Is your practice or company represented on Facebook? Should it be?
As of June 2017, Facebook has approximately 2 billion monthly users. That’s right TWO BILLION people use Facebook monthly! And there are over 1 billion daily users. This is why Facebook continues to remain the top social media channel today. The next most used platform is YouTube with an estimated 1.5 billion monthly users followed by Instagram at 700 million.
Facebook is the most widely used social media platform across various ages and demographics. While Facebook is more prevalently used amongst a younger crowd (an estimated 88% of people aged 18-29 are using Facebook) there is still a hefty usage amongst an older generation (an estimated 62% of people aged 65 and older use Facebook).
With more than 60 million businesses with active pages on Facebook, it is important that your business is represented were people are already spending a lot of their time.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
You are going to want to make sure you create a Facebook Business Page (if you don’t already have one) where your practice or business can be properly represented. Facebook will take you through the steps to set this up and input your business name, category of business, phone number, address, etc…
Choose an appropriate profile picture – we recommend your logo as this will be displayed on your page, when you make a post and when you comment or engage with your audience. You also want a nice good quality cover photo or video for your page which also includes your branding.
You’ll want to make sure you have a nice good concise explanation about your company which is worded properly (which helps with SEO). Make sure your website details are on your page, add a call to action button (such as “Call Us” or “Send Message”). Ensuring all fields are filled out is important as it helps with SEO and connecting you to your audience.
There are many fields and steps you will take when setting up your page. Once again, you will want to make sure you complete this step thoroughly as it will help people discover and connect to your practice.
I HAVE A PAGE, SO NOW WHAT?
Now it is time to start building your audience up and creating content for your page. Invite your own personal Facebook connections to follow your page and have each of your employees do the same.
Get to work organically posting to your page. Generating your own content and sharing appropriate content are both important. Many practices and businesses make the error of trying to sell themselves or their service or only posting about themselves or their services. Whenever I see this I see little to no engagement from their audience. You want to engage your audience. What do they find useful or entertaining? What do they most engage with? Sharing content (as opposed to constantly just creating your own) helps get you in front of more individuals as well.
We like to also include posts about the community from time to time. For example, as a Sacramento based marketing agency, we may share events happening in Sacramento. Anything from business seminars that help small and medium size companies scale their business to family fun activities going on in the area.
Walker Kreative does a lot of work with dentists in the Sacramento area (as well as other parts of the US). As most of the followers to these dentists pages are moms, parents and people generally interested in health, we might share articles on eating healthy as it relates to oral health.
Facebook has made a lot of recent changes which unfortunately make it harder for businesses to get their content in front of people with just organic efforts. While it is frustrating to businesses who are no longer getting the reach they once were, it is understandable that Facebook is trying to make their platform more geared towards the individual user who is, for the most part, trying to stay “social” with his contacts. For this reason, it is necessary for your business to utilize Facebook Advertising.
FACEBOOK ADVERTISING
You can get great results by advertising on Facebook! Are you trying to get more people to your website? Get more calls to your office? Increase your sales? Gain more Facebook Followers? Generate leads on Facebook?
With the Facebook Ads Manager (or Business Manager) you simply optimize for the goal you are wishing to achieve with your advertising, figure out your target audience and create your advertisement. Facebook even generates an estimate of the results you will get from your advertisement (which aren’t always correct but give you a fairly good idea). Additionally, utilizing the Facebook Pixel and Event Pixel (tracking codes that go on your website) you can really work magic by re-targeting those who have shown an interest in your practice or company in the past.
OVERVIEW
With the above in mind, you definitely want to make sure your marketing strategy includes establishing your presence on Facebook. Setting up your page, posting regular content, creating and managing ads can all add up to a bit of time. Many of our clients find their time better spent doing the job they are trained for. At Walker Kreative we manage your Facebook (along with the many other aspects of your marketing campaign) so that you can focus on what you do.
Results from Facebook are far from an overnight process. You need to really have your business established on this platform by building up a following and engaging with your audience and followers (and potential customers/clients). When you receive a message on Facebook you need to respond immediately – even to let them know that you aren’t available but will be in an hour or so. You need to make sure that you get yourself or message to people repeatedly with re-targeting so that when the time comes where they need or want your service, yours is the name that comes to mind first.
So, is your business on Facebook?
Are you utilizing this platform to its full potential?
Christine Leacox
Walker Kreative
