Facebook Marketing Strategy Why You Need One How To Build It

Facebook Marketing Strategy Why You Need One How To Build It Facebook marketing has gotten exponentially more challenging now than it was in the early days. Organic reach is harder to come by, advertising has become more important, and old-school tips and tricks that once worked well may not anymore. Now, more than ever, having a clear strategy is crucial for success. You know that though. Thats why youre here, right? So, your next questions might include: Can you still do effective marketing on Facebook organically? How exactly should smart businesses approach crafting their strategy? What are current best practices to consider following (and to consider breaking)? Which tactics are worth experimenting with right now? Should you consider using tools to better manage your processes? This post will dive into each of these points (and more), showing you exactly how to map out a robust strategy that will help you make the most of Facebook. Facebook Marketing Strategy: How to Plan the Best One in 8 StepsWhat Are the Benefits Behind Planning a Proactive Strategy? research data shows that marketers who document strategy are 313% more likely to report being successful. If Facebook is a primary marketing channel for your company, that means proactive planning should be considered important to ensure the effectiveness of your efforts. Of course, that strategy needs to be thoughtful and on-point. Youll need to do some research and keep it flexible enough to adjust your tactics based on performance over time, but having a plan will put you ahead of the game. You can make documenting that strategy easier by downloading the templates and resources below. In it, youll find a ZIP folder that includes the following: Facebook Marketing Strategy Template (PPT): This template will make it easy to document your entire strategy from start to finish. Google Analytics Custom Reports: Use these links to set up custom reports in Google Analytics for measuring social media success in just a few clicks. Social Media Calendar: Plan every post and keep the execution of your strategy organized in one place. This post will show you exactly how to put it to use so you can get this entire task completed quickly and easily. Planning Your Facebook Strategy in 8 Steps Step 1: Establishing Goals Step 2: Conducting a Facebook Page Audit Step 3: Understanding Your Audience Step 4: Developing a Brand Voice for Facebook Step 5: Running a Competitive Analysis Step 6: Planning a Facebook Content Strategy Step 7: Setting a Facebook Posting Schedule Step 8: Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Strategy Step 1: Define Your Marketing Goals For Facebook Before you know what to do, you need to know why you are doing it. It's easier to succeed when you give yourself a target to aim at.  Here are some common business goals for Facebook brand pages: Drive referral traffic. It isn't as easy as it used to be, but you can still drive traffic from Facebook. Strengthen brand awareness. Odds are your target customer is active on Facebook. Make them know you exist. Build a relationship with your audience. Groups are a great way to build community and achieve this goal. Provide customer service. People expect to be able to reach businesses through their Facebook pages. Generate leads and conversions. Particularly through advertising. No matter what your goal might be, it's important to remember Facebook is a social platform that allows two-way communication with your customers and target audience. Treat it accordingly. Step 2: Audit Your Existing Facebook Presence Do you currently have a Facebook business page (even if you haven't done much with it strategy-wise)? If so, it's a good idea to review where your page's performance is currently standing. This can help identify opportunities for improvement.  Here are some simple things to check (they may seem basic, but lots of little details can collectively add up to a big difference for your brand perception). Is Your About Tab Complete? People discovering your company on Facebook need a way to get to know who you are. If your About tab isn't accurate or complete, though, they'll have a harder time understanding your business. Check out this example from Saucony: Here, you can see they've filled out the following sections: Mission. What are you all about? Contact Info. How can people get ahold of you? Website. Where can I find more about your business? About. Add a company bio here. Company Overview. What do you do? Products. What do you sell? This might include some things that aren't obvious to people. Categories. How is your page best understood? Our Story. This is an extended section to share more about your company. Which Types of Content Appear to Perform Best? Research data shows that video content performs best on Facebook. That's a broad and general truth, though. What's actually working best for you? Review your recent posts (consider going back 90 days or so) and the following questions: Which tone of voice works best? Humorous posts? Serious posts? Inspirational posts? Do successful image posts have anything in common? Certain colors? Subjects? Text vs. no text? Are videos performing well? And if so, what attributes do successful videos share? Are they short? Long? Funny? Serious? What about posts with links? Facebook has indicated a desire to keep people on Facebook, rather than sending traffic away. Is your link post performance reflecting this? This simple exercise can help you figure out what might work well in the future based on what's worked well in the past. You can also quickly see your top performing posts using the Insights tab on your Facebook business page and taking a quick scroll downward: Click See All Posts  to take a deeper dive into your post history: How Does Your Cover Photo Look? If your cover photo hasn't been updated in a while (which it may not have been if you haven't optimized your business page in a while), now might be a good time to consider updating it. One option is to create something simple, timeline, and on-brand like this example from Vans: Or, you can create one that's coordinated with a current campaign you're running, like this example from Hulu: It's a small thing, but it can make a difference toward putting your brand's best foot forward. Step 3: Know Your Facebook Audience It helps to know who you're talking to before starting a conversation. Knowing who your audience is on Facebook, however, can be a challenge. Fortunately, its own built-in analytics and other tools can make this task a bit easier. Understand the People Currently Interacting With Your Page Using Insights Facebook offers page owners with plenty of useful data (and at no charge). So, take full advantage of it. Step 1:  Visit your page (if you're the admin) and click Insights: Step 2:  Click on People. Here, you'll find a wealth of useful demographic information. Step 3: Review your demographic performance data on Facebook. Who's interacting with your content the most on Facebook? The answers are easy to find.Use Google Analytics to Analyze Facebook Referral Traffic Google Analytics won't break down your Facebook audience directly. However, it does provide valuable data about who is visiting your website. You want those folks following you on Facebook too, right? Knowing what they like will help achieve that goal. Step 1:  Log into Google Analytics and click on Audience.  Then, click Interests to find out what your website visitors are interested in. Step 2: Next, try finding information about the demographics of your website visitors. Step 3: Next, try clicking into Social. Then, click into the Overview tab to get more useful data. Step 4: You can find detailed data on which social networks (including Facebook) are sending referral traffic back to your site under Network Referrals: Step 5: Clicking into Landing Pages can help you see where Facebook is sending traffic on your site. This is helpful for understanding which content is performing best on the network. Spend some time seeing what you can learn about your audience here. Between Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, there's a lot you can extract. Recommended Reading: 49 Facebook Marketing Tips to Drive Better Results Right Now Use 's Facebook Report If you use 's Social Organizer to schedule your company's social media content, you can use its Facebook Report within the Analytics tab to find the following performance data: Impressions.  How many people saw your posts? Impression Rate By Post Type.  Which types of posts got the most attention? Number of Posts Sent. What does your overall post volume look like? Best Days to Post. Does your audience appear to be more active on some days rather than others? Best Times to Post. Same goes for times. When does your audience engage with your content the most? Best Post Types.  Stats show that video dominates Facebook. Is that the case for you, though? Engagement Rate.  How is your content performing based on engagement? Top Posts. Which specific posts have performed the best (and how might you recreate that success moving forward)? Using this data can help you understand your audience by understanding which content appears to resonate with them the most. Run A Survey This is perhaps the easiest way to know exactly what your audience wants. Sign up for Crowd Signal or Survey Monkey. Create a short list of simple questions asking your audience what they want to see on your Facebook page. Promote your survey on social media and your email newsletter. Analyze the results.Step 4: Develop Your Brand's Facebook Voice You now know who you're talking to. It's time to figure out how you'll talk to them. This means establishing your brand voice on Facebook. This doesn't have to be complicated. It just helps to understand how to make the voice of your brand work on social media. 1. Serious Are you  in an industry where a light-hearted or casual tone would be inappropriate? If so, memes, Millennial lingo, and other things you might typically see on Facebook probably won't be your bread and butter.   Fortunately, it is possible to be formal, professional, and interesting. For example, UNICEF creates compelling content that often carries immense emotional weight: It’s about time A special message from our Goodwill Ambassador, David Beckham on why early moments matter. #EarlyMomentsMatter Posted by UNICEF on Tuesday, June 4, 2019 2. Casual Let's say your brand is in a serious industry. How can you make your Facebook content entertaining and on-brand? Take a cue from Capital One: All Bracket buddies are good luck for #MarchMadness, but a bracket buddy as good as Charles Bark-ley 🠐 ¶ is #FanGoals. Posted by Capital One on Thursday, April 4, 2019 3. Humorous A little bit of light humor can go a long way. Don't worry if you're not the world's best comedian, either. Sometimes, a small amount of subtle humor (as long as it's relevant to your content and brand) can go a long way: "When it comes to Dad Jokes, this is the Nucleus Option." - Michael Buxton, the winning artist from our Dad Jokes design challenge! âš›ï ¸  https://bit.ly/2KclvMW Posted by Threadless on  Wednesday, May 29, 2019 Facebook Marketing Strategy Why You Need One How To Build It Facebook marketing has gotten exponentially more challenging now than it was in the early days. Organic reach is harder to come by, advertising has become more important, and old-school tips and tricks that once worked well may not anymore. Now, more than ever, having a clear strategy is crucial for success. You know that though. Thats why youre here, right? So, your next questions might include: Can you still do effective marketing on Facebook organically? How exactly should smart businesses approach crafting their strategy? What are current best practices to consider following (and to consider breaking)? Which tactics are worth experimenting with right now? Should you consider using tools to better manage your processes? This post will dive into each of these points (and more), showing you exactly how to map out a robust strategy that will help you make the most of Facebook. Facebook Marketing Strategy: How to Plan the Best One in 8 StepsWhat Are the Benefits Behind Planning a Proactive Strategy? research data shows that marketers who document strategy are 313% more likely to report being successful. If Facebook is a primary marketing channel for your company, that means proactive planning should be considered important to ensure the effectiveness of your efforts. Of course, that strategy needs to be thoughtful and on-point. Youll need to do some research and keep it flexible enough to adjust your tactics based on performance over time, but having a plan will put you ahead of the game. You can make documenting that strategy easier by downloading the templates and resources below. In it, youll find a ZIP folder that includes the following: Facebook Marketing Strategy Template (PPT): This template will make it easy to document your entire strategy from start to finish. Google Analytics Custom Reports: Use these links to set up custom reports in Google Analytics for measuring social media success in just a few clicks. Social Media Calendar: Plan every post and keep the execution of your strategy organized in one place. This post will show you exactly how to put it to use so you can get this entire task completed quickly and easily. Planning Your Facebook Strategy in 8 Steps Step 1: Establishing Goals Step 2: Conducting a Facebook Page Audit Step 3: Understanding Your Audience Step 4: Developing a Brand Voice for Facebook Step 5: Running a Competitive Analysis Step 6: Planning a Facebook Content Strategy Step 7: Setting a Facebook Posting Schedule Step 8: Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Strategy Step 1: Define Your Marketing Goals For Facebook Before you know what to do, you need to know why you are doing it. It's easier to succeed when you give yourself a target to aim at.  Here are some common business goals for Facebook brand pages: Drive referral traffic. It isn't as easy as it used to be, but you can still drive traffic from Facebook. Strengthen brand awareness. Odds are your target customer is active on Facebook. Make them know you exist. Build a relationship with your audience. Groups are a great way to build community and achieve this goal. Provide customer service. People expect to be able to reach businesses through their Facebook pages. Generate leads and conversions. Particularly through advertising. No matter what your goal might be, it's important to remember Facebook is a social platform that allows two-way communication with your customers and target audience. Treat it accordingly. Step 2: Audit Your Existing Facebook Presence Do you currently have a Facebook business page (even if you haven't done much with it strategy-wise)? If so, it's a good idea to review where your page's performance is currently standing. This can help identify opportunities for improvement.  Here are some simple things to check (they may seem basic, but lots of little details can collectively add up to a big difference for your brand perception). Is Your About Tab Complete? People discovering your company on Facebook need a way to get to know who you are. If your About tab isn't accurate or complete, though, they'll have a harder time understanding your business. Check out this example from Saucony: Here, you can see they've filled out the following sections: Mission. What are you all about? Contact Info. How can people get ahold of you? Website. Where can I find more about your business? About. Add a company bio here. Company Overview. What do you do? Products. What do you sell? This might include some things that aren't obvious to people. Categories. How is your page best understood? Our Story. This is an extended section to share more about your company. Which Types of Content Appear to Perform Best? Research data shows that video content performs best on Facebook. That's a broad and general truth, though. What's actually working best for you? Review your recent posts (consider going back 90 days or so) and the following questions: Which tone of voice works best? Humorous posts? Serious posts? Inspirational posts? Do successful image posts have anything in common? Certain colors? Subjects? Text vs. no text? Are videos performing well? And if so, what attributes do successful videos share? Are they short? Long? Funny? Serious? What about posts with links? Facebook has indicated a desire to keep people on Facebook, rather than sending traffic away. Is your link post performance reflecting this? This simple exercise can help you figure out what might work well in the future based on what's worked well in the past. You can also quickly see your top performing posts using the Insights tab on your Facebook business page and taking a quick scroll downward: Click See All Posts  to take a deeper dive into your post history: How Does Your Cover Photo Look? If your cover photo hasn't been updated in a while (which it may not have been if you haven't optimized your business page in a while), now might be a good time to consider updating it. One option is to create something simple, timeline, and on-brand like this example from Vans: Or, you can create one that's coordinated with a current campaign you're running, like this example from Hulu: It's a small thing, but it can make a difference toward putting your brand's best foot forward. Step 3: Know Your Facebook Audience It helps to know who you're talking to before starting a conversation. Knowing who your audience is on Facebook, however, can be a challenge. Fortunately, its own built-in analytics and other tools can make this task a bit easier. Understand the People Currently Interacting With Your Page Using Insights Facebook offers page owners with plenty of useful data (and at no charge). So, take full advantage of it. Step 1:  Visit your page (if you're the admin) and click Insights: Step 2:  Click on People. Here, you'll find a wealth of useful demographic information. Step 3: Review your demographic performance data on Facebook. Who's interacting with your content the most on Facebook? The answers are easy to find.Use Google Analytics to Analyze Facebook Referral Traffic Google Analytics won't break down your Facebook audience directly. However, it does provide valuable data about who is visiting your website. You want those folks following you on Facebook too, right? Knowing what they like will help achieve that goal. Step 1:  Log into Google Analytics and click on Audience.  Then, click Interests to find out what your website visitors are interested in. Step 2: Next, try finding information about the demographics of your website visitors. Step 3: Next, try clicking into Social. Then, click into the Overview tab to get more useful data. Step 4: You can find detailed data on which social networks (including Facebook) are sending referral traffic back to your site under Network Referrals: Step 5: Clicking into Landing Pages can help you see where Facebook is sending traffic on your site. This is helpful for understanding which content is performing best on the network. Spend some time seeing what you can learn about your audience here. Between Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, there's a lot you can extract. Recommended Reading: 49 Facebook Marketing Tips to Drive Better Results Right Now Use 's Facebook Report If you use 's Social Organizer to schedule your company's social media content, you can use its Facebook Report within the Analytics tab to find the following performance data: Impressions.  How many people saw your posts? Impression Rate By Post Type.  Which types of posts got the most attention? Number of Posts Sent. What does your overall post volume look like? Best Days to Post. Does your audience appear to be more active on some days rather than others? Best Times to Post. Same goes for times. When does your audience engage with your content the most? Best Post Types.  Stats show that video dominates Facebook. Is that the case for you, though? Engagement Rate.  How is your content performing based on engagement? Top Posts. Which specific posts have performed the best (and how might you recreate that success moving forward)? Using this data can help you understand your audience by understanding which content appears to resonate with them the most. Run A Survey This is perhaps the easiest way to know exactly what your audience wants. Sign up for Crowd Signal or Survey Monkey. Create a short list of simple questions asking your audience what they want to see on your Facebook page. Promote your survey on social media and your email newsletter. Analyze the results.Step 4: Develop Your Brand's Facebook Voice You now know who you're talking to. It's time to figure out how you'll talk to them. This means establishing your brand voice on Facebook. This doesn't have to be complicated. It just helps to understand how to make the voice of your brand work on social media. 1. Serious Are you  in an industry where a light-hearted or casual tone would be inappropriate? If so, memes, Millennial lingo, and other things you might typically see on Facebook probably won't be your bread and butter.   Fortunately, it is possible to be formal, professional, and interesting. For example, UNICEF creates compelling content that often carries immense emotional weight: It’s about time A special message from our Goodwill Ambassador, David Beckham on why early moments matter. #EarlyMomentsMatter Posted by UNICEF on Tuesday, June 4, 2019 2. Casual Let's say your brand is in a serious industry. How can you make your Facebook content entertaining and on-brand? Take a cue from Capital One: All Bracket buddies are good luck for #MarchMadness, but a bracket buddy as good as Charles Bark-ley 🠐 ¶ is #FanGoals. Posted by Capital One on Thursday, April 4, 2019 3. Humorous A little bit of light humor can go a long way. Don't worry if you're not the world's best comedian, either. Sometimes, a small amount of subtle humor (as long as it's relevant to your content and brand) can go a long way: "When it comes to Dad Jokes, this is the Nucleus Option." - Michael Buxton, the winning artist from our Dad Jokes design challenge! âš›ï ¸  https://bit.ly/2KclvMW Posted by Threadless on  Wednesday, May 29, 2019