Facebook started in Harvard back in 2003 as Facemash, an online service for students to understand fellow students’ attractiveness. To our surprise, it was banned within 48 hours as the developer and now the CEO of Facebook, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, happened to violate the university policy of acquiring resources for its services.
Despite the mayhem, the existence of 450 people who voted like 22,000 times added to its existence. This was the pilot success for Mark, who then registered www.facebook.com in January 2004. From this shiny chrysalis, the company later transformed into a colorful butterfly.
Launched to enable Harvard students who signed up for the service the ease of posting pictures of themselves along with personal information, millions across the globe now use the social media invention to the fullest.
True to its core of connecting people, Facebook not only gives users a platform to stay connected but has a million dimensions that work well for businesses too.
A concept like Marketplace allows buyers and sellers to communicate and trade. A set of good and consistent SEO activities on the platform can bring businesses notable success.
Reality check
Facebook continues to rule the clan of social media sites. It, indeed, is the number one platform chosen by millions to stay connected and share information. Apart from staying in touch with family and friends on a virtual setup, the social media platform has outgrown in the area of marketing and supports businesses to market themselves via this platform.
Right from posting an ad for a roommate to promoting products and services, Facebook helps users reach a broad audience.
Facebook ads, now a very popular form of online advertising, boost user engagement and aids SEO activities for a business website.
As per data, Facebook is the third most widely visited website across the world. Not just this, but currently, the social media giant has 2.79 billion people using Facebook worldwide, and only within the US is the number expected to grow from 228.6 million to 237.8 million by 2025.
These statistics certainly show a clear picture of the kind of reach Facebook can offer users and businesses.
Three brilliant ways to use Facebook for a business’s marketing journey
Whether you are a multi-billion-dollar business or a small local name in the market trying to establish its footprints, Facebook is for all. Engineered, re-engineered, and developed as a great platform to keep customers informed, the platform can help businesses develop a strong brand identity and broaden reach without spending bank-breaking amounts.
Now that Facebook has so much to offer, let’s read more without any further ado to make the most of Facebook’s impact on a business’s marketing journey.
1. Optimum use of Facebook business page
Extremely easy to create a Facebook business page works as a great free marketing tool for businesses. These pages enable companies to identify themselves via posts or product listings and put out tailor-made posts, link sharing, and images to add a business personality over the web.
A Facebook business page is an excellent marketing element to develop brand identity and display a more human side of the business. In fact, Facebook is a spot that helps loosen the tie a bit and market on a more easygoing note. However, it is equally essential to understand and segregate your key audience, as generic marketing does no good.
Additionally, Facebook insights, when taken seriously, can resonate with most of your audience and work toward building trust, loyalty, and a strong sales pipeline.
2. The classic Facebook ads
Like Google ads, Facebook offers exclusive advertising space with a service called Facebook ads that appear at the extreme right-hand column on the site. These classic ads, more popularly referred to as Marketplace ads, allows great commerce potential.
What do these ads contain?
- A headline copy
- A suitable image
- A click-through link (to a Facebook app or a Facebook page or outside the website)
Incorporating these ads in your business’s marketing strategy is one of the most lucrative methods to increase likes and drive traffic to the business website.
Features of Facebook advertising include,
- Demographic targeting based on Facebook user data, education, age, location, interests, etc.,
- The liberty to set an ad budget
- Ad-testing feature
- Built-in ad performance measurement tools
- Ability to advertise based on the area (perfect for local businesses)
Facebook ads have the potential to increase likes on your page, and users essentially become followers of the business page and will have your business posts and ads appear on their news feed.
These ads eventually improve user interaction with your brand resulting in conversions in the future.
3. Sponsored stories
Sponsored Stories is a variant of Facebook ads that display user interactions.
These stories work toward capitalizing on the “word of mouth” marketing concept. For example, when three or more users like a particular page, the targeted user is inclined to check it out and like it. However, these stories’ goal is to have the user take similar action to their friends.
Advertisers can choose to display friends’ likes to increase the page-like count for better business exposure on the marketing front.
Facebook claims that Sponsored Stories have 46% higher CTRs (Click-Through Rates) and 20% lower CPCs (Cost Per Click) compared to regular Facebook ads, making them an essential element for marketing on Facebook.
Takeaway
Facebook opens a horizon of opportunities and options for marketing a business. And to add to the depth of Facebook ads for business success, here are the three reasons to say yes to Facebook ads in your business’s marketing strategy.
These reasons include,
- Audience
- Affordability
- Targeting capabilities of Facebook
To know more about how social media can be used to market a business, click here for latest whitepapers on social media marketing.
