As most of us already know, Facebook continues to be the best social media network to set up camp on as a business. It’s an absolute no-brainer to be on there. What exactly are the benefits of having a Facebook page? Let’s have a look at the points below:
- Increased Exposure to Potential Customers: 1.19 Billion users! Need we elaborate!
- Gather more leads: Just having people like your page isn’t enough to provide your establishment with long-term, sustainable business. Smart businesses gather leads in the form of email addresses – so they can contact their community outside of Facebook. A good way to approach this is through competitions, giveaways and newsletters. Email them consistently every few weeks with great information which will lead them to your website and possibly, a conversion!
- Lower Your Marketing Expenses: Starting your own Facebook page costs you nothing, although for a business we do recommend professionally designed profile picture and cover photo. It also helps if you have professionals running the page for you. But this still doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Facebook ads are relatively inexpensive when compared to traditional print, radio or TV ads and are 1 000 times more targeted. By targeting your ads to people interested in your page’s topic, you can definitely keep costs low.
- Reach a Targeted Audience: Just because there are 1.19 billion Facebook users, it doesn’t mean they all want to Like your page. It’s important to target the correct clients or potential guests in order to know with certainty that your target market is being reached.
- Use Facebook Insights: Facebook insights are easy to understand and they provide great information for business owners. You are able to generate reports on how specific posts are performing, the demographics of your fans etc. It also shows you how many page Likes you have, the reach of your post and page as well as the engagement of the page amongst others.
- Build Brand Loyalty: Besides being a place to build a guest base, a Facebook business page can do wonders for helping you build brand loyalty. If you constantly provide valuable and entertaining content, your followers will stay loyal. These days, people look online to find suppliers, accommodation etc and in the case of the latter, they predominantly search social media. If your followers see you being active and responsive, they’re much more likely to make contact that a company with no Facebook presence or a poorly run page.
- Increase Your Web Traffic: Smart Facebook page users utilize their pages to drive traffic to their websites. If all you’re doing on Facebook is getting engagement on your posts, then you’re really just entertaining, not marketing. Start using link posts to drive traffic to your site. The great thing about link posts is Facebook now generates a full-width thumbnail image it your website makes one available. Because they draw more attention, these images are more likely to get clicked. Posting links to your website is an essential part of any Facebook content strategy. Also note that newsletters drive almost as much traffic, showing why it is important to gather emails as previously mentioned! Bottom line, having a Facebook page will greatly increase your web traffic if you use the right posting strategies.
- Boost SEO: The topic of SEO and Facebook gets debated quite a bit, but it is said that the information in the About section of a business page is scraped and thus searchable by Google. We believe the more ways people can find you the better.
- Be Mobile Ready: The vast majority of Facebook users are accessing the site via their mobile devices, many of them only with a mobile device. As this trend grows, it becomes more and more important for your business to have a presence on Facebook. The great thing about a Facebook page is Facebook does the heavy lifting for you, optimizing your page for both desktop and mobile devices.
- Spy on your competition: An interesting new feature on Facebook pages lets businesses spy on competitors. Now this doesn’t mean you can look over their shoulders and check out sales or results from their ads, but it’s a great way to see how others in your area and niche are growing on Facebook. You may ask why this is useful. You can track the success of your competitor which can create the necessary motivation to improve your own approach to Facebook marketing. You don’t want your competitor beating you to Likes!
We here at TMSA can’t imagine running a business and NOT having a well managed, professional Facebook page.