Facebook’s potential for brand-building is huge. With over 66% of the UK population regularly using Facebook, and billions of users worldwide, it’s pretty certain that everyone you want to reach is on there.
That huge userbase is a double-edged sword, however. Billions of users also means a packed timeline and a lot of content churn. It can be a bit overwhelming – and it’s tough to make your stuff stand out.
Don’t worry. You’re not alone. Facebook itself helps you to build your brand through some pretty nifty audience-building tools. But even before you get to those, a few basic considerations will help you out a lot:
Think ‘social network’ first
We’re not saying you can’t build a B2B brand on Facebook. Because you absolutely can. But it’s usually harder than building a B2C brand.
The reason for this is that – obvious though it sounds – Facebook is a social network. It’s major use is for people to keep in touch with friends and family.
Of course, a good marketer can make a brand feel like family, but the point here is that Facebook is primarily a social hangout. As such, socially relevant or entertaining content is always going to work best.
Think of Facebook like a pub (ok, a pub with constantly-changing house rules and lots of fighting, but you get the idea). Just like in a pub, getting and keeping peoples’ attention depends on what you’re talking about. And, to be brutally honest, some topics are just more interesting than others.
If you’re trying to use Facebook to sell, say, concrete (sorry if anyone reading has an insatiable hunger for concrete content! But we figure that you are the exception rather than the rule!), you’re naturally going to struggle to find a Facebook audience more than someone who’s selling a fun new kind of booze.
We’re not trying to put concrete vendors and the like off Facebook. Far from it! Facebook can be a great platform for building awareness, gathering social proofs and so on. But it is important to be aware of both Facebook’s social purpose, and your own limitations when designing content.
Be relevant
When people ask about Facebook marketing, what they often want to know is how to grab customer attention. To be fair, that’s not a bad question. Facebook is crammed with a constantly churning selection of attention-grabbing tidbits, and it’s a challenge to grab those eyeballs in the first place.
However, getting attention isn’t worth it if you immediately lose it again. Going back to that pub analogy, the way you present yourself might help you to strike up a conversation, but you won’t make any friends if you then drone on about boring stuff that doesn’t interest them. It’s the same on Facebook – there are plenty of ways to get eyes on your content, but those views won’t convert if you don’t reward them with relevance.
Customer data is your friend here. The more you know about your customers, the more relevant and personal you can make your content. So, before you even start making content, look into your audience. Learn about your customer. Learn what they want, what they like, what kind of content they engage with. Learn when they’re online, learn about their problems, their passions – learn everything you can (with good data ethics and full consent, of course!)
Then work out how your product/brand can intersect with this data. How can it solve your customers’ problems? How relevant is it to their interests?
Once you know the kind of thing your ideal customer finds relevant, it’s just a case of designing that content.
OK, you do then have to get that content in front of the right eyes – but that’s not actually as tricky as it sounds. Facebook’s algorithm will help you out a lot if you use their advertising and post settings in the right way. But if you want your customers to convert, relevant, engaging content is key.
That being said – remember, if your stuff isn’t naturally engaging for a certain audience, don’t go to desperate lengths just to get some vanity metrics. In other words, if you’re not naturally relevant, don’t force it. Your engagement metrics might rise, sure – but it will be because people are trolling you with that Steve Buscemi meme:
If you want to learn more about how to build your brand on Facebook, drop us a message and we can help get you started on social media.