Facebook Marketing: Easy, Affordable, And Far More Effective Than You Think

Whether you run a small business, are trying to sell a product or service, or are an artist or musician trying to build a following, social media sites like Facebook have opened up a whole new world of marketing and promotional opportunities. If you haven’t already begun to spread the word through Facebook’s many user friendly promotional avenues than it’s safe to assume that you haven’t even scraped the surface of marketing possibilities in the modern internet sphere. It’s also probably safe to assume that you’ve found online promotion for your product or service a veritable quagmire.

With the vast amount of competition and the now all-but ineffective alternatives, it’s extremely difficult to get any results these days with the once conventional methods of advertising. Although this may seem distressing at first, you will soon be quite relieved to discover that you have simply been going about your marketing in an outdated fashion and the modern methods not only make the process easy and fun but also takes a once highly competitive, and difficult to break into, market and turns it into a place where there is room for everyone – even a small business on a budget.

1. The Benefits Of Sharing

Let’s face it. Pretty much everyone and their grandmother is on Facebook these days and, unlike the internet of previous years, nearly everyone checks their messages and profiles daily. Millions of people share millions of blog posts, pictures, songs, etc. every day, and those millions of shares are seen by millions of friends. We are all aware of the viral phenomenon online and Facebook has created an avenue for content to not only go viral much quicker but to also reach a massively larger audience. If you can visualize what happens in these occasions it can give you a better idea of how much potential a social networking site, like Facebook, has in spreading the word on any one thing. Let’s say a person with a large amount of online ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ (depending on the type of page – which I will discuss in a minute) posts a link to a new music video they have just seen online. The moment that link is posted on their Facebook page, the post will appear on the feed of all of their friends or followers who are online – and still to more later who come online within a reasonable amount of time from the post. From here it’s easy to imagine what happens. Their friends see the video and, if they like it, they repeat the process of the original post, opening up the possibility of the link being shared again and again by their friends, the friends of those friends, the friends of those friends, and so on. This is the easiest way for content to go viral online nowadays and happens constantly with new content every day. But, we will look at content going viral, for the time being, as being the winning lottery ticket.

It’s not necessary for your content to go viral for you to run a highly effective, and profitable, Facebook marketing campaign. It is always a possibility, and quite a fun one to think about, but there are a large variety of other methods for reaching a wide array of viewers or potential buyers.

2. The Beginning Of Your Successful Campaign

If you haven’t already done so, the first step to take would be to make a Facebook ‘fan page’ for your product, service, band, business, etc. It may sound strange at first to make a fan page for something like a lawn care service, but it is now being done all over the world and with tremendously beneficial results. The fan page allows people to ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’, depending on the type of page you make, and these people will be alerted to anything that you post on your timeline. From here it’s important to spread the word and attempt to get ‘likes’ or ‘subscriber’s’. There are a variety of effective methods to do so, including a highly effective paid advertising service that is offered through Facebook.

Facebook-marketing

The Facebook paid advertising service is a great way to start off your fan page getting likes and allows you to fine tune who will see your ad based on age, demographic, location, and even very specific likes and interests – and all for an extremely affordable rate. Building a ‘targeted’ audience is an absolutely essential part of any social network marketing campaign as you can expect that these people will both be willing to like your page as well as share and repost your posts and links.

3. Fueling Your Facebook Marketing Engine

No matter how you choose to build your audience (and I would recommend using every method available – including but not limited to the paid advertising), the moment you have built the audience it’s time to begin promoting your product, service, etc. From here it’s important to have interesting and relevant content that will both catch your viewer’s attention and incite them to share it with their friends. This can be in the form of blog posts, traditional ads that link back to your website, or even videos. Viral marketing campaigns are also a highly effective way of getting your audience to do most of the promotion for you. This blogger recommends that after you’ve taken these first steps that you take some time to research along those lines.

4. Forms Of Shareable Content

Being creative with your campaign is an essential way to interest your targeted audience. Keep in mind that these people are being constantly bombarded with content and, if you’d like to be noticed, you will need something that both stands out and is relevant to your audience’s interests. There is a wide array of possible mediums you can use to get your promotional message across, including methods that have not been thought of yet. Here are examples of popular forms of content that are shared, and re-shared, on Facebook.

  • Blog Posts
  • Pictures
  • Videos
  • Audio Clips/Music
  • Comic Strips
  • Cross-Media Platforms

5. It’s Time To Get The Word Out There!

If you’ve had difficulty getting the word out, or reaching the proper audience for your art, product, business, or service, it’s most likely that you simply haven’t yet taken advantage of the great promotional opportunities that Facebook offers. It’s time to get the word out there!

Written by Gertrude Smith. She is a writer and designer. She often spends her time reading designer books and surfing the net. She is also fond of digital marketing.

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