Digital Marketing Trends: Facebook Marketing
Social Media Marketing has been growing at an exponential rate across the globe over the past few years. No company represents this phenomenal growth better than Facebook. This article looks at how you can use the various tools that are available at Facebook as part of your Digital Marketing strategy. What is clear is that Facebook Marketing will likely continue to grow from strength to strength during the current year. Before discussing each point however, we need to discuss a few things about the social media behemoth. (You can click on the link to jump to the appropriate section).
How big is Facebook Marketing?
In order to understand Facebook’s potential as a marketplace, it is necessary to first note the number of people who use the social media giant.
Estimates put the number of users who are active on a month by month basis on the platform at over 17 billion.
The great thing about Facebook is that its adoption has been pretty much worldwide (save for places like North Korea, where it is doubtful that people there have ever even heard of it).
A huge, potential marketplace
It is this world spanning growth that has made Facebook such an attractive target for Digital Marketing executives. The social media giant provides a platform where people meet and interact on a social basis, without consideration for frontiers.
Growth on a global scale
For the year 2017, what this means is that Facebook will continue to be full of opportunities for those who are looking for growth on a global scale. So, what are some of the ways through which you can tap into this growth during the current year?
Facebook Adverts
Facebook is, as mentioned earlier, huge. With Over 1.7 billion monthly users, homing in on your target audience may appear to be nearly impossible. However, that is hardly the case.
With Facebook adverts, it is easy for you to create advertisements for exactly the people that you are looking for. The platform allows you find your audience based on contact information, demographics and behavior.
You can then create adverts that are specifically aimed at your chosen group of people. What this means, in the year 2017 is that none of your Facebook Marketing campaigns will be misdirected and wasted.
The best thing about running Facebook adverts is that you are provided with the Analytics tools that allow you measure the effectiveness of your campaign and, based on this information, make refinements whenever they are needed.
Facebook Pages
Another great way through which you can run your marketing campaign through Facebook in the year 2017 is through Facebook Pages. Facebook Pages allows you to increase your network by connecting with people and telling them about your business. The great thing about it is that there are over 60 million active business Pages, any of which you can join.
Creating a Facebook Page for your business allows you to target the over 1 billion people who use Facebook on mobile devices on a daily basis. This is important and syncs your Digital Marketing strategy with ongoing industrial trends. Mobile devices have, over the past few years, become the primary means with which people across the globe access the internet.
You can turn your Page into a hub, on which to meet and interact with your clients on a daily basis. Client engagement is, in my view, one of the ways through which you can make sure that your Digital Marketing strategy for the year 2017 is boosted.
Once you have captured the attention of potential leads, or have concluded business transactions with your clients, it is important for you make sure that they do not slip through your fingers, and Facebook Pages is one way through which you can maintain that engagement.
Messenger
As mentioned above, mobile devices are now the primary devices through which people across the globe access the internet, surpassing desktop computers and laptops.
You can, during the course of the year, make use of Facebook Messenger to better reach out to your clients and others. The good thing is that Facebook Messenger is integrated into every Facebook Page, which allows you to better engage your target audience.
As is the case with Email Marketing, people respond better when you engage them on a personal level (as individuals), and Facebook Messenger allows you to do this.
It also allows you to automate responses to FAQs, thus enabling you to utilize those few magical minutes that make the difference between a conversion and a lost potential opportunity.
Another of the similarities that exist between Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing is that you need to have a good lead response time in order to have any hope of making conversions. The longer you wait before responding to customer queries, the less likely that you are going to successfully convert them.
The fact that Facebook Messenger allows you to automate frequently asked questions, therefore, provides you with the opportunity to, in the year 2017, quickly and efficiently respond to queries. (Autoresponders handle this task in email marketing).
Another way through which you can boost your Facebook Marketing strategies in the year 2017 is through the use of Instagram, the photo sharing application that was acquired by Facebook in April 2012. Perhaps not surprisingly, Instagram is the champion when it comes to user engagement.
A study by Forrester, which was released some time ago, showed that people are more likely to engage with brands on Instagram than they would through Facebook and Twitter. The numbers, in this regard, are staggering.
Instagram surpasses Facebook by at least 58 times in terms of engagement. When compared to Twitter, the number rises to an incredible 120 times.
What this means, in simple terms, is that, in the year 2017, you should put your brand on Instagram, if it’s not already there, as a way of promoting your business.
Other Reasons for Advertising on Instagram
If that is not enough, there are several other reasons why you should put your brand on Instagram this year;
The platform is used by over 300 million people on a daily basis.
60% of the people who use it state that they find new products on Instagram.
Instagram posts are more likely to propel people towards a particular course of action. 75% of users say that they are inspired by posts on the platform towards certain actions.
The platform beats every other in terms of engagement, with 50% of users following a business or brand on Instagram.
Audience Network
Audience Network is another useful Facebook Marketing tool that you can make use of to reach more people in the year 2017. It is a tool that goes beyond Facebook, to allow you to place your ads on mobile websites, mobile apps and videos.
Audience Network employs Facebook’s targeting, measurement and delivery when presenting your ads.
You choose how you want your advertisement to behave when someone clicks on it; from launching an app to prompting someone and click an app or opening a link in a new window.
Conclusion
Facebook will remain a force to be reckoned with during the course of the current year, and Digital Marketing executives across the world are better off leveraging the various ways through which then can reach the over a billion and a half people who use the network. Indeed, as the importance of Social Media continues to grow, so too will the opportunities that are present within this domain.
Need to find out more about the current year’s Digital Marketing trends? Read this article to learn about Email Marketing and how it continues to be a force to be reckoned with withing the Digital Marketing sphere.