There is a proven process for using Facebook to successfully market your business. The fastest and easiest way to success is to find someone who’s successful at what you want to do, learn what they do, and do it. Don’t change, tweak, or adjust anything. When you’ve mastered what it takes to be successful and are profitable, you can adjust your process to make your results better results.
One of the powerful characteristics of The Go Social Success Formula for Facebook is that it doesn’t require a large amount of time. Once you have it set up and working, you will see results on a consistent basis, day after day, week after week.
The steps to the Go Social Success Formula for Facebook are as follows:
- Create a sales-orientated Facebook page.
- Find your ideal audience.
- Deliver value before you ask for a sales
- Get contact information.
- Market to these people (sell them something).
Step One of The Facebook Five: Create a Sales-Orientated Facebook Page
The foundation of your Facebook Success System is your Facebook business page. This page is where you work from when you’re running paid ads or interacting organically.
What does a sales-orientated business page look like? I’m talking about having a page that is welcoming to all visitors clearly communicates what you do and then entices them to want to find out more about your company.
You don’t have to post multiple times a day, or like, comment, and share other posts, but you do have to have a presence on Facebook.
When your prospects and customers get to your page you want them to find information that will encourage them to like your page or at least see you as a credible business.
The very first action you take is to decide what you want to accomplish with your Facebook page.
If you don’t begin with the end in mind, to quote the late Stephan Covey, “you won’t know what to do.” There are several decisions you need to make, and if you know what you’re trying to accomplish before you start, you’ll make better choices.
Some of the items you need to consider are:
- What are you selling from your page: your products, coming to your store, setting up an appointment with you scheduling a call?
- How do you want to appear to your fans?
- Is this consistent with the experience they get when they encounter you in other places like your website or in your store?
- Are you telling stores
- If so what are you telling them about?
- Are you promoting your entire business or just certain products?
One other item to consider as you’re getting started is your own mindset. Are you comfortable selling? Do you realize, internally, that nothing happens in your business until you sell something?
You’re using Facebook as a selling tool. When you’re working on your business page, everything you do is creating the circumstances in which sales can happen, or you are actually selling.
As you’re selling you want people to know what you offer. You want to make sure that everything below conveys messages that support each other. Your goal with your page is to make sure that anyone can look at it and in 5 seconds know what you do and what they’ll get from you by connecting with you.
Let’s start at the top of the page and work down, covering each item your page needs to have.
To start with, you need a cover photo that draws people in.
This is the large photo at the top of the page. You want this photo to represent you and your brand well. It can be easily changed, so you don’t want to spend too much time on it. As the seasons change or you have promotions in your business, you can change this picture to reflect your current focus.
A great tool to use to create cover photos is Canva.com. Canva is a free graphics tool. They have a template for making cover photos so you get the correct size.
On your cover photo, you should have a Call to Action. Make sure you have this activated. At least have your Contact Us button on it. Better yet, have it set up to take your prospective clients to a video of you welcoming them to your page and telling them how you can help them and why they should like your page.
You’ll see on our photo that we’re inviting you to take our free Masterclass. You can sign up for our class at www.gosocialexperts.com/masterclass.
The next item to look at is your profile picture.
This is the small picture on the left side of your page. This photo is shown everywhere you interact on Facebook, so it is the most important picture on your page. Every ad you run, and every comment, post, share, or like you make, this picture will be there.
When people run their mouse over it on a desktop they will see your cover photo and if they click on it from either a desktop or a phone they will be taken to your page.
We recommend making your profile picture something your audience will recognize, either a picture of you, your logo, your building, or a vehicle associated with your business. Your profile picture should be consistent because your audience will recognize your presence by this picture.
As we continue to move down the page, we arrive at the About area.
This area is often overlooked. Not as many people go here, but the ones who do are the ones who are looking to connect with you for information or to buy something. You want these people to find you.
Fill the About area in as completely as possible.
Make sure that you have all of your contact information filled in. Your address, your email your phone number as well as your other social media profiles and any other information Facebook lets you put in.
One of the most important sections to complete is the About area and the story. Both sections are indexed by Google and will show up in Google searches. Make sure you use keywords for your business here and that you include a link to your website in these areas as well as in the website field.
We’re going to follow this up with your video section.
As you have seen if you’ve been using Facebook, there are large numbers of videos in your newsfeed. Facebook is encouraging people to make videos and use Facebook to show them to their friends. Facebook has also made it easier for advertisers to use videos in their posts and ads, as well as to gather them into one area on their page.
You need to have what’s called a Featured Video on Facebook. This video is the larger video that shows up in the video area on your page. It also is the top video in your video tab.
This video should do one of three things: tell people about you and how you can help them; talk about an item, event, or promotion you want them to know about; or teach them something of value that will help them get results.
If you have several videos you may want to consider creating playlists. This helps your readers who are really interested in you find out more without having to search on their own.
Once you have these sections set up, you’re done with this area. You may want to review the information every month or two to make sure it’s current, but other than changing your cover photo and About video when seasons change or when you are changing promotions, you should be done with this setup.
Now you need to look at what you’re going to post.
Yes, even if you’re using Facebook primarily to advertise, you need to post to your page at least three times a week.
What impression does someone have who clicks your page name in an ad and lands on your page where everything looks good, but then there’s nothing posted on the page or nothing newer than several weeks or months? What does that do for your credibility and for your image as a business that wants to help people?
Setting up a limited posting schedule is easy and won’t take long. In fifteen minutes, you or a staff person can log in and schedule three or four posts.
What are you going to post about? What is the subject of the videos you use and the pictures you choose? I suggest that you look at what result you want from Facebook and consider the question that I asked you to answer earlier.
Just make sure that what you post reinforces your other messages on your page.
I lean towards telling stories about people who are successful using the topic you’re talking about. Who you helped be successful? Facebook is a great place to share stories.
If you’re using Facebook to find and attract new clients or customers, you want your page to be full of helpful information that they want to know. How are you helping make their lives better? Are you giving them tips about how to use your product, how to save money, how to live better, how to have more fun, how to accomplish everything faster and easier etc.?
With your Facebook posting, you should consider all the above and ensure that you stay focused on your services and the problems your products can solve. You don’t want to be creating demand for items or services you can’t deliver.
One last tip I’ll bring up here:
Getting people to like your Facebook page is a step in the right direction. It lets you know that they’re interested in your products and services (as long as that’s what you’re talking about on your page), and it doesn’t feel as intimidating to your new connections as is giving you their email addresses or other contact info. It’s a micro commitment.
As you grow your Facebook likes with people who are interested in what you do, you will be able to target them with ads.
Setting up a sales-oriented Facebook page is a solid foundation for your Facebook marketing system.
Check out Step 2 of the Facebook Five: Find Your Ideal Audience.
Have a great day!
Brian Hahn
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Dec 22, 2015 and has been completely revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.