The social media revolution has given Facebook the status of the prime social media channel. The massive user base of Facebook has made it an attractive spot for advertisers and marketers cause no matter what a company’s audience is, today one and all are present on the popular social media channel.
The marketers nowadays have prioritized Facebook Marketing strategy because they now know it for a fact that Facebook is capable of getting them the best deal of customers. But what is Facebook marketing? Let’s find out.
What do you understand by Facebook Marketing?
Just like any other form of mass communication, the social media networking site Facebook has attained such high-level popularity that it has marked its presence as the most preferred platform for marketing of goods and services. The new businesses especially find it easy to launch their products on Facebooks. Introducing and raising awareness on Facebook is much easier on a platform like Facebook, where you can cater to the chosen audience with little investment.
Facebook Marketing implies to carrying out marketing practices over the social networking site i.e Facebook. The companies are actively exploiting Facebook to raise awareness, boost sales, establish a brand, identify customers.
There are many reasons as to how and why Facebook has been able to overshadow all the other medias of communication. We will discuss these reasons further on the blog in detail. Let us first take a look at the major components of a Facebook marketing strategy.
The major components of a Facebook Marketing Strategy
Every strategy has their own basic components which are of prime importance to achieve the defined objective. And these components shall remain the same for every strategy that one may lay out. Thus, same is the case with Facebook Marketing Strategy. Below mentioned are the three major component of the Facebook Marketing strategy.
An objective-
Any given strategy is driven by a defined objective which is the sole purpose of that strategy. The objective serves as the ultimate goal in accordance with which the entire strategy is laid out.
This should be the first task, to begin with, even when you opt for facebook ads, the adverts manager begins with asking you the objective first and foremost. The objective must be clear right away whether it is brand awareness, boosting sales or carrying out the lead generation process.
A plan-
In a given strategy, the second most important component is definitely the planned structure that bifurcates all actions in step by step order. A plan provides the much-needed direction to the strategy. In the absence of a plan, you will be left clueless as to what should be done next. Thus, it will be wise to have a plan and the same must be altered from time to time.
A creative
The creative stands third in the order of component’s priority but that doesn’t make it any less important. The creative is the final outcome of all the calculations one makes in order to prepare a perfect communication layout i.e. the creative.
Well, these are the basic components of any given strategy in the world. To be talking specifically about the Facebook Marketing strategy, let us look at the basic Facebook tips and tricks that must be implemented as a part of the Facebook Marketing Campaign.
Facebook Marketing Essentials
Conducting a Facebook Marketing campaign may not necessarily result in the desired results until and unless certain things are taken care of. These things must be regarded as the essentials of Facebook Marketing. Read on to know more.
Set Realistic objectives
In order to avoid disappointment, it is very important that you set realistic targets for your campaign. The targets could be anything from 500 likes on the Facebook page to 50 sales, etc.
Build engagement
The marketing activities that you carry out on Facebook must be aimed at building engagement. The more the users respond to your creatives posted online, the more are your chances of meeting your objective.
Keep the Headline eye-catchy
Play with words when you attempt to attract the attention of your online audience. Everything that is on Facebook is screaming for attention, you have to be creative enough to be able to subtly attract the attention of the users as you alongside persuade them to make them do the desired action.
The creatives must match the objective
It is crucial that the creatives you design for the facebook marketing strategy it is prepared in accordance with the objective of the campaign. The creatives should be such that they work directly in effect to the objective.
Conduct giveaway contests
Online contest attract a major number of user population because who doesn’t like free gifts? we all do! isn’t it? Over the period of time, it is observed that online businesses who conduct such contests are able to maintain a relatively higher engagement over the different types of social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Offer Promo discounts
There is everything else and then there are discounts and how much we Indians love discounts. When you know it, just use it! offer introductory discounts and that is where you get the first chance to get in touch with your customers. Hence, you must make the most of it.
Share the feedback stories of the existing clients
Well, absolutely nothing works better than the word of mouth strategy. You must always update the positive feedbacks you receive from your satisfied customers. a tooth-whitening company hi-smile has its Facebook promotional video made up of a compilation of all the customer feedbacks. Have you seen it on Facebook? If not, watch it in this space.
The idea behind sharing feedback stories is that sharing the positive feedbacks generates curiosity in the minds of the viewers. This is a trick you see, so employ it!
The feedback videos with powerful messages like the one above, attract the audience without having to do many efforts. All it takes is strong persuasion and fancy style of presentation. Have you tried this for your brand yet?
Make use of Facebook tags and #tags
Both these tags are quite helpful in drawing the user’s attention. The companies can make use of these tags by simply tagging the known brands and relevant associates. Tagging sends a notification to the entity tagged and thus informing them about the posts you have made.
Post in a routine
When I say post in a routine, it does not imply that you must bombard the timelines of the followers. Doing so will create a negative approach and people will begin to unfollow you. the routine here refers to the understanding of adding a time schedule in the Facebook marketing strategy to drive results.
The time schedules in the effective Facebook marketing strategies are designed such that posts are updated at regular intervals. When an entity posts regularly, it is more likely to register itself in the minds of the users which is the stepping stone.
Share quotes/videos that are relevant to the theme of your brand
To keep your page active you can always take help of quotes that match the theme of your business and at the same time are interesting to read. On the other hand, videos too have become an active component of the Facebook online marketing strategy.
The video testimonials, behind the scenes (BTS) videos, recipe videos, etc. have been noted to have high-level of engagement.
Choose your audience
The best part of a Facebook marketing campaign is that you get to choose your audience on the basis of behavior, age group, gender and you can just simply pick from the advanced options available.
Play with the images
Use bright, attractive colors and appealing visuals for images. The images you use are indeed very important in determining the performance of the marketing copy or the ad copy that is used on Facebook. Interesting captions earn you extra points.
Is the Marketing strategy for Facebook App any different?
There was a time when we used to login to Facebook from our desktop and then here we are today, having a 24-hour access to Facebook from our smartphones. A majority of the smartphones today come with an inbuilt Facebook app.
Most of us are aware of this basic fact that the layout of the Facebook web and Facebook app is similar yet has its own differences and its own features too. At present, according to the statistics, the number of mobile users are much higher. Thus, the companies prefer to prepare their Facebook marketing strategies according to the layout to the of the Facebook app.
Thus, when we know that there is a relative amount of difference between the layout of the two. The Facebook ads marketing strategy for the app is designed in consideration to the layout of the app. The image size of the creatives may also vary from the web to app. However, major differences would not be spotted but it is wise to craft separate strategies for the app and the web.
The prominent differences between the two are:-
- load time
- visibility and engagement
- layout and format
The above-mentioned differences can be drawn from the sample shared of the facebook ads on Facebook web and app. Moving on further, let’s look at how to create a Facebook marketing strategy for a business.
How to create a Facebook marketing strategy for business
Beginning with the three with most important components:- An objective, a plan and a creative, the social media strategist of the company must go step by step in the process of crafting a strategy for the business. There will be several factors that must be brought into consideration for serving the objective well.
Your Facebook marketing strategy will be nothing but a path to reach your objective. The strategy will be prepared with respect to your objective and will primarily focus on achieving the objective in order to accomplish the set targets. Depending on the size and the nature of the business one can pick the most suitable strategy available. To create a Facebook Marketing strategy is a piece of cake when you are clear about what exactly do you want.
For example: Say if I start a restaurant in a local complex and I want to raise awareness about my business amongst the potential customers. If I am looking forward to implementing a Facebook Marketing strategy for the same, there are a variety of top Facebook marketing strategies that I can adopt for my business like:
- Facebook Check-in and free drinks
- Write a review and earn discount
- Run an ad campaign on Facebook
- Send invites to friends on Facebook to like the FB page of the business
- Offer introductory discounts on Facebook
- Upload pictures and video testimonials of the happy customers
- Share pictures of the delicacies prepared at my restaurant.
If my objective was not Brand awareness but boosting sales, what should my strategy be then?
- Well, since my objective is boosting sales, I won’t follow the free drinks on FB check-in strategy. I would rather offer discounts or an additional item on the order of a given amount, say, One Brownie Sundae free on the order above one thousand rupees. And since I am using Facebook marketing strategy for boosting my restaurant’s sales, I will update all this on Facebook.
- Further more to attract more and more people to my restaurant for the purpose of making maximum sales, I can announce an exclusive night at the restaurant that will be marked by a live singing performance. When people come to the restaurant for the music night, the food sale is sure to go up.
These examples aim at suggesting you that with a change in the objective, there is also a change in the strategy i.e. the strategy must be molded as per the objective. Let us understand this better with the example of the Facebook marketing strategy adopted by a business raise.
Case Study
About Air Asia
This Malaysian low-budget airline operated from Kuala Lumpur. Air Asia is regarded as the widest airlines in Malaysia and the largest low-cost airline in South-east Asia. The airlines fly to 165 destinations spread across 25 countries across the world. Air Asia is recorded to operate with world’s lowest per unit cost i.e US$0.023 per seat.
AirAsia India
Air Asia’s was eager to enter the Indian market after the government allowed an FDI of up to 49%. The management of the airline along with the CEO believed that it would be easy for them to establish the airlines in the nation. Tony Fernandes, the CEO of Air Asia ventured with Tata in consideration to their goodwill in the nation. On 19 February 2013 AirAsia announced its Indian low-cost affiliate airline. AirAsia is the first foreign airline to set up an affiliate airline in India.
Objective
The campaign launched by the social media team of AirAsia aimed at raising brand awareness amongst the people through the popular social networking site.
Strategy adopted
Air Asia started a social media campaign to invite people to participate in a contest where they can travel to Kuala Lumpur from Sydney, Australia along with 302 of their Facebook friends. The airlines only had to do one major task and that was to select the Facebook fan to whom they were going to give away all the seats in the packed with a three-night stay and a return ticket.
The selected fan on being chosen had to further having to select his Facebook friends whom he wanted to take along and allot them seats through the app and share the snapshots of the plane with all of them tagged on Facebook.
Results achieved
- The objective was met since this Facebook marketing strategy increased their reach by 30%.
- A total of 12, 500 entries were received out of the massive reach of 2,291,483 people on Facebook.
- The company received a PR press coverage of worth $1,627,593.
- The number of Air Asia daily flights from Sydney doubled.
Learnings:-
- Do get big results, make an offer that leaves your audience startled.
- Facebook is an effective platform to create brand awareness as well as well as position yourself well in the market.
- Use the latest trends to attract the attention of the online users in the most effective way possible.
Case studies of Businesses that implemented Facebook marketing strategy via Facebook business.
To Conclude
Facebook has become the ideal place for marketers to perform all the business related activities and meet the objectives like establishing the brand, generating sales, broadening the consumer base, introducing a new product into the market, crisis management and much more. An effective Facebook marketing strategy can help you solve the purpose.
Take up the Facebook Marketing Course to get a better understanding of Facebook Marketing. You can use these insights to become a Facebook Marketing Consultant or use it to elevate your business.
