If you are finding yourself asking this question, you might want to stop and rethink your social media strategy. Channels such as Facebook offer businesses an opportunity to build a brand identity, tell a story, create a unique tone of voice and engage with customers in a way that no other platforms do.
However, if you haven’t figured out how to ensure that your social media initiatives contribute to the generation of new businesses, you might want to consider looking into it a little more carefully. If you’re unsure about how to start, here are a few tips.
1. Make your content work harder for your brand
If you’re producing content such as videos or blog posts, Facebook already offers tools that enable you to retarget the people who have already engaged with your content via remarketing ads. Given that someone who already knows a little bit about your brand is more likely to buy something from you, this is a great way to reach out to new people with a soft promotion before trying to engage them with your sales pitch. Here’s an interesting thread on the topic.
2. Use your own data
No one knows your customers better than you, so your company needs to make the most of its first party data. Facebook already allows brands to target their own customers and even build a whole new tailored “look-alike” audience based on the same profile as your existing customers. This allows you to display your content and ads to people who are more likely to be interested in what you have to offer and increase your conversion rate. More tips here.
3. Don’t become too obsessed with micro-targeting
The big data factor of social media enables businesses to be so granular about their targeting strategy that it becomes easy to get carried and select too narrow an audience. From time to time, this can backfire. Yes, one of the principles of marketing is to target the right audience, but you also need to target as many people as possible within your target range.
Make sure that you’re making the most of Facebook’s targeting tools, but don’t limit your ads too much as you might end up missing the opportunity to reach potential customers. Of course, you wouldn’t want to try to sell a PhD to a 15-year-old, but remember that there’s nothing wrong with going broad and making your brand visible beyond its niche. You can find more details on how to use targeting tools here.
