Facebook is one of the most powerful marketing platforms available, and if you know how to use it to its greatest potential, it can be a massive driver of traffic, leads, and conversions.
Despite Facebook's massive potential, many marketers still struggle to make the platform work for them. Whether it's an issue of targeting, content strategy, or scheduling, a lot of Facebook marketing campaigns end up falling flat.
Recently, social media marketing agency Spout Social published an epic blog post full of tips for mastering Facebook marketing in 2017. They break it down into a simple yet powerful seven-step process, from determining your campaign goals to tracking and optimizing your ongoing campaigns.
One of the steps, of course, is deciding what you're going to post.
We've decided to highlight one section from Sprout Social's comprehensive post, but you can check out the full article here.
Choose & Schedule Your Facebook Content
Each social network has it’s own style of content, but Facebook tends to jump the line. With Facebook Stories, Live, image and videos posts, your brand’s content strategy has endless opportunities.
For your business, it’s about the quality of content and what your audience should come to expect from your Facebook Business Page. Remember that being overly promotional can have its downside. According to the Sprout Social Q3 2016 Index, 57.5% of social media users said posting too many promotions was the most annoying action from brands.
Your Facebook Page shouldn’t be like a used car lot–full of ready-to-pound salesmen. The content you produce should be compelling, entertaining or helpful to your audience. People know they can get an elevator pitch on your website or ad. But this doesn’t mean your social networks, especially Facebook, have to be a home for promotions.
Highlight your brand values, identify your audiences and create a space that is unique to your company.
Types of Facebook Content & How to Implement
So you know the importance of your content, but which type will work best for your brand? Let’s take a look at the various types of organic Facebook content and how you can best use each one:
1. Status: The simplest form of communication can sometimes be the most powerful. With new features like larger text for shorter messages and the option to put your text on a colored background, you can get your essential message out in a more vibrant and eye-catching way.
2. Images: Posts with images drive 2.3 times more engagement, so being visual helps. But don’t rely on images to do all the work–put effort into high-quality photos and awe your audience. If your product is considered “boring,” use beautiful images to highlight your brand’s creative side. Inspire users with virtual reality features or 360-degree content.
3. Videos: Video is in high demand and 43% of users would like to see even more from marketers. However, only 15% of Facebook videos are watched with sound. Video should be accessible, easy to digest and always have captions. Create videos that catch a user’s attention and provides something worthwhile.
4. Links: Links are perfect for sharing industry news and your own blog content. Find your most engaged content and continue to share it on Facebook. It’s not easy doing so organically, but it shouldn’t stop you from posting your best content.
5. Facebook Live: Live content drives three times more engagement on Facebook. With in-the-moment content growing in popularity, see how your brand can give sneak peeks into industry or office events, product launches and other behind the scenes content. Go Live, wow your audience and engage.
6. Facebook Stories: New to 2017, Facebook Stories are in-the-moment content clips. This was based off Instagram Stories, which ultimately were from Snapchat Stories–seeing a trend here? Brands have tested their efforts on Snapchat for a few years now. But with the newest release, you can attempt this style of content with one of your biggest networks. Follow our Snapchat guide for ideas!
As you can see, there are several different kinds of content that you can post on Facebook. By experimenting and tracking your campaigns over time, you can figure out what gets the best results for your brand.
One of the other big takeaways from the Sprout Social post is this: don't be too salesy. The number one gripe consumers have is too much overly promotional content.
You don't want to come across like a pushy door-to-door salesman. Instead, you want to keep your audience engaged, informed, and entertained, so that they'll trust your brand and actively want to buy from you.
While you do want to promote yourself from time to time, this should only be a fraction of your Facebook content. A good guideline to go by is the 80/20 rule: 80% non-promotional, 20% promotional.
You can learn more about content strategy for your Facebook business page at Sprout Social.
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