown that personalization leads to six times higher email transaction rates. Worth a shot!
KEEP REFINING
You don’t necessarily need to revolutionize your marketing strategy to get more leads. You may see the results you’re after simply by making a few changes or trying new techniques. Try these hacks. Measure their impact. Then keep making them better. You’ll get more leads as long as you continually prime your marketing for the people you’re trying to reach. For more tips and to hire a team of marketing professionals to handle this part of your business for you – contact our office.