GROWING YOUR BUSINESS USING FACEBOOK

If you are not using Facebook to market your online business, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Why?

Facebook is the biggest social network in the world. Currently, it has been visited 2 billion times by users every day. It even outranks Google these days in terms of traffic received.

There are many ways to market with Facebook. Most of these ways are totally free and some ways are paid forms of advertising.

In this article, I am going to show you how you can use marketing methods to drive traffic on Facebook.

Build Your Friendlist

After you created a free account at Facebook your number 1 mission should be to get as many friends as possible, preferably targeted to your niche.

People here have only one purpose and that is to build a huge friend list.

If you want targeted friends, search and join groups in your niche. Start inviting people from here, make some good informative posts and comments on the groups and people will start following you if they see you share the same interests.

Only join groups that are active and are getting new members all the time. Post regularly on these groups and you will see how your friends multiply. I get almost 25 friend requests each day this way. You can also search for events in your niche and do the same.

Ways to get free traffic with Facebook

Status updates:

Update your status regularly, and posts some links to your new posts, web pages or new links occasionally. Your niche posts should be in a 1:3 ratio to your “normal” status updates. Make sure there is a picture on the page you
are linking to, because then you can select the picture to be shown in your status update as well. People will see your status updates on their homepage of Facebook when they look through the news and you will generate some nice click to your links this way.

Create your own groups:

And this is where the POWER of Facebook marketing comes in. Create your own groups in your niche and invite all your friends. Post the link of your groups in all the other related groups on facebook regularly to get people to join your group. You could have hundreds of members in days, and thousands in a few weeks if you are lucky.

You can also mass message everyone in your group. Send them useful information with lots of freebies to get them to trust you and open the messages every time. Then slowly start messaging them with amazing offers which links to your sites or affiliate links.

Also remember to put in all your webpage links in your group description, because this will count as valuable back links. Put up photos and videos with links and also post links to your offers in your group. People, who join your group for years to come, will see them and click on them.

Facebook Fan pages

This is another method that is becoming more popular by the day. It is very similar to Facebook groups and you can create a Facebook fan page just like you do a group, but it has some distinct differences.

Fan pages are used to promote people, celebrities, groups of people, businesses & more. They are created to increase promotion, attract supporters, and generally increase awareness & online presence and of course interaction with customers and potential customers. The 'Marketing' of the person or group being promoted through a Fan page happens in a variety of ways.

1. When a person 'likes' a fan page, that connection is posted on their wall and then shown in the Home Page feed for others to see. Then friends of that person click on the page just connected with...and so the number of followers grows.
2. You do not need to be a Facebook user to view a Fan Page. A person may follow a link from somewhere eg. a website and look you up on Facebook from anywhere in the world.
3. These pages are not private pages...so anyone can access the information on a particular page even if they haven't 'liked' it as such. (If you aren't sure what all this 'liking' is its Facebook's new way of 'becoming a fan' of a page. Where a person once became a 'fan' they now become a 'liker').
4. Its easy to post a link to a fan page across other Facebook pages...putting the pages name in front of different groups of people.

A page is easier to manage and has less limitations & more options to customize & increase functionality than a group. A page is run by 'admins' who can be changed when required, and allows those who've been added as an admin to make changes and post on the wall of the page & generally manage the page and its happenings.

The Facebook marketplace

Go to applications and search for Marketplace and join this application. You can now post for free. Give away free reports, and advertise your business opportunities or whatever you like. These advertisements can be targeted
to geo location and stay for a long time so it can generate incoming traffic for quite a while if you keep on posting ads every few days.

Create events:

People love joining events and search events to see what is going on the Facebook world. Create an event of a product or squeeze page launch or a webinar. People will join and see your links. If you use all these tactics you will get great traffic from Facebook and with groups etc. you can build quality targeted viral traffic for FREE this way.

Facebook Social Ads Exposed

I am going to explain how you can use Facebook Social ads to drive insane amounts of highly targeted traffic to your websites and make a lot of money online. Read this section very carefully, because Facebook ads are a form of paid advertising, which means that you can lose a lot of money if you are not careful and if you don't know what you are doing.

It’s not enough just to create and pay for the actual Ad, of course – you have to thoroughly research your competition and your market, plan for expansion and publicity, and maximize every advantage sitting waiting for you on Facebook’s powerful social-oriented platform. You also have to realize that people are finding these type of products not by typing a long-tailed key phrase into Google’s search engine… but by going onto Facebook and waiting to see what Facebook serves up especially suited to their preferences.

Facebook users report liking the feel of control they have over Ads that appear in their right-hand sidebar. If a particular subject or Ad annoys them, they can choose not receive similar ones.

They can “Like” your Ad (leading to more – and to its repetition)… or “Report” it, if they deem it misleading or inappropriate (or even if they’re just in a cranky mood that day!)

Remembering this should help you target your audience even more carefully.

Keep 3 things always in mind, however, when you prepare to create your Ads…

Social relevance
Social enjoyment
Social interest

Facebook also allows you to announce and promote events, create a Group Page or create a company, business or personal Fan Page.

You can link your Facebook Ads very easily to any of the above – and therein lies one of Facebook Ads’ biggest advantages!

Facebook Ad Creation – The Process

The actual ad creation itself is an incredibly simple, 3-step process. Facebook virtually walks you through it every step of the way, and even a beginner can quickly get the hang of it: However, it always pays to know how Facebook ads work in the real world, as well as familiarizing yourself with all the factors that affect Facebook Advertising success or failure, so
you can plan your Advertising campaign wisely, well in advance.

The basic process runs like this: You either visit Facebook Advertising directly – or click on the “Create an Ad” link that will appear regularly in your Facebook page right-hand sidebar (along with all the other Ads targeted to your preference that you usually see).

It’s so simple that it would be redundant to repeat the whole process here, but it helps to know some additional factors affecting the Ads, as well as tips for producing the best-converting ones.

Are They Free?

No. But Facebook Social Ads are a less expensive option than Google
AdWords – and if you want to reach that segment of your potential niche
market who operate solely on mobiles, or who spend all their days on
Facebook, they are essential.

With PPM, you are charged per impression (an `impression’ being the
number of times your ad appears). You pay lump sums in advance by purchasing “credits”. Your impressions are then deducted from these credits. Your ad will run as long as you still have credits remaining. You can top up your credits to keep it running, or let it run out and edit/tweak your Ad further.

There are no fixed costs for Ads, but Facebook actually helps you determine what a good rate to set would be, based on criteria you enter in their targeting formula. You can advertise for as low as Php 40 a day to Php 500 or more per day. It will all depend on how many people you would like to reach each day.

When calculating your ROI (return on investment) on your Facebook Ads, you would do it the same way as for any other advertising venue.

How Do You Track Your Facebook Social Ads?

Without the ability to track an Ad, its effectiveness drops dramatically. Fortunately, Facebook has a platform named Facebook Insights, which allows you to view the number of clicks and impressions your Ad receives in
real time.

How Should I Target my Facebook Ads?

There’s no cut-and-dried answer to this, except to make sure your keywords are actually suited for the way Facebook operates… and the way it dispenses ads (based on keywords in user profiles).

Start with targeting by province – other options will be presented to you, based on the location you select (and you can actually select up to 25, though this will preclude you from being specific as to city).

You always have to keep in mind that this is a social network: Find Groups or Fan Pages similar to your own interests, and see what keywords they seem to be using… But remember, above all, Facebook for its users is all about easy entertainment – not concentrated searches.

Are Facebook Ads Automatically Approved?

No. All Ads have to be submitted for approval. Facebook states: “We doreserve the right to choose what advertising we accept, and may prohibit additional content from being advertised on the site based on user feedback or other information.”

If your Ad is not approved, not only will you receive an official “Disapproval Email”, but you’ll also be able to see this information in your Ads Manager, beside a copy of the disapproved Ad.

Facebook Social Ad Branding

Facebook Social Ads are a quick way to help you brand your product or website. But exactly how do you do that?

Here are some tips:

1. Be authentic
2. Be transparent (speak as openly to customers as you would to close friends)
3. Build trust
4. Remember it’s all about the feeling of connection and community

When deciding how to use Facebook Ads for your business, just think “social” and “random entertainment”, and if you can see a way to make your business fit, you’re on the right track.