3 Easy Facebook Marketing Hacks

A while ago, I did a little experiment on Facebook. I made a list of all my friends, clients and acquaintances with small businesses and mentioned two of them per day for two weeks on the social media platform. Well. It was an eye-opener. It turns out that the majority of us don’t use Facebook as well as we could to market our work.

Yes, Facebook is a place for entertainment and a bit of fun, but its community / network appeal can be hugely useful to spread the word about our businesses. I noted three simple things we can do to make more of our social media presence:

1. Make it easy for friends to find a link to your Facebook page or website.
   Include it in your personal bio. Click on your own Facebook profile -> Edit profile. You’re going to do two things here:
   
   • Add your business to the ‘work’ section in ‘About’. If you have a Facebook page set up for your business, it will link it up when you start typing your business name in the box provided.
     
   • Edit ‘Contact and basic info’. Add your website and ALL your social media links where you post content. This information, as well as your contact telephone number and business email addresses must be set to ‘public’.
2. Allow people to tag you in comments or posts
   OK, I get you might be squeamish about your privacy – there are ways to address that. Let me give an example. I belong to a number of community groups on Facebook, most of them based around a geographical area. Very often, someone in the group wants a recommendation for a handyman, or cleaning services or a graphic designer – and if these are public groups, I can tag a friend (not necessarily in the group) who can maybe respond to the post. Word of mouth remains one of the best ways to build a brand. So let friends recommend your services by tagging you. Here’s what you can do:
   • Click on this link https://web.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy
     Look for ‘Timeline and tagging’ on the left, and go through the various tagging settings there. Under ‘review’, click enable. That helps you control what you’re tagged for, and should allay any concerns you have about privacy.
3. Share regularly and consistently about your services or products.
   I get it. You’re busy with the business of running your business. Here’s what I do to get around the issue of posting regularly on Facebook – and this would apply to your Facebook page: I keep a folder on my computer containing bits and pieces of interesting stuff I would like to either write a blog post about, or share with my clients or followers later. Something a little like a swipe file. I then sit down at a quiet time of the week and get all the content together in the form of a calendar. I then schedule my posts – Facebook has a feature where you can predate your posts this way. A month’s posts takes me maybe a couple of hours. Also, around consistency – make sure you respond to messages, comments or any other activity within one business day.
   

You cannot have a Facebook page simply sit there and expect people to miraculously find you. You need to drive the interest, make a bit of noise. Keep it fun, interesting, informative and light, as often as is relevant to your product or service.

Questions? In need of some marketing inspiration? Join the conversation on the WebWeaver Facebook page.