Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook – by Facebook

Five guiding principles to create a Facebook strategy that is social by design, increases traffic and sales by amplifying the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth.

At Facebook, everything they do is about making the world more open and connected. This has a profound impact on the way people communicate and interact. They are continually developing authentic ways for people to connect with one another as well as with the businesses, brands and institutions they care about, both on Facebook and across the web.

Facebook allows marketers to stay connected with people throughout their day whether they are on their computers or mobile devices, at home or at work, watching TV or shopping with friends. This allows businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth.

Connecting with people is just the beginning. In the Guide you will find best practices for reaching your businesses objectives on Facebook

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Social Media - Is it really free?

In today’s world, where nothing comes for free, it’s amazing to find so many social media sites offering their services at no cost. There is no fee for signing up with sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. But is it really true? Is it true that marketing campaigns through social media cost less and that it has come up as the most economical yet efficient platform for reaching out to audiences? Let’s find out the truth behind this happy scene.

It sounds too good to be true... Market your product for free on social media! This is how the larger picture appears but on closer look it becomes quite apparent that there are certain costs involved in using social media space. Social media is far from free. It’s true that signing up for an account with social media sites cost no money but the amount of time employees spend in maintaining those accounts to gain a foothold in a social media community translates into real cost. Organizations usually fail to account for the significant amounts of time that is given for planning and executing a social media program.

If an employee was to maintain a regular blog as part of social media marketing, then just imagine how much will be the cost of that person's time? This is something no organisation accounts for. Although social media-based marketing and product development programs are helpful in providing an insight into customers psyche, but again, the time spent in tracking applicable KPIs (key performance indicators) and interacting with customers’ adds up to the real cost, proving that social media is not free.

Till now, personal and official use of internet was clearly defined. But with social media, this fine line has become vague as it is both used in personal as well as professional capacity. This is because social media revolves around connected people and not any specific location. For all you know, an employee might be chatting to his friend when he is supposed to be interacting with a customer!

It’s all about the man hours that a team spends to attain success with the social media site that make sup the hidden cost associated with social media. One gets to hear about the free tools offered by social media sites that help companies connect to new people but no one actually consider the time that is spent in the whole process.

Social media-based marketing and product development programs also require research and planning. One has to carefully plan and give time to engage and truly interact with a community. This also requires prior research to decide which communities one needs to be active in. All this time spent is actually taken from employees’ time. Again this time is never accounted for!

Most of the tools offered by facebook, twitter and other social media sites are free but there is a hidden cost in terms of your employees’ time. When using any tool, you are required to both monitor and measure it. This means -unaccountable time. So, the underlying truth is that social media does involve cost in terms of the time spent in being active on it.

Facebook Techniques of Marketing

From being a mere networking site used by college students for sharing pictures to a business- networking platform used for self-promotion, advertising and multimedia interaction, Facebook has grown beyond expectation. The high volume of traffic that Facebook receives on a daily basis makes it an important marketing tool for generating tons of traffic. It is a sure short way of reaching the precise audience through relevant targeted ads.

What makes Facebook a favoured marketing tool among businesses is the endless ways in which one can advertise their business for free here. With many new applications and add-ons, Facebook allow its users to advertise their businesses through social ads and more. The tools make it possible for businesses to easily tap into the Facebook crowd with some high-profile advertising. What is needed is creativity along with a deep understanding of the opportunities offered by Facebook to make optimum use of these applications for ones own benefit.

It must be understood that marketing in a social community takes a little different approach than marketing in other contexts. One thing that must always be remembered is that what ever you do never offend a community of facebook! Once you loose your trust, it’s difficult to win it back. This is a continuously growing community with almost 46 million members, with a growth rate of 3% a week. For figures, almost all of my friends and relatives are on facebook! Don’t let this vast sea of customers go by.

To start with, create an impressive and informative profile page. This is a great way to brand yourself or your business. But remember, that a profile page is not where you can promote your product or service. Just try and create a likable page that talks about you and your ideologies.

Once profile is ready, you need to add friends with same interests to your profile. You can also try to add friends from the same industry that you belong to. This will give you an exposure and link you with right people for your business growth. Getting attention of prospective customers can be a tough task. You can do this by putting links to articles you’ve written.

Joining a Facebook Group can get you immediate response. There are all kinds of groups active on facebook. Choose the one that suits you and your product and use this platform to share information with others. You can text-message other members, send them emails, comment on their profiles or contact them too.

Another great way to target advertising to a specific demographic is by buying an ad on Facebook. Called Facebook Flyers Basic, the tool helps you to create banner-like advertising on networks. You can also use Flyers Pro, a cost-per-click advertising program that works through keyword searches just like Google AdWords does.

Facebook is no doubt a very powerful platform that can be used to get your brand, product, service, or business mainstream. With millions of users online from college students to housewives you can truly get your business out there.