Facebook started off as a platform for university students to connect, and it has, since then, evolved into something that can bring your business all the way to the next level. With over 36 million active users in the UK alone, this platform is the #1 social media app used by businesses as it provides a ton of different tools and features which are cost-effective and is excellent for running marketing and sales campaigns.
In this hyper-connected and digital age, investing in social media such as Facebook helps develop a brand’s image and market its products. The best part is that it’s completely free to access and for ads, the cost will ultimately work around your budget.
The question now is – how can I use Facebook for my UK business to grow? The platform is rich with features that are made readily available and has an algorithm that helps with targeting your audience and analysing consumer behaviour. Facebook serves as a powerful tool to meet marketing and sales goals, but that would ultimately depend on how you manage your social media account and maximise its available features.
Build an Audience and Long-term Relationships
36 million users in the UK and a billion more all over the world. Getting Facebook for your business, whether big or small, is perfect for building an audience you could bring your brand to. With Facebook’s detailed targeting, it can help you set a specific criterion and specify what group of people you can show your ads to. With this, you’re able to target people that will be interested in what you have to offer. Essentially, you now have the power to reach out beyond your own email database and look into the different insights and information to target audiences depending on their behaviour.
An even crazier thing is that Facebook has its very own life event targeting. Think about it, if you’re a cake/food catering business, you would want to target those who’s birthdays are coming up or those that are planning a wedding and because Facebook’s tools are powerful and smart enough, this can be made possible.
Now, getting page likes isn’t enough. You actually need to centralise information and engage with your followers to convert them into paying customers. And since Facebook gives you enough space to create and build a more sustainable strategy, you can build engagement with your target audience and show them how your brand can make a difference in their lives.
Share Necessary Information About Your Business
For smaller businesses who can’t afford to have a website built, a Facebook Business page is perfect for you to share relevant information about your business such as your business name, address, contact details, and also your products and/or services. In fact, with Facebook’s e-commerce platform, you can even sell your products on your respective Facebook pages and seamlessly transact with your customers in the comforts of your own mobile device.
Increase Website Traffic
Another way to use your Facebook business page is to drive more traffic to your website. By using click funnels or creating landing pages linked on your Facebook page, you can use them to drive organic traffic to your site. After all, you’re a business owner and not just an entertainer. If you’re getting engagement on your posts, you might as well use that as leverage to drive them to your website and convert them to paying customers.
Posting website links on your Facebook Business page is an essential part of any content strategy since it will help with your website’s SEO and help people find you better.
Get a Step Ahead of Your Competition
Your Facebook business page also allows you to do some competitor research and see what they’ve been doing to get ahead in their business. Through this, you can get better get insights on how best to approach your marketing strategy. Aside from that, knowing your competitor behaviour will help you build unique and more effective ads and campaigns to improve your odds of generating more leads and converting more of these leads.
As they say, competition drives brands to perform better. With all these tools available for you, you can easily monitor your competitor’s actions and how each of their campaigns can potentially affect yours or how you can achieve a better campaign than they do.
Offer Customer Support
Your Facebook Business page can also act as your direct contact for your customers due to its live chat feature in the form of Facebook’s messenger platform. As we all know, converting leads isn’t the end of the work because nurturing your converted leads and ensuring they become loyal customers and/or clients is essential.
With a Facebook business page, you can efficiently address client questions and concerns. When your customers feel prioritised no matter how small the problem or concern is, it builds brand loyalty. After all, if you’re perfectly happy with how you’re current purchase and the associated company is treating you, why find another provider, right?
You gain social media trust when you quickly respond and/or resolve queries and complaints posted on your Facebook page. Because of that, these users are more likely to be loyal to your business.
Wait, there’s more!
Despite its popularity, the features and tools provided on Facebook aren’t always appropriately utilised. At first, the platform can be overwhelming, considering how there are so many tools and features you can use. Because of this, it’s critical you, as marketers or business owners, delve and familiarise yourself with the different tools which can be used to help your business grow on Facebook. The best part is, Facebook also offers a platform where you can drive all your marketing efforts in one centralised location. This is in the form of Facebook Business Manager.
This low-cost and high performing tool can help you achieve your marketing goals, especially when you know how to use the platform correctly. When you build your strategy, you must know the targeted audience and from there, create personas for your ideal customers. Once you’re able to specify your primary focus, Facebook’s tools and the algorithm will do the rest and bring your content to the right people.
