How to Market Your Business on Facebook for Free!

Let’s be clear; free Facebook marketing was a thing of the past! Today, Facebook is a pay-to-play marketing platform. But it is still an important marketing tool, especially for B2C businesses.

Despite all groaning over this development and all the noise about companies suspending their ads on Facebook, marketer and business owners are still using it to market! Why is that so?

Facebook has 2.74 billion monthly active users and reaches 59% of the world’s social networking population. The fastest-growing region for Facebook is the Middle East and Africa (13.6%).

As one of the most visited websites globally, it is an essential tool for engaging their customers and attracting new ones. Through this social network, smart entrepreneurs, marketers and even politicians have discovered a treasure trove of demographic data!

Many organisations often use their Facebook page as the central hub for their entire social media marketing presence because they know potential customers are already looking for their business.

Therefore, many business owners and marketers still invest in a smart Facebook marketing strategy to connect with their existing and potential customers. Thus the social network continues to be the reigning champ of social media.

Are you looking to boost your Facebook Page’s visibility for free? Read on to see proven ways to promote Facebook Pages for free so that you can expand your reach and get more customers from the social network. This article will provide answers to the following important frequently asked questions I get asked often.

How do I promote my business on Facebook?
How can I promote my business on Facebook for free?
How much does it cost to promote my business on Facebook?
How do I brand my business on Facebook?

Disclaimer: Please do not judge this post on how our own Facebook page is performing. I know our page needs a lot of TLC. 🙂

How Do I Promote My Business on Facebook?

If you’re serious about promoting your business on Facebook, the first thing you must do before anything else is to have a business page. Having a Facebook business page makes it easier for people to discover and interact with your brand online.

I cringe whenever I see people using their personal profiles instead of Facebook Pages to promote their business. It’s 2021 people! Stop it!

So let me run down the steps to create your business page.

Steps to Create Your Free Facebook Business Page

Step 1: Sign up for a free business page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/create and follow the prompts.

Step 2: Upload profile and cover photos for your page.

Step 3: Create your username, aka your vanity URL. This is the link you will give people to visit your page.

Step 4: Follow the prompts to add your business details by clicking “Edit Page Info” on the top menu.

Step 5: Create your first post!

That’s it! You’re done creating your Facebook business page.

But as mentioned before, Facebook is now a pay to play social network. So if you want to promote your business on Facebook, I recommend using their organic promotion tools to boost your post or create an ad that will send people to your website. To do so, follow these steps below:

On your Facebook business Page, select Promote.
Choose a goal.
Choose your ad creative.
Create your audience.
Set your budget.
Set the duration.
Review your payment method.
Submit your ad.

To learn more about each of these steps and see detailed instructions, click here.

According to Facebook, in promoting your Page, remember:

It will introduce you to people who may be interested in your business.
Once they “like” your Page through your ad, they may see your content updates in their regular News Feed.
Pick an audience, duration and budget that fit the goals of your promotion.

How Can I Promote My Business on Facebook for Free?

I know I’ve said it often that the days of free Facebook marketing are over; I don’t mean that you should stop posting to your brand’s page!

While it’s true that your company’s Facebook posts most likely won’t show up in your audience’s news feeds without paying to promote them, there are still some powerful ways your business can leverage Facebook for free.

Join Facebook Groups

There is a difference between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. There are many Facebook groups dedicated to various industries, professions, and interests. Find the one that relates to your business or industry and join using your personal account. Be sure to take part in discussions in these groups and engage with other people’s content. Remember, the more helpful you are in engaging and promoting other group member’s content, the more they will reciprocate in kind.

Create Your own Group

I know this may sound like additional stress, but some business owners have found success in creating their own group around their business or brand. Invite your employees and loyal customers and fans to join your group. You can even make it a closed group whereby only members can see the posts in the group. In this way, you can discuss freely with members and exchange ideas on the way forward for you and your customers.

List Your Events

Because of the pandemic, most events are now virtual, and this type of content is getting prominence of many social networks. So list your events well in advance to be sure that people will attend.

Syndicate Your Blog

Did you know that there are various digital marketing software and social media automation tools that will automatically post each new blog post to your Facebook page for you? This translates to more exposure, traffic and leads for your business. But in automating your social media channels, you need to exercise caution with anything automated. Don’t just set it and forget it. It would be best if you were on top of things to avoid any nasty surprises.

Ask Your Network to Share Your Blog Posts

If you have an extensive network of friends on Facebook that you actively engage daily, ask them to share your blog posts! This will help you get more exposure, traffic, and leads for your business. But if you don’t have an enormous network of friends, be wary of asking them to share your blog posts so that you don’t end up hitting up the same people repeatedly. So that they don’t get fed up and block you! 🙂

Reach out

Is there anyone in your industry that you admire their work? Are any of your customers doing great things that you want to commend and encourage them? You can reach out to them and like or comment on their posts. Depending on how close you are with the person, you can also send a DM. With time they may return the favour by engaging with your page content too! But as with everything, do so with caution so that you don’t give the impression that you are a stalker.

Stream live video with Facebook Live

Facebook is actively promoting its Facebook Live product. And video content is the rage these days on social media. So if you are the type who likes to be in front of the camera, then stream live video of your business’s behind-the-scenes using Facebook Live. These types of content get lots of organic reach and engagement on Facebook.

Create a community

One of the fundamental goals of marketing your business on social media is to create a community around your business. Your community comprises anyone who has a vested interest in your business, e.g. your co-founders, stakeholders, members of your board of directors, employees, customers, and your fans and followers on social media. Facebook provides the tools and platform for you to create a community around your brand. Doing so will ultimately translate to more exposure, traffic, and leads for your business.

How Much Does It Cost to Promote My Business on Facebook?

As with most things in marketing, the brief answer is, it depends! Several factors go into advertising on Facebook, such as.

Your Ad Objective, e.g. are you looking to create awareness, consideration or conversion?
Your Bidding Method and the Amount, e.g. CPC (Cost-per-Click) or CPM (Cost-per-Million). Each one has a different effect on your ad cost.
Your Audience: There are over 350 audience attributes to select and combine.
Your Ad Quality and Relevance: Your ads must be able to pique a user’s interest, invoke their emotions or jolt them into action.
Your Industry: The industry you’re in and the product you’re selling has a lot to do with your ad cost.

It will take years to master and perfect your technique to get the best ROI from your Facebook advertising. So it often frustrates many business owners when they don’t get any tangible results from their advertising.

These things are a complicated science that most business owners don’t have the time or patience to master! So they squander their advertising budget with little or nothing to show for it. Therefore, I recommend you hire someone who knows how to do it.

How Do I Brand My Business on Facebook?

Use your Facebook Pages to give your business its own presence on Facebook. These Facebook Pages give your business an identity on Facebook, which strengthens your brand. Use your business logo as the primary photo for your Page, pick a cover photo that is attractive and showcases what your business does.

Be professional, friendly and courteous with your posts. Post lots of videos, especially live videos. Video posts get much more attention from the viewer, and Facebook’s algorithm promotes those posts more in their News Feed.

Posts’ timing is crucial because Facebook’s algorithm only promotes your post organically to your fans/followers only if it gets likes and comments quickly. But don’t obsess about this because they tweak the algorithm to demote posts from Pages in the News Feed. As mentioned above, these days, you must pay to boost your posts in the News Feed.

Every post you make should be well thought out. Focus on how it will build your brand and increase interactions – and keep your friends wanting to see more from you. Therefore steer clear of politics and religion. I avoid these topics like the plague and often advise my clients to do the same.

Familiarise yourself with your Facebook Insights. It contains a treasure trove of data about your followers that you can use to improve your brand’s positioning.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it! These are the proven ways to market your business on Facebook for ‘free’. Use these tips to expand your reach to your target audience and get more customers from the social network. Contact us if you have any more questions or you need help. I’d be glad to help.

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