How’s your Facebook marketing strategy in 2019 going?
If your brand has been marketing on Facebook for a few years now, you must have noticed the changes that the platform has implemented for business pages throughout the years.
For instance, Facebook’s major algorithm change in 2018 proved to be a big blow to many brands and businesses that rely on Facebook marketing. The social network began prioritizing content from family and friends over content from business pages in a user’s News Feed. This caused thousands of brands to lose engagement and suffer a decline in organic reach overall.
So, does it mean you should focus your marketing efforts elsewhere?
Not at all. With Facebook’s latest record of 2.38 billion monthly active users, it would be unwise to abandon the platform altogether when developing your social media strategy.
However, you have to be more proactive to stay competitive in this crowded platform. To do this, you must be willing to be flexible with your Facebook strategy. Remember that what used to be popular techniques may no longer be beneficial today. Thus, don’t be afraid to experiment and make changes as needed.
Below are 6 action steps to take when developing your Facebook marketing strategy in 2019:
1. Set the right goals for your Facebook marketing strategy.
As with all other aspects of social media marketing, Facebook marketing requires proper goal setting. What is your main purpose of using Facebook as a marketing platform?
Marketers set different goals depending on their business needs. Based on the 2018 Sprout Social Index, Facebook marketers were revealed to have these top goals in mind:
- To increase brand awareness (34%)
- To increase community engagement (21%)
- To increase sales and lead generation (11%)
- To increase web traffic (10%)
- To get more ROI from Facebook ads (9%)
- To distribute content (7%)
One common mistake that some Facebook marketers make is that they want to increase their sales right off the bat — only a few starters succeed on this. It’s recommended that you first work on increasing your brand awareness, especially if you are just introducing your product or service to the public.
After taking steps to establish your brand, you can then focus on getting more sales. But if your business is already thriving and has a loyal following from the get-go, you can leverage Facebook marketing to achieve loftier goals.
2. Understand your Facebook audience demographics.
In our previous post about creating a social media strategy, we talked about the importance of knowing your audience. The same principle applies to Facebook marketing.
Understanding your audience is just as important as sharing the right content on your Facebook page. Thankfully, the platform makes it easier for you to do just that with its powerful tool, Facebook Audience Insights.
This Facebook marketing tool allows you to learn more about your current and target audiences. It gives you aggregated information about people such as their age, gender, location, education level, job title and relationship status.
You can then leverage the data to develop your Facebook strategy and create content that matters to your audience.
Say, for example, you discovered that most people who were drawn to your page were from ages 12 to 18. How would you translate this data into an effective marketing copy?
By knowing your audience, you can improve your targeting and identify which strategies will likely produce the best results.
3. Publish the right content, at the right time.
The “Who” part has been covered, now it’s time to move to the “What” and “When.”
It goes without saying that you need quality content for Facebook marketing. By content, we mean anything worthwhile to share on your business page – information, stories, videos, images, and so on.
Now choosing the type of content to post will vary according to your branding and marketing goals. Many brands today focus on viral video marketing, while others prefer to share impactful personal stories to boost engagement.
To know what works for your business, don’t be afraid to experiment and see which content types are able to generate better ROI.
Having said that, it’s not enough to focus on preparing the right content. You must also know the best possible time for you to post it.
Due to Facebook’s algorithm changes, it has been harder for businesses to find optimal posting times. But here’s a few Facebook marketing tips from Sprout Social that you can use as a guide when posting on the social network:
- Wednesday is the peak period on Facebook throughout the week
- It’s best to post on Wednesday at 11 am and 1 pm for maximum engagement
- The ideal posting time on weekdays is between 9 am and 3 pm
- It’s not ideal to post on Sunday as it gets the lowest engagement during the week
- Early mornings and evenings (before 7 am and after 5 pm) are the least ideal for Facebook posting during the day
4. Publish frequently!
It’s not enough that you post at the right time. You also have to keep your Facebook page going and find ways to boost engagement. You can do this by publishing engaging content frequently.
But the question is, how frequent?
In a study done in 2018 by Buffer and Buzzsumo, researchers found that Facebook pages that posted five times per day saw the highest overall engagement. This number appears to be the optimal Facebook posting frequency.
Conversely, brands that posted less than once a day saw the lowest overall levels of engagement.
Yet, it’s worth noting that pages that posted less than once per day saw the highest engagement per post. On the other hand, pages that posted more than 10 times a day got the lowest engagement per individual post.
This means you must be careful not to post too much or too little. It’s best to stick to the optimal posting frequency for your Facebook marketing strategy.
5. Publish vertical videos to increase engagement.
Even if you adhere to the recommended number of posting each day, you may find it hard to achieve your desired level of engagement. This is because there has been a significant decline in engagement among Facebook Business pages in general.
How to deal with this challenge? One way is to boost engagement by publishing quality, vertical videos.
Take note: this isn’t the usual type of videos you see every day. For your business page to enjoy higher user engagement, it’s recommended that you keep your videos vertical and short.
Why vertical videos?
It’s because more than 95% of Facebook users nowadays watch videos on their mobile phones. And vertical viewing is a format that most mobile users are used to.
In their previous studies, Facebook stated:
“79% of novice vertical video consumers agreed that the format is more engaging, and said they would choose the vertical format in most cases… Further, 65% of respondents said that brands using vertical video for their advertising are ‘more innovative.’”
Hence, vertical videos would give a more natural feel for mobile phones than landscape ones. Horizontal videos would mean that users would have to turn their phones sideways. Not only is it a bit uncomfortable to do, but it also takes time.
So it’s ideal to upload videos that are short and in vertical format. Also, consider other important factors such as optimal video length (30-120 seconds) and caption length when publishing your videos.
6. Track the results of your Facebook marketing strategy.
After following the five tips above religiously, the next thing you have to do is to track how well you’re doing and analyze the results.
By this time, you’ll be going back to your set metrics and KPI’s. How can you say if your strategy is working if you don’t know what you should be measuring in the first place?
That’s why it’s important to have clear, realistic Facebook marketing goals before launching any campaigns or running your Facebook ads. Whether you aim to attract leads, increase sales or grow your Facebook followers, you should know your main objective for every campaign.
Finally, use reliable Facebook marketing tools such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social to generate reports, run your campaigns, and track the progress of your marketing strategy.
Need help with developing the right Facebook marketing strategy for your business? StepForth Web Marketing offers custom social media marketing and content marketing services for businesses of any size. Feel free to contact us for a one-time, no-obligation consultation.