Here is a very simple message: Facebook can support your local business. If you are still reading you are probably not entirely convinced of that point. So, read on, if you would, and let me present to you the evidence for that assertion.
Long before we called marketing ‘marketing’, businesses used to ‘market’ their goods and services that they sold. That has always happened; today we just dress it up with a name. The aim of marketing is a very simple one (and notice I said aim, not aims), and it is this: providing something that satisfies customers’ needs. Have you ever thought why it’s called marketing? Quite simply it’s called that because to satisfy customer needs buyers (customers) and sellers (businesses) have to be brought together in a market so that money can be exchanged for goods or services. Of course, today that market does not need to be a physical one, but it may still be a local one involving local businesses and local consumers.
And this is where Facebook comes in. This is a social medium that has become one of the most powerful marketing tools that we have in the modern economy. Used wisely, the benefits for local companies are incalculable. What follows are just three of the many ways that providers of local goods and services can take advantage of Facebook marketing.
Establish Your Facebook Presence
If your business does not yet have a social media presence there is no better place to start than Facebook. Setting up an account is free and fairly straightforward. You first choose the category that your business falls into, give yourself a name, write a little about yourself and give yourself a logo and a picture or two and that’s that.Now you are ready to harness the power of one of the big guns of online marketing.
Your Facebook page opens up a whole host of marketing opportunities. You can customise your page so that it will reflect the individual personality of your business. You are effectively establishing your brand that speaks to your customers. And it allows you to tap in to those local links. For example, if you are a florist you might post a photograph or even a video about the flower display in the local park.
Facebook Advertising
With a Facebook Advert, you can target your audience and set your budget for the campaign. You can target your audience by such variables as age, gender, education, interests and, importantly, location. You can also simultaneously run different versions of your advert to determine which version performs best.
One of the things you want to do with your Facebook page is to encourage people to like it. The equation is a simple one. The greater the number of people who like your page, the greater the number of people who are going to get to know about you: and the greater the number of people who know about you, the greater the number of potential customers. Therefore, one thing you might consider is to run an advertisement with the sole purpose of getting more people to like your page.
Sponsored Stories
Once you’ve had your Facebook page up and running for a while and started to get quite a few likes you might consider running with a sponsored story. The idea behind this marketing tool is quite simple. You’ve got a few people who like you and they will be talking positively about you. A sponsored story allows you to tap into this and publicize more widely what is being said by allowing those positive comments to appear on your page for a longer period of time.
Say you have a restaurant and someone posts a comment on your page about the amazing dining experience they had last night. That will automatically appear in the news feeds of the friends of that person. That’s great but those friends might miss it, such is the fast moving world of social media.A sponsored story keeps that comment there for longer.
So, Facebook can support your local business. We’ve looked at just three ways that this can be done but there are many more. Marketing is about satisfying customer needs: Facebook gives you a very powerful tool for achieving this very simple aim.
Author Bio:
Stella is a social media consultant for Rank Local‘s local SEO marketing services, she likes to experiment new things through social media.
