“I’m on Facebook to find new customers!” This is what most business owners will tell you if you ask them what the purpose of their Facebook page is.
Insist a little and ask them to tell you how they do that, and the answers will mostly focus around posting offers and discounts. This is just as effective as inventing the most advanced supercomputer and displaying a simple “Buy Now!” sign in front of it; no specifications, no benefits, nothing to tell people why they should buy it.

Facebook is a great tool to use for growing your business, but only if you make use of all the benefits and possibilities it offers you. No one is born a Facebook marketing expert, though, and the rules of the game are changing every day.

This is why you should keep reading and learn about these 6 ways in which Facebook can help your business to grow:

#1 Interact with Other Pages

In unity there is power, and in social media we can find business partners.
Pages can Like each other, and do a ‘share for a share’ (a popular and free way for pages to encourage their followers to like another page, while the other page reciprocates). Engaging in social sharing with partnering pages increases both your reputation and your reach across Facebook.

#2 Facebook Activity Helps Your SEO

Search engines have started including public social media posts among the search results. For instance, if one of your potential clients is searching for ways to include chia seeds in their diet and your company page has a post on this subject, that post will appear among the search results.
This means that you can:

  • do both SEO and lead generation at the same time;
  • build your reputation online;
  • increase the visibility of the content you share;
  • rank higher for long-tail keywords if you use them consistently in your Facebook posts.

#3 Create Valuable Content

Unique and valuable content is the key to effective SEO and promotion for your business in the online world. Whenever you post something on Facebook, unless you extract text with copy/paste from your blog or newsletter, you create content. This is why it is important to share original content on Facebook, write each post individually and forget about the copy/paste function of your keyboard.

#4 Visuals are Your Friend

You’ve probably heard that content is king.  The same is also true with visuals (images, video) on Facebook. Photo type posts earn 53% more Likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more click-throughs than the average post. In addition, Facebook has a High Quality upload option for photos so that they can be seen at great quality in full screen. This way you can feature great graphics, banners and photos of your products and other marketing materials.

#5 The Engagement Magnet Called ‘Contests’

Facebook contests are a great way to attract new followers, create engagement and generate more leads. You do not have to offer the most expensive product in your catalog as a prize, rather offer several prizes for a number of people (3 to 5). This sets your Facebook contests apart from others, because people feel that they have more chances to be a winner, rather than a ‘winner takes all’ contest.

#6 Widen Your Reach with Promoted Posts

You’ve probably heard that Facebook has been decreasing the organic reach for pages, but don’t fret just yet. Facebook also gives you various budget-friendly tools to widen the reach of your best content. Promoted posts are a nifty and cost-effective way to push your content into the News Feed of your fans and the audience that is as similar to your fans as possible — you’d be surprised how much engagement you can get for just $5.

This maximizes the chances of your post being seen strictly by the people who are the most interested in your products and services.

What do you think?  What are your tips/insight on using Facebook for business?  Post below.