7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Content marketing Strategy

            So you have a local business and everyone said you just have to have a Facebook page! Now you have one but the only likes you have are from friends and family and maybe a few loyal customers… What did you do wrong? Isn’t it supposed to be automatic? Should likes, followers and leads just be pouring in by now? Having a facebook (or any social media page) is a marketing campaign all by itself and so it requires a specific marketing strategy like any other campaign. You need to know who your looking to reach, how to reach and engage them and just as importantly-A COURSE OF ACTION! This blog will give you the general strategy that will guide you from setup to upkeep and everything in between!

7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Content marketing Strategy

1.                   

                  Determine your image and or message and stick with it! You will have to generate content on a regular basis to keep your followers (once you find them) interested, reading and sharing your content. DO NOT JUST POST PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL! Your readers do not want to see one coupon or ploy after another which is the most direct route to get dropped! 2:5 should be the formula you follow, for every 2 posts of promo you do 5 more of other content you think your readers would fancy. Use humor and wit if appropriate, but keep it in some way related to what you want your businesses image to resemble. 2:5 should also be followed when determining how often you should post, you need to constantly add content to remain relevant so be sure to post around 2 times every 5 days.

2.       

                   Design your Facebook page! DO NOT ALLOW YOUR PAGE TO BE GENERIC! People aren’t interested in boring pages, it makes you look phony! Put the time, energy and money into the page and it will return the favor. Make it look professional and follow a specific color scheme with your cover image and your profile image. Choose a template that is intriguing and KEEP ON TOP OF YOUR CONTENT!

3.      

                   Integrate your Facebook page! Integrate your Facebook page (and campaigns) into ABSOLLUTELY EVERYTHING! Put FB posters up in the storefront with the Facebook page prominently displayed, use QR codes to make it easy for them to find you, incorporate links on your homepage, digital ads, add the FB Page to your business cards and promotional material (if you have old promo material without the FB page-it would make great kindle for the fire!), initiate marketing campaigns to encourage followers with promotions.

4.       

                    Use the Facebook ad tool! The Facebook Ad tool is so incredibly easy to use but TAKE YOUR TIME WHEN SETTING IT UP! You do it wrong and not only will it be an expensive mistake but most of the money you just spent will be wasted (not to mention you won’t know where you made the mistake and will most likely chock it up to the tool itself and not the tool that set it up!) Facebook has by far the most information on each of its users than any other ad or marketing firm so use it to your advantage! You can set the demographic by interest, location, age, gender, relationship status, employment, etc. Go thru the campaign with a fine tooth comb and be sure to set up your key audience carefully. You can also set up your ads to show at specific times, so if your key demographic is for school children for example you obviously don’t want to run the ad before 3:00 pm or after 9:00 pm. It provides apps for contests, giveaways and other incentives to build your following-use them! Be smart about it and you will love this tool!

5.       

                   Utilize the Promoted Posts! Once you have generated a decent following (a few hundred followers/likes) start to use the promoted posts on both the promo posts and the “puff” material. Facebook uses an “Edge Rank Algorithm” which will automatically limit the views of your posts by itself so of the 2-3 posts you generate a week most of your followers will probably only see one of them and you won’t know which one so the promoted posts is a good tool to use once in a while to be sure the message is received.

6.       

                 Add Media to your page! It is a proven fact the media (images or video) will be shared and commented on the most so whenever possible add short videos of you and your staff or professionally produced marketing material, images of your products or services and also like I mentioned earlier other media that is NOT promo material. Use “puff” media as well to engage your following, people aren’t going to share everything you post-they may not share any of it, but if you post something worth sharing make sure there is a link back to your facebook page with it!

7.     

                                    KEEP UP ON YOUR PAGE! Use analytics to see what works and what doesn’t. Reinvent your page every few months, regenerate new ads every few weeks, and add new content every week! Keep referring back to this list and consistently keep your FB image fresh! Change your profile pics/cover photo once in a while and try new things! You will most likely not nail the campaign off the bat, it will need to be fine-tuned constantly but if you follow these tips you will see the growth!

NOTHING GOOD COMES EASY! You can do this if you are smart about it! Who knows… once you see the power behind FB, sharing and social media with a good return you may just be ready to hire the big boys! Check out my last blog post on Empowering your product with Blogger Outreach for another efficient and cost effect way to engage your prospective clients! 

The New Digg is the king of Social Bookmarking!

       What is the key to finding the best Social Bookmarking sites? BEING SOCIAL! So I went and asked on my social networks which ones people recommended I try out and which ones were a waste of time. So many of my comments came from strangers that said to me that it really depends on what you want your results to be. Didn't really understand those replies at first so I did some snooping around all of the major social bookmarking sites to see how different the content could be. In the end they all offered the same content but what I found was that only Digg had real informative content that interested me ranked very high and very easily to find instead of pop culture content that you find blanketing news sites like scandals or useless celeb news. Of all of the social bookmarking sites that offer user generated content, allow you to recommend and share media and rate that material for other users, what makes the content that find on Digg that much better than Stumbleupon, Buzzfeed, reddit or any of the other sites?

     
        I found that some sites, like Buzzfeed for example, may have a voting system like all of the others but what really drives the traffic to the content you find is the optimizers they employ that scour the web for content most likely to go viral. Sorry guys that not how social networks are supposed to work! Other sites like Reddit, my second favorite for a few reasons, is far more democratic but the content most high ranked is generally a little geeky even for me but the site remains completely unbiased to the content and that is what socially promoted content is all about.

     
         The new Digg takes it to a level that Reddit once mastered, making the content comment system more like a forum than just people dropping their two cents as they swing by keeping the user involved. They allow likes and links and comments on comments users can link to comments to further discussion or to rebuke the garbledeegook that people post that have no idea what they are talking about. The overall usability to far more attractive than Reddit though I really don't see Reddit staying far behind for too much longer.The jury is still out on Stumbleupon, my favorite think about Stumbleupon is that you literally tell it what kind of content you like and it finds stuff it thinks will interest you! Sounds awesome but the system needs a little tuning. I found two or three articles that interested me very quickly and then I was gone. It wont be too long until they realize they can use the articles I choose to further narrow the search and constantly provide the user with newer content.When they figure that out, they will be my new number one!