Facebook has become the largest social media network in the world. How can you get started using this social media platform to promote your business?
Facebook is a free service that allows businesses to create Pages and Facebook Groups where they can share information about their company and interact with customers. The social platform also offers promotion and analytics tools to help companies manage their page and reach out to potential clients.
You can start promoting your business on Facebook for free. All you need is a personal profile and a business account. Once you’ve created both, you’ll be able to start posting updates, uploading photos, creating ads, and connecting with other businesses.
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, marketers 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, engaging its customers and attracting new monthly users is essential. Intelligent entrepreneurs, marketers, and politicians have discovered a treasure trove of demographic data through this social network!
Many organisations often use their Facebook page as the central hub for their entire social media marketing presence because they know prospective customers are already looking for their business.
Therefore, many business owners and marketers still invest in a smart Facebook marketing strategy to connect with 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.
In this article, I’ll show you how to use Facebook ads to promote your business for ‘free’ – or next to nothing. This article will answer the following important frequently asked questions I get asked often.
- Why Should You Be Using Facebook Ads?
- The Basics of Facebook Advertising?
- How to Set Up a Facebook Ad Campaign?
- How to Create a Facebook Ad?
- 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.
Let's be clear; free Facebook marketing was a thing of the past! Today, Facebook is a pay-to-play marketing platform. Click To TweetWhy Should You Be Using Facebook Ads?
Facebook ads can help businesses get more visibility for their valuable content and boost traffic to their core website content – cornerstone site content, simple ad copy, or blogs. Facebook ads can be set up to target more significant site traffic, more impressions, and even click-through rate (CTR).
How to Set Up a Facebook Ad Campaign?
The following are the basic steps in setting up a Facebook advertising campaign to reach your target audience:
- Choose your objective.
- Name your campaign.
- Set your budget and schedule.
- Target your audience.
- Choose your Facebook ad placements.
- Set brand safety and cost controls.
- Create your ad.
How to Create a Facebook Ad?
Here’s how to create a Facebook ad:
- Choose your objective.
- Select your target audience.
- Decide where to run your ad.
- Set your budget.
- Pick a format.
- Place your order.
- Measure and manage your ad.
How Do I Promote My Business on Facebook?
If you’re serious about promoting your business on Facebook, you must have a business page before anything else. 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 social media profiles instead of Facebook Pages to promote their business. It’s the twenty-first century, people! Stop it!
So let me run down the steps to create your business page. Remember you must have a personal social media account on the platform before doing this.
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.
Click here to learn more about these steps and see detailed instructions.
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 your promotion goals.
How Can I Promote My Business on Facebook for Free?
I know I’ve often said 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. Many Facebook groups are dedicated to various industries, professions, and interests. It’s like subscribing to an email list or email newsletter. Find the one related to your business or industry and join using your account. Be sure to participate in discussions in these groups and engage with other people’s content. Remember, the more helpful you engage and promote other group members’ content, the more they will reciprocate in kind.
Create Your Group
This may sound like additional stress, but some business owners have successfully created groups around their business or brand. Invite your employees, loyal customers, and fans to join your Facebook 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 virtual, and this type of content is becoming prominent on many social networks. So list your events well in advance to ensure that people will attend.
Syndicate Your Blog
Did you know that various digital marketing software and social media automation tools will automatically post each new blog post to your Facebook page? 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 with 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 a massive network of friends, be wary of asking them to share your blog posts so that you don’t hit the same people. So that they don’t get fed up and block you!
Reach out
Is there anyone in your industry that you admire for 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. You can also send a DM depending on how close you are to the person. They may return the favour with time by engaging with your page content too! But as with everything, do so with caution, so 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 with 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 that 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 have much 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 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. Therefore, I recommend you hire someone who knows how to do it.
A Facebook Page gives your business an identity on Facebook, strengthening your brand. Click To TweetHow Do I Brand My Business on Facebook?
Use your Facebook Pages to give your business its presence on Facebook. These Facebook Pages give your business an identity on Facebook, strengthening 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 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, you must pay to boost your posts in the News Feed these days.
Every post you make should be well thought out. Focus on how it will build your brand, 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
In conclusion, using Facebook advertising is a great way to improve your marketing efforts and reach potential clients without spending much money. And with our tips, you’ll be able to create effective campaigns quickly and easily.
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 market and get more customers from the social network.
There are other ways to improve your marketing efforts that we have not mentioned in this article, such as influencer marketing, writing a guest post, Google My Business, Facebook Messenger and Google Search. All these can be used to build your online community and improve your engagement rate.
Contact us if you have more questions or need help with digital marketing, search engine optimization or social media marketing. We’ll be glad to help.
Related Article(s)
- How to Market on Social Media
- How to Market your Small Business on a Shoestring Budget
- Digital Marketing Questions and Answers
- How to Use Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for Marketing
- Digital Marketing Tricks Business Owners Should Know About
- Reaching Your Target Audience Through Social Media
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