Chapter 4: The Basics of Facebook

    While many of us are already on Facebook with our own personal accounts there is still so much to learn! The vast tools and tricks are only amplified when dealing with a business Facebook account. If you deal with any level of social media marketing, whether you rely on organic reach or pay for target ads, then you need to know how to fully utilize Facebook as an advertising platform. 

    Why is Facebook so important? Besides being the most popular social media platform Facebook has an average of 2.9 billion users every month and generates an ad revenue of $48.68 billion. The platform offers wide access to consumers with 70% of users visiting the platform once a day and 49% of users visiting multiple times a day. Those numbers don't include how long users spend on the Facebook each time they visit. Because there is so much opportunity for reach Facebook is a must-have in your social media marketing mix. Below are a couple of things that you can do to get the most out of your account. 

Setting Up Your Account

    1. Completely fill out your account information. This includes your company name, profile picture, cover photo, description, address and contact information. Users are more likely to interact with an account that looks put together and professional. Be sure to create your account with your brand's image and ideal in mind. You want your social media account to fully reflect your brands values to best attract your target audience. 

    2. Customize your page settings. After your account is all set up you need to look over and customize the settings for your Facebook account. These settings can include reviews, tagging ability, age restrictions, translations and more features that can make your platform more effective. 

    3. Create your Facebook Shop. If your store is able to sell its products online, then a Facebook Shop is an excellent resource! Facebook Shops are free platforms provided by both Facebook and Instagram that allow users to browse and shop from a company's online catalog. If your business has a strong social media presence a Facebook Shop could significantly contribute to your overall revenue.

    4. Become Meta Verified. Meta Verification is not just so you can get a fancy checkmark at the end of your business name. In addition to the verified badge Meta provides services such as increased impersonation protection, increased visibility and organic reach as well as other features that can help your brand stand out.

Utilizing Facebook Advertising

     1. Establish your tone. While this may seem like an obvious thing to do it's still important for the success of your page. By creating a consistent tone and personality for your page you establish a behavioral expectation that your audience has for you. This can help establish trust and brand loyalty.

    2. The rule of thirds and the 80/20 rule. These refer to the type of content that you post and how often you post it. Audiences typically get annoyed when all a brand does is post promotional material and will eventually either ignore future posts or unfollow the page all together. A good way to moderate your content is using one of these two methods. The rule of thirds recommends that 1/3 of content posted should promote the business, 1/3 should be shared from other businesses and 1/3 should be based on personal interactions between employees, customers and social media followers. The 80/20 rule states that only 20% of posts should be used to promote the business while 80% of the content posted should educate, entertain or offer a solution.

    3. Optimize Facebook's advertisement settings. Facebook Ads Manager and Facebook Targeting Options are two great tools to use to get the most out of your advertisements. The targeting options allow you to specify your advertisement reach based on location, age, gender, languages and even more detailed targeting options.

    4. Track advertisement success. Even though you may see an increase in sales after you begin advertising on Facebook it's important that you track which advertisements are the most successful and take audience feedback into account. The Meta Business Suite is a great tool to use and can also be extremely beneficial to the overall functioning of your Facebook page.

Hopefully, by utilizing these features available to you in Facebook you are able to increase the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy. Of course, Facebook can't do all the heavy lifting and you will still have to create an engaging and appropriate content strategy, engage with consumers and keep up with current trends to stay relevant. However, by utilizing your page to its full potential you're bound to have a positive outcome.