Facebook isn’t just a vehicle to share a shot of your favourite dish or post a video of your pup living its best doggy life. There is also Facebook for Business, which, just as it sounds, acts as a digital storefront where you can promote your shop and even sell items. In fact, creating a Facebook page for your business is a great way to engage with current and potential customers. Using Facebook for Business allows you to target specific audiences and advertise to them in a cost-efficient way. When done well, your page can even be used as a tool to build brand love for your business within the Facebook community.
Wondering what the benefits of Facebook for Business are for you? Here are a few Facebook for Business tips to get you started.
A Facebook page serves as cost-effective exposure for your brand.
Facebook for Business costs £0 to create. Once created, the page acts as a hub for your brand, where users can learn about who you are, what you do, and what services you provide. Also, be sure to include a physical address, contact information, and a description of your business.
By updating your page with all the necessary information, your page has a better chance of potentially populating in a browser search. Facebook for Business can make information and promotions easily accessible to customers, without spending anything upfront.
It’s a direct way to connect with current and potential customers.
Your Facebook for Business page can help you create digital word of mouth. Managed well, your page acts as a forum for community growth and communication with new and loyal customers. It’s a space for you to connect with customers directly, answer their questions, and share offerings they’ll benefit from.
There is another benefit of Facebook for Business. If you’re looking for constructive notes from real people to make your business stronger, your Facebook page is a great place to address feedback directly and let customers know they’ve been heard. Plus, your published posts can help you grow your community by providing customers with content to share with Facebook friends how much they love your business.
You can reach your target audience simply and efficiently.
Yes, there are over a billion people on Facebook, but you don’t need to reach all of them — just those in your sweet spot. Facebook for Business gives you the ability to choose specific audiences to reach with your boosted posts by their geographic location, age, interests, and more.
For example, if you’ve just opened a new yoga studio, you could boost a post from your page to reach men and women aged 20 to 65 years old who live within a 30-kilometre radius of your studio. You can reach them for an efficient cost — likely £20 to £50 for several days of exposure. For more information on how much to spend and how to measure your efficiency, check out Facebook’s Budgeting.
It allows you to have a mobile-optimised experience.
Whether you took the time to create an online store or run a brick-and-mortar store, there are endless benefits of Facebook for Business mobile-first capabilities. Your Facebook page will house important business information for potential customers on their mobile devices.
Facebook for Business gives you the tools to create multiple opportunities for “Shop Now” or “Learn More” to drive to your site and allow users to purchase directly. Laptops still are the go-to for mobile shopping, but they won’t reign supreme for much longer it seems. Brits used smartphones and tablets 43 and 24 percent respectively for online mobile shopping. Creating a gateway to make a purchase through your Facebook for Business page is a no-brainer.
The benefits for brick-and-mortar stores are clear, too. According to a recent study, nearly a third of all mobile searches are related to location with users asking “can I/to buy” or “near me” type queries. That means you have the perfect opportunity to be the place they’re looking for. And when they get to your business, having a wunderkind POS system will help you keep track of your sales and run reports with ease.
Your page gives you the tools to easily test and try new branded content and messaging.
Whether it’s gathering results from an ad on a billboard, a flyer, or social media ads, figuring out if your message is resonating with your audience can be a challenge. Start leveraging your Facebook Insights by testing new concepts with your community (by utilising organic published posts on your page that you can boost to ensure they’re seen by a wider audience) or potential customers (with Facebook ads to your target audience).
By A/B testing and comparing metrics on the amount of post engagement, site visits, and more, this feedback can help you make educated decisions when it comes to the more expensive Facebook for Business advertising channels.
(That’s not to say that messages or content always perform the same on social as they do on other channels, but it is a way to get a quick read on customer sentiment.)
Facebook Insights allow you to see what’s working — and what’s not.
Facebook for Business Insights tool gives you a transparent view into the details of how many people you’re reaching, how many are engaging with your posts, how many are following your page, and what percentage of all of these stats have been earned with organic versus paid and “boosted” content.
Below is a sample of a one-week results roundup from Insights compared to the previous week. All of it — and then some — is readily available in your Facebook for Business dashboard in detail.