Most marketing pros will tell you…
- You should never market on Facebook without a strategy.
- You should always identify your online marketing goals and objectives.
- You should only focus on social networks that give you a positive ROI.
- And on and on and on and on.
The marketing pros are right. You should create a marketing plan according to your goals and you should always measure to make sure you’re getting money back on your investment. However, for a lot of businesses there’s no time for that and/or they know they’re not going to get a ton of return because of the nature of their industry.
If you’ve been putting off Facebook for one or both of these reasons, stop it. I say create your Facebook page now so that the search engines and your customers can at least find you. You can perfect as you go.
Once you’ve gotten your page created (check out Facebook’s instructions), follow these five down and dirty Facebook content tips to get you going fast.
1. If you can’t post every day or even every week, post twice a month.
If frequent posting isn’t in your bag, post regularly. Look at your calendar, and set a reminder to post to Facebook around the same time each month (at least twice a month).
2. Pictures, pictures, pictures.
You’ll need to play around to find out what type of posts (videos, questions, links, etc.) your Facebook fans respond to most. However, it’s likely that images will get the most interaction.
Take photos around the office to humanize your company. Find some great graphic designers on Fiverr and post your own graphics. Get creative.
3. Sure, content marketing is about your customers. But if you’re going to be on Facebook, you might as well get something out of it, too.
Survey customers. Drive traffic to your website. Answer commonly asked questions. Promote partners.
Use your Facebook business page as a tool for running a better business.
4. Come up with a list of content sources to draw ideas from.
Create a doc with links to every industry association, trade magazine, and relevant blog. When it’s time to post to Facebook, draw from this list. If that doesn’t get you anywhere, scan Google News, Digg, and Reddit headlines, and check out our list of blog post ideas that we publish each month.
5. Don’t Facebrag.
According to Urban Dictionary, Facebrag means to “use Facebook as a platform to brag. Normally about a job, internship, trip, purchase or anything else that nobody really needs to know but you’d like to tell everyone because you’re awesome.”
It all comes back to posting valuable content that will entertain or inform your readers. Before posting always ask yourself what’s in it for them.
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What is in your Facebook content for your customers?
About Sara Lancaster
Sara is The Condiment Marketing Co.’s founder and creative director. She oversees client relationships, strategic marketing plans, as well as a bit of copywriting and social media management.
