Facebook. Everyone loves Facebook. I don't know many people who don't have an account on Facebook, even my grandparents have joined. It is the most popular social networking site today, with 1.09 billion daily active users. That equates to 1 in every 7 people in the world. That offers a lot of exposure for all of the businesses with a presence on the site. But with that kind of audience, businesses need to know what they are doing. Posting blindly can lead to negative feedback and publicity that can ultimately lead to the demise of a brand. So what are the benefits of putting your business on Facebook?
Facebook offers a place for businesses to share what they are all about. You can add your location, hours of operation, links to your website or store, a description of your products/services, and a basic sense of what your business is all about. Facebook allows users to post text, photos, videos, and links to other websites. This lets businesses interact in multiple formats with all of its followers. All of this is available for free, which is great if businesses can consistently increase their following and engage with customers. Key features of Facebook's business profiles include:
- Information on number of likes and where they come from
- Information on why people are visiting your page and how they found it
- Daily information on your posts, the different types of posts, and how much buzz they are generating through clicks, likes, comments, and shares
- Demographic information about your audience, including what time of day they are viewing your content and how they found it
- Reach data - how many people like, comment, or share your data and whether these people are your customers, their friends, or new
- Facebook's new reaction feature for posts that allows viewers to assign a like, love, haha, wow, sad, or angry emoji. This allows businesses and individuals more insight into how people feel about their post.
For those businesses that need a little extra help, Facebook offers paid advertising services that can work wonders for many businesses. This has really taken off in recent years and isn't just for big companies anymore. Facebook offers affordable advertising options for even the smallest of businesses. Facebook Ad Manager gives businesses access to:
- Performance metrics on individual ads or ad groups
- Reports and notifications about your ads
- The ability to target custom audiences, gain audience insights, and see and manage media that has been added to your campaign
- The ability to set a budget for your different ad campaigns/promotions
Another really cool feature that is really useful for small businesses is Facebook's Pages to Watch feature. This allows businesses/pages to select five other pages that they would like to watch, most likely competitors. After the other pages are selected it will show a ranking of your page and the five others by who has had the most new likes this week. This is a great way to keep tabs on competitors and if you see them getting a ton of new likes you can investigate to see what they are doing on their page and then step up your own efforts to increase your likes as well.
Facebook is one of my favorite sites to use on the go because it is mobile optimized, something that is often times missing from a business' main website. Businesses can really benefit from this if they use Facebook to do a lot of their promotional ads and general interest growing activities for their business. It is a quick easy way to find out the location and hours of many businesses and it is convenient, which is always a plus in today's fast paced society. Overall, a good way for businesses to look at Facebook is a pyramid of stepping stones. First you need to build up your customer base and following, then you need to connect with these followers. Once you see that there are connections being made then you can move on to engaging more with your followers, which ultimately helps convert them into loyal customers. Facebook provides businesses with a lot of tools to make them successful, some of which are free and others are paid, but over all it is worth it if it is used properly.Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-page-insights-basics/
https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-ads-reporting-ads-manager/
https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/
https://www.postplanner.com/top-10-benefits-facebook-business-page/
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/facebook-understanding-business-benefits
http://www.techinsider.io/why-facebook-didnt-make-dislike-button-2016-2
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