5 Ways to Grow Your Business with Facebook

This week, I thought I would spend some time offering 5 things you can do on different social platforms to grow your business. Today, we are all about Facebook. We are going to assume that you have only a personal Facebook account and then offer five things you can do to grow your business. Some are elementary. Others are more advanced.

Start A Business Page

If you do not already have a business page, start one. Facebook has gotten a lot of grief lately about forcing business page owners to pay to reach their audience. Some have opted to set up personal accounts in order try to boost their reach. This is a big mistake. You are going to miss out on a lot of great FB features if you try this. Our advice is to create business page. It is very easy, just head to Facebook’s Business Page Creation Tool. Begin by choosing a classification that best describes your business. If you are a local business, there are some local SEO advantages. I encourage you to use that classification. However, if this does not fit your organization, do not use it. Then fill out the profile information completely.

Create a Visual Content Strategy

One of the biggest trends in social media marketing today is visual content. Facebook is a very visual platform. Here are some pieces of advice for your pictures. Your profile picture is the square photo on the left side of the screen. It is critical because it shows up every time someone searches for you or when you engage with prospects and customers. It has to look good at its normal size and a greatly reduced size. This photo should have a logo and your company name. The next photo is the cover photo. That can be something graphical or can include some promotional text. We recommend that you change your cover photo often to keep visitor engaged. Finally, remember that since the platform is so visual, you should always include a photo with your posts.

Invite your Personal Network

This may sound stupid but people often forget to ask their friends to get involved with their company. If you are a small business owner, your friends and family will support you. They will share your page and news with their friends, if you ask. Facebook includes a tool to automatically ask your friends to like the page. If you don’t have enough friends in your personal network, you can use Facebook’s robust people search engine to find people according to a number of criteria. Check it out.

Lead Generation on Facebook

Your competitors probably have a Facebook page. There are some cool things you can do to build your audience based on their pages. You can type any of the following phrases, followed by the name of the page, and you will get some interesting results. Imagine the possibilities…

• People who visited [Boxless Media] requires check-ins
• Friends of people who visited [Boxless Media] requires check-ins
• Favorite pages of people who visited [Boxless Media] requires check-ins
• People who like [Boxless Media]
• Friends of people who like [Boxless Media]
• People who live in [Chicago, IL]
• People who like [Social Media] and live in [Chicago, IL]
• People who are [single] and like [Social Media] and like in [Chicago, IL]

Imagine the possibilities… (for extra emphasis).

Try Advertising… You Can Afford It.

As someone who has been in advertising and marketing for more than 15 years, I can tell you that Facebook advertising has changed the game in ads. Why? Because the audience is there. With 1.28 billion users worldwide, your audience is there. Because you can target the exact audience that you are looking for. If you reach those people with the right content, you can achieve some amazing results. The beauty of Facebook advertising is that you don’t have to be a billion dollar company to get results. You can do it with a few bucks a day or week. As you get results, increase your budget. If you need help, there are companies, like Boxless Media, that specialize in reaching people with the right content. Contact one.

Facebook has received so much negative press over the last 9 months since they changed their newsfeed algorithm but there is so much power. People need to stop focusing on the negative and really focus on the unbelievable power that remains.