It may be true that Facebook is no longer new and edgy, but it certainly is popular. There are more than 2 billion active Facebook users and many are daily active on the site. It’s no surprise that companies try to earn money from Facebook and due to its potential to grow an audience, it makes sense.
It can be difficult to make money on Facebook, especially if you’re new to advertising and building an audience. It’s hard to stand out from the crowd, but by learning some of the techniques that can help your business grow, in time you should reach customers and make some profit. Here are a few ways you can use Facebook to your advantage.
Build an Audience
Influencer Marketing Hub mentions how vital it is to build an audience on Facebook so that you’ll have people who want to learn more about you and your product. Facebook is also an excellent way to communicate with customers and find out what they’re looking for in a product and how you can improve products to meet their expectations.
The whole reason that influencers are successful on Facebook is that they have already gone through the process of building a following.
You need to build up your expertise on Facebook by sharing a string of excellent posts – interesting links, images, and updates. To really succeed as an individual you should build up an area of interest where you can become recognized as an expert.
While businesses may choose to use influencers to market for them, they will probably also want to build up some form of Facebook presence themselves. Over time they can use it to help people recognize them as experts in their niche. Starbucks has shown how to do this well, and their page has 37 million followers.
Keep a Sales Mechanism in Mind
Sales funnels are an excellent way to get customers more interested in you and hopefully eventually purchase a product. Build a relationship with customers and gain their trust in your products so they’ll feel confident purchasing from you. Facebook can help make this happen either via their Marketplace or by advertising your products on your Facebook page and promoting them via advertising. Entrepreneur has more on this below.
The next step in your quest to make money from your ads is to create the sales mechanism. Yes, I'm talking about the sale funnel. What's that mean? Simply this. It's the process of finding a prospect and bringing them into your ecosystem to eventually become a customer. Here are some things that should be noted:
50 percent of all the people that inquire about something buy it within 18 months. Maybe not necessarily from you. But, from someone selling it in the marketplace.
15 percent of that 50 percent will buy within the first 90 days.
What can you put in place so that those people who'll buy will not only know you, but also like or love you enough to purchase directly from you?
Your goal is that when the prospect is good and ready in terms of purchasing whatever product or service or information, that the relationship you've developed turns into a transactional one.
Figure Out Effective Ways to Drive Traffic
Promoting a business is vital on Facebook, and it’s even more important to encourage potential customers to sign up to your email list or click over to your website. You may also want to drive traffic to make a purchase via a sales funnel. Here are more thoughts from Small Business on how to drive traffic.
The great thing about Facebook is that its algorithms examine where you go online, what you click on the site, what videos you watch, etc. Then it brings more of those types of posts to your attention. Facebook is also, of course, a way to connect like-minded people, organizations, and companies.
You can take advantage of this to make money on Facebook. You’ll do it not by selling to people directly on the platform as with the Marketplace but rather compelling people to click on links on your Facebook page that takes them to your e-commerce site, landing page, or other website connected to your online business.
There you can sell them products or ask them to sign up to your email list. This Facebook traffic is very qualified—these are people interested in your product offers.
To boost your traffic, you need to post regularly to your Facebook page. You can post sales pitches, product launches, and other related things to your business. Strong copy and compelling offers can bring in a lot of traffic. But you should also have useful content on your page that engages the prospect—that’s what’ll keep them coming back. You could post industry news, funny stories, etc. Photos and videos are very important these days—people want to watch them. And they don’t have to be professionally produced.
Create a Group to Inspire Employees
A great way to stay connected with business associates, employees, or just friends is by creating groups. Inc. says groups are also a smart way to promote your business, but it’s important to first check out the group rules before letting others know about how your business may benefit their life.
Whether you're a manager motivating a team, or have a group of industry peers who want to support each other, Facebook Groups are the answer. You can move mountains when you belong to a group of passionate people working toward the same goals, supporting each other every day.
Once you start your group, post at least a few times a week. It could be a question, words of motivation, pictures, or videos. Always like and comment on what others are posting as well. Groups are like live events happening 24 hours a day. When run correctly, it will become the cornerstone of your success.
Utilize Facebook for Leads
Similar to using Facebook to drive traffic, it’s also the ideal place to look for leads. Small business has excellent ideas on how to drive users to your site for a huge earning potential.
Basically, all the Facebook users out there are potential leads for your business. Not everybody, of course, just those folks who are interested in your products. The cool thing is that Facebook makes it easy to find these folks… and for them to find you. Again, you need a Facebook page for your business.
You’ll include useful content to engage the users. And then you’ll also include links to your website or a landing page asking them to sign up to your list to get a newsletter or updates, as well as special offers. It’s important that you give them some incentive to sign up, like a free ebook or special report related to your niche.
With Facebook, you can also include an email opt-in form directly on your Facebook page.
You should also go out to fan pages or Facebook groups that are in the same industry or niche and start posting—this networking can bring more people to your page or directly to your website or landing page.
Boost Popular Posts
Fat Stack Entrepreneurs says that if you have the funds to boost posts, it doesn’t hurt to get an audience interested in your products or website by efficiently advertising.
When you get high engagement for a particular post or piece of content, throw some money at it and boost it. This could get the content much more traction, options, ad revenue and even attract links.
The money materializes in the same way as posting. Boosting sends traffic to your site. In some cases you may opt to boost to attract more fans so that you can drive more traffic to your website in the future.
Carefully Craft a Facebook Ad Message
Entrepreneur agrees with Fat Stack Entrepreneurs about Facebook advertising and mentions ways to craft your message. After all, a compelling ad is what’s going to attract leads to your site or prompt them to sign up for emails.
Everyone wants to make money with their Facebook ads. That much is clear. But, most people fail before they even get started. They fail because they don't craft the right message. In other words, they don't connect with their audience. Kusmich tells me that there's a simple formula to doing this. If you follow the formula, you'll be a step ahead of the game. No expensive Facebook ads courses are necessary. All you have to do is follow the feel-felt-found formula.
Feel: The goal is to connect. To make that connection, you have to create empathy. Let the prospects know that you understand how they feel. This should address the pain point and origin of the problem that they're experiencing and that you're solving with whatever it is that you're selling.
Felt: The next part in the empathy bridge in crafting your message is to relate that you've felt the same way. You know how they feel because you've felt that way specifically. That was the catalyst for whatever product or service it is that you've created to address the problem.
Found: This is where you tell the prospects about the solution you found. Or, the origins for the solution. Something that worked for you or that you've implemented and has worked for others.
Sources: Inc., Sales Business, Fat Stacks Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, Influencer Marketing Hub, The Balance Small Business
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