We were recently able to discuss a few tips with a community manager, author, and podcaster and got our hands on a few valuable points on Facebook Marketing.
Facebook and Community Strategy
“We know that Facebook is the largest social media platform we can get our hands-on. You can’t even be frustrated about it because we know it’s true.” Says Eric.
When you are working on Facebook, you don’t just have to put your content out there. You also have to engage with the audience out there, you have to comment, like, share, and indulge yourself with the audience.
As part of a community strategy on Facebook, you cannot always keep worrying about more reach. In fact, you should try to make a sensible outreach and after that, you should provide the best to those you already have in your reach.
When you are out there on Facebook, observe what your audience is talking about. Facebook cannot always be the best social media channel out there, but you can always use it to find out which network they’re preferring currently.
Some of the tips shared by Erik included:
- We know that Facebook provides more of an ideal platform for marketing and probably runs the show for deep and long-term relationships, and it’s great. But, the twitter-like platform takes over the news spreading scene.
- You must be choosing your desired social media platform based on your needs. Since sometimes you require promotion and Facebook provides excellent sources to achieve that, even without ads. And many a time you are looking for ideation and research, In those times, it’s best to choose whatever works the best for you.
- Another thing that you might have noticed or not is that Facebook has an atmosphere that lets its users have deep conversations about subjects overall. And most other social media platforms lack this. From conversations to comment discussions, everything on Facebook is pretty brief – hence, making it an ideal go-to marketing platform.
Engaging the Audience on Facebook – Erik’s Experiences
Erik is a community manager at Social Media Examiner and happens to have a list of great experiences that can help us. Although it’s hard to go to a week or year old post to respond to a comment, Facebook has tools that can help you in those situations. A great tip you can use while engaging with your audience on Facebook
pats each comment on your post on the back. In other words, you can like the comments on your Facebook posts to endorse – which is a great way to engage.
Another thing that you should do is personally throw a like on each share on your post. You should also be thanking them personally. You can say “Thanks for sharing” and It will go a long way. Always take your time to do that.
Also, your brand shouldn’t be too alienating or glamorous. Sure if you are up for maintaining all that glamour and prime nature of your brand but don’t get too involved in it. After all, you’re a brand made by people, made for people. You should be trying to act more human and interact with your audience.
Facebook groups are also great small communities right up there on Facebook. According to Erik, “Let us not forget the power of groups on Facebook. They are a tight niche community and people do opt for these groups for their choices, which is great.”
Following are some of the tips shared by Erik, about the engaging audience on Facebook:
- When you are targeting right on Facebook, you will have wonders going on for your engagement. The customer audience can do wonders for your overall engagement and can contribute to building a community on Facebook.
- If you are representing a brand then the best approach would be to take questions from all your audience and then do your best to provide all the answers. “It has made all the difference for me,” says Eric. Another tactic that is unique and should help you engage a significant part of your audience is to provide behind-the-scenes images and videos of what’s going on out there. People love to find out what’s happening backstage and curiosity ultimately gives way to engagement.
Biggest Lessons Learned – Facebook Organic Marketing
You have to know what your audience wants, despite your selection of social media. Moreover, having a A firm grip on using the tech and tools related to social media also goes a long way. As a social media marketer what you should be doing is regularly assessing your work after having weekly reviews. It will give you a chance to improve on what needs to be done better. Some of the lessons learned shared by Erik include:
- What you can do to recover from your old, less performing posts is redefine them at a later time in
life. You can remake them and repost them when you’re having less competition. - If you are following a posting technique and it happens to work and helps you engage more
audience, you should be doing more of it. - Quality based communities require patience. All the classic and highly engaging communities on
social media, take time to form. You can never be all hasty and get them overnight. - You have to be creative out there. You have to be exclusive out there by posting unique content. For people to engage with you and make people interact with your community, you
have to be putting out content that interests them. People are automatically inclined to pay
attention to the content they are interested in.
Final Thoughts
According to Erik, “Facebook Marketing with ads is not necessary, as long as you are following the right directions and producing enough engaging content to stand out, you can make a name for yourself.” Also, don’t let your references or communities around you define what success is. Success is different for everyone and it’s a synonym for achieving your goals. So keep working hard, produce engaging content and you will soon get your results. Don’t give up. Remember this proverb: Rome was not built in a day.