So you have a Business Facebook page – Awesome!
You’ve been posting content left and right – Great!
But, for whatever reason, you have not been able to grow your readership or increase your Facebook reach?
What’s up with that?
Does it feel like it’s all for nothing?
Everyone has been whispering in your ear – Facebook is the way to go!
But you have NO results to really show for your Facebook organic reach?
This happens to a lot of folks, especially after update, after update, after update…
You’re trying to get some traction and it’s just not taking hold!
I can reassure you, Facebook STILL has the potential to drive a shite ton of traffic and revenue to your site.
So don’t be discouraged, there are strategies that’ll work.
Now… Let’s dive in!
Setting up the Categories and Subcategories within your Facebook business page is a necessity.
You want to ensure that customers can find your business when searching.
To find the correct categories to go after, think like a customer.
What terms or keywords would they search for?
If you are a B2B business, try utilizing business lingo.
Find keywords that are relevant to your audience…
Now that you have those keywords go to your local business Facebook page and enter them in the Page Info (under the About tab).
Be sure to go after the best keywords that connect with your audience.
With the wrong keywords, your Facebook reach will deteriorate.
Don’t forget Facebook results often populate in Google search – would hate for you to miss out on potential traffic.
Have your business hours changed or remained the same?
Are you still selling X product?
Have you added or removed specific services you offer?
Go to your brands Facebook business account and make sure it’s up-to-date.
What about photos?
Please don’t tell me you don’t have any (not judging)…
Customers who show up on a Facebook business page, with no cover photo, no profile pic, are highly likely to leave immediately.
It would be like going to a store where the lights are off and a sign that says, “Go Away!”.
Would you enter?
Quality photo’s and imagery are necessary, but relevant, authentic, images are better – even if they are mediocre quality.
The key here is to establish a great first impression.
However, don’t get wrapped around the axle over these kinds of photos.
Having a photo of your storefront or logo will work just fine for now – just get something up.
A working content marketing calendar and monitoring system are key for accomplishing your goals.
Setting this up will save you a lot of heartache in the long-run.
Establish what day of the week and time of the day you are going to post.
AND STICK TO IT.
Follow this schedule, monitor, and analyze.
You are going to want to run different experiments over a period of time to see when your audience is the most attentive…
What you will want to analyze is what day and time, Facebook reach, Facebook engagement, and when your audience is the most active.
For example: maybe Tuesdays & Wednesdays between 7-9am, your posts receive the most likes, but few comments. And on Fridays from 3-5pm they receive the most shares.
It is important to note these kinds of differences so that you can adjust what you post based on your business goals.
Test out posting when your competitors are asleep.
Test off-hours, 6pm-6am.
The chance that you will be appearing in your audience’s feed is greatly increased, seeings how nobody else is posting during this time.
Following your schedule, consistently, will also help with your organic reach.
Plus will help you out with #4…
Delivering quality content on a schedule will help you build a community of followers.
Interacting with your community and engaging in the conversation will keep them coming back for more.
Over time, your fans will come crawling to your page looking for more!
This helps develop your organic reach.
Facebook has been stepping up their algorithm changes on a regular basis to try and negate click bait.
What this means is, even though you post regularly, your fans may NOT get your posts in their feed.
Your Facebook reach may be dwindling…
By keeping your posts on schedule, your fans will know to look out for you.
Example: if you post every Monday at 10am and your fans don’t see your post in their feed, they will travel over to your page to catch up!
The last thing they’ll want to do is miss out.
Reply to ALL comments made by your customers or audience.
This is an insane strategy to use to increase your Facebook reach AND a rarely used one to grow your follower base.
Whether that is one (1) comment or fifty (50), get after it.
Take advantage of this traction, and your Facebook reach will thank you for it.
Another option, if it’s just taking up too much of your time, acknowledge your audience by using the ‘Like‘ button.
What I mean is…
Show some love and ‘Like‘ THEIR content.
This will help you build relationships and establish trust with your community.
This has been happening more and more lately, I’m sure you’ve seen it.
The influx in the supply of content is riveting.
People think that they MUST publish something, or they’ll get left out…
This is NOT the case.
You should never post just for the sake of posting.
Posts should be based on your target audience and what they expect to engage with the most.
For the majority of industries once per day or even a few times per week is more than adequate.
You will hardly ever lose fans because you did not make a post.
However, you will most certainly lose fans if you’re publishing posts non-stop.
Positive reviews from your customers help get potential customers off the fence.
AND will give your brand added benefits in other ways…
Positive Facebook reviews will add social proof and the perceived value of your brand or product(s).
Take advantage of any Facebook reviews by setting your business, as your category.
This strategy will allow you to overtake the entire category, via your brands reviews.
You must have a physical address and click the “Show Map” box in the “About tab“.
Remember how I said to reply to comments?
Well, it is even more important to respond to ALL reviews, good or bad.
These are people who are somewhere in the buying cycle.
And if they’ve already purchased, you’re granted an opportunity to increase your retention rates.
By engaging these customers you will have the opportunity to build evangelists and dramatically increase your Facebook reach.
In the case of a negative review, do everything you can to correct it.
But also respond – just remember to be kind, even if they aren’t.
Be sure to get your best customers to leave a review (even if it takes a little incentivizing).
Similarly, Google Reviews will also benefit your brand across Social Media channels.
Starting discussions with your audience is another great way to boost your Facebook reach.
By simply asking a question in one of your posts, not only can you get more engagement, but you can also obtain valuable feedback and ideas.
Even by asking the most simple questions like…
“What’s for dinner tonight?”
Which might be relevant to a food service brand.
OR, it could be something like, “What do you think about x?”
Maybe even, a crowdsourcing style of question like, “What color do you think we should add to our range of x?”
Asking questions will get you more Social Media comments, which allows you to engage with your audience and build rapport.
Reaching your target audience through Facebook ads has never been easier.
You can reach people who live near your business (geo-targeting).
Those who are most interested in your vertical (interests).
And your audience members who may not consciously know they need your products, BUT show the subconscious behaviors that insinuate they do (behaviors).
[The topic on behaviors is a whole other bag of worms I have on my list to write about, cuz it gets CRAZY!]
You can also target potential customers who are traveling through a specific area.
For example: let’s say you are Widmer Brothers Brewing Co offering a promotional IPA to the Trailblazers fans at the Moda Center. You can specifically target those individuals at the game.
You can create different CTA’s (call-to-action) for each ad (i.e., free consultation or get coupon).
Have some extra coin in your pocket?
Boosting your Facebook posts is a great way for you to increase your Facebook reach…
Not just your organic reach but also your Facebook paid reach.
Staying in touch with your audience or re-engaging past customers who haven’t bought from you in a while, are perfect targets for boosted posts.
You will have to spend some money to make this happen, but even my 10 year old daughter could afford $1 per day (yes, that’s the minimum).
Boosting a post will cost you anywhere from $5 to $200, of course dissecting your strategy based on your goals will help you determine your budget (so don’t take the $5-$200 to literally).
You don’t want to be throwing money down the drain, so be sure to have specific business goals set.
Lastly, your budget will also keep you from reaching negative ROI.
This is one of those Facebook ad strategies secrets folks rarely use, unless you’re me (us).
Don’t be surprised to see an ad from us the next time you’re at a marketing conference… Cuz i have them all scoped out and targeted – I don’t even have to show up!
Refer back to #4 regarding building a community, as Facebook Groups are a stellar way of accomplishing this.
Even if you’re a B2C, DTC, or B2B company, Networking groups will do wonders for your brand’s organic reach.
Search and lookup different Facebook groups in your niche, or your local area.
This is a great place to reach other business owners in your neighborhood.
Search Facebook and find groups where your audience may be or that they trust.
You will need to join through your personal profile – cannot do it through your business page.
Be sure to read the rules before posting.
Also, the worst thing you could do is pitch/sell your business, products, or services to these groups – don’t be that guy, it’s annoying.
Instead, be helpful, add value; respond to comments people make.
Add your 2 cents.
Ask questions and get involved – engage with the audience.
Over time you will build authority with your group and a side effect is they will start to follow and promote you.
Collaborating, is the key term everyone uses nowadays…
And even though we tend to think of our businesses as silo’s, there are some serious benefits in tackling the market with other brands (who may share your same audience).
This is also a great way to connect with the local community as well.
You should interact with other Facebook business pages by sharing posts, making comments, and even tagging them in relevant posts.
The same goes for Influencers who may share your audience, as a way to garner a higher percentage of Facebook reach.
Show them some love and they will surely reciprocate.
This will increase your organic visibility throughout the community and, if done right, they will promote you as well.
Want to take it a step further?
Collaborate with some of these businesses to create a formal cross-promotion strategy.
This is a great way to show social proof.
By sharing customer photos and telling stories you can connect with your audience on a personal level.
Try and encourage people to tag themselves – the admin must be a personal friend with the fan in order for the page to tag a fan.
Other people can tag other people or people can tag themselves.
Give your customers a shout-out and/or just thank them, and watch your Facebook reach start ticking upwards.
Tell the community how much you appreciate them.
Create posts that are easy to like, and even better, easy to share!
Local images are very shareable and the best part is, they don’t need to be professionally done.
Take pictures with your phone whenever you are out-and-about.
This is an easy way to connect with local businesses, as well as the community.
Utilizing Video through Facebook or Instagram Stories and reels are the BEST way to increase your Facebook reach… Periodt!
It’s great for answer questions or giving tips.
You can use it to preview products or services and even touch on your latest blog post.
It also works wonders for Video ads.
Email has some of the highest ROI and yet some people believe email is dead.
[yes, I too hate when people use the “XX is Dead” as clickbait… But maybe I should try it? lol – NOT!]
In fact, many businesses don’t do enough of it!
This is a wasted resource by many and should be utilized.
The main reason most businesses fail at building their email list is because they really don’t know what to do with it.
Well, I am here to tell you there are so many different tactics you can use your email list for.
You can promote a new product or service, or even your latest blog post.
Email is a great way to stay connected with your fans.
Email is also one of the best ways to nurture your leads.
What is the best way to build an email list?
Create a lead magnet – Give them an incentive to opt-in to your list (i.e., free ebook, guide, checklist, etc.).
Fun strategy to implement: When building your community, and Facebook Group, you should request the users email address in order for them to join the community.
This helps you prove they’re legit humans and not spam-bots, but will also allow you to build your email list, so that you can communicate with them regularly, through a separate medium.
Offering perks and special promotions to your fans is a great way to keep them engaged and create evangelists.
You can do this through Facebook Offers, special coupons or check-in incentives.
FYI–Facebook Check-in is not visible to page admins, but they are visible to the friends of the person who checked in.
This can make it difficult to monitor, but it can increase your visibility.
You can beta-test new software with them.
If you have a new product coming out, you can give them the ability to reserve in advance or a small window in which it’s only available to them.
Be sure to let your fans know this is a Special Benefit only given to them.
This will make them not want to miss out… Ever heard of FOMO?
Hashtags aren’t for just for teenagers! A hashtag is used to identify a specific word or phrase.
Basically, it allows users to find information relevant to a specific keyword or phrase.
You can create brand specific hashtags and use it as your social signature.
Be sure to encourage your audience to use it as well to help increase visibility.
Facebook still holds the crown as the most used platform in the US and globally.
Although the average engagement rate on FB is 0.006% (WoW!), your ability to jack up your Facebook reach is even better now than it ever has been!
Creating authentic content is the best way to connect with your audience and other brands.
You’ll see your engagement rates peak along side the percentage of the market you reach, as it’s been built into the algorithm.
And although these do not directly correlate to dollars and cents, they are part of an important steps in the buyers journey, and making that first sale.
Every part of your eCommerce marketing funnel is important, so don’t miss out on this crucial step.
Facebook is where people are – take advantage of this!
The more methods you can use to increase your visibility the more valuable Facebook is to your business.
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