Having some trouble with your posts? Not sure how to know your level of engagement? Or maybe it seems like no one is seeing your posts? What can you do about that? That’s where Sandhill Media comes in.
You’ve probably often asked yourself, “Is posting even worth it? I’m not seeing much of an increase in customers.” And the answer to that…is you have to decide for yourself. Marketing through word of mouth can be effective, but it depends on your business and how you want to market your service or product. But on the same note, if you’re not marketing effectively through Facebook, then you’ll never know how effective Facebook marketing can be for your business.
*If you haven’t set up your Facebook Page, click here to get started*
Step 1: Research Your Competitors
The first thing you can do if you don’t know whether or not to post through Facebook or another social media platform is you can research your competitors. How are they marketing for their business? And is it working? How much of the market are they taking up? What percentage of the customers in your local area go to your competitor? After you have analyzed your competition, determine if Facebook is the right route for you. If your competitors are using Facebook and they seem relatively successful, it might be a good idea to go where your competitors are. It could be that your target audience doesn’t spend their time on Facebook and if that’s the case, stop reading here and find a marketing method that works for you and your business. But if it turns out that none of your competitors are using Facebook, but there just might be an opening in the market to use Facebook, then go ahead and test its effectiveness. Just make sure to do it the right way!
Step 2: Make a Plan, Then Schedule It – Content Calendar
A Content Calendar is very important if your going to attempt to constantly engage with your customers. If you want to take some of the stress away from posting, plan ahead, know what promotions you want to do and surround your posts around that. Maybe you are still a little fuzzy on what content to plan for, and if that’s the case, take a step back and focus on making your first post. When you’re just starting out, a big first step is making two to three posts a week. After you’ve had some time to post, you’ll start to get an idea for the kind of content, posts, tone of voice you want for your business; then you can get a little more creative. This process will enable you to create your first Content Calendar. Your calendar doesn’t have to plan out the next month, it could plan out the next week if that’s what works best for you. But one of the most important factors to consider when starting is noticing what posting times do you get the most engagement? You can discover this by posting for one week; post as much as you can at very different hours. Experiment! You may think your customers are present on Facebook at 7 in the morning when the majority of your followers are present at 7 o’clock at night.
Below I have two examples for you to build your own Content Calendar. The first one represents a consistent outline that would be followed week after week. The second one shows the actual posts, including the picture, content, posting time/day, and the call to action. The first one to can help you understand the bigger picture. The third picture is of Facebook Business Suite. Business Suite allows you to create posts, leave them as drafts, or schedule them for a later date and time. Facebook Business Suite is a very useful tool to get into more of the specifics of scheduling your posts.
Step 3: Decide How Much You’re Willing To Spend
How do you want to increase engagement? Through organic posts or paid posts? Or both? It’s usually a mixture of both. But many a business have done great starting organically. Just because you want to see ROI quickly, doesn’t mean you should just throw a bunch of money straight into this project. Try to build up your followers and likes for your page. Then you can worry about how much you’re spending. Start by spending about 5-20% of your net income. Ultimately, your budget should always be based on your business’ net income. And if you’re curious about where to go to check for engagement, go to the Page insights tab when you go to your business page, and as you scroll down you will find engagements as demonstrated down below.
Hmm…I feel like I’m forgetting something…ROI! You most definitely need ROI to determine if the money you’re investing is worth it. To determine ROI, let’s say you have invested $500 for the month of May. Subtract the cost of Facebook marketing from your total profit for May. Let’s say you made $2,000 and after subtracting your investment, you made $1,500. $1,500 is your ROI.
Conclusion
Social media marketing is not as complicated as it seems, it’s very simple and can be easily managed if you take the proper steps. Go ahead and explore making posts through Facebook and let us know how it goes! If you have any questions or any comments, please leave a comment below.