As much as we all love to utilise free advertising on social media, it can be challenging to obtain visibility. Your competition is much greater with organic advertising and essentially you need to work much harder to have your posts seen. Facebook ads are an ideal way to learn more about your target market and attract more leads to your business page. Businesses thrive from using Facebook due to its exceptional reach and targeting capabilities. We list below 5 ways of generating more leads using Facebook advertising. Targeted ads Facebook provides users with an extraordinary level of targeted marketing. Facebook Ads Manager enables businesses to create ad campaigns which target a variety of audiences based upon their marketing objectives. With the ability to target users based upon demographics such as their location, career, income, gender, age, and interests. This assists businesses to target a variety of audiences, test them, measure the results and determine which audience group generates the most leads. You also have the option to create a reach campaign, where you have the ability to target the maximum amount of people possible. Free promotions We all love receiving things for free, creating an ad which promotes a free item or service is an effective way to capture Facebook user’s attention and obtain more leads. When deciding what to offer your prospects for free, think about what your target audience would find useful. Think outside the box and be unique with your free promotion. Whether it be an e-book, consultation or free product to try, you want to use the free offer as an introduction to your products or services and prompt them to seek your assistance further. The aim is to demonstrate your expertise in your industry and how you differ from your competitors. Include a CTA (call to action) in your free promotion which prompts users to include their contact details. This will allow you to add them to your client database or email marketing platform to follow up with them in future. Video ads Facebook videos are highly effective, especially when used in ad campaigns. Video ads provide businesses with the opportunity to create informative and engaging content which encourages users to use your services or buy your products. It’s important to create high quality videos, including a CTA such as ‘call us today’ or ‘book a free consultation’. Mobile friendly videos generate higher engagement, so always remember to ensure your videos are optimised for mobile. Visual content is crucial when creating Facebook ads, 85% of videos watched by users, are viewed without sound. Consider having subtitles throughout your video ads to cater to this. Also keep your videos short and sweet, video ads under 60 seconds are ideal. Anything longer than this and it becomes harder to keep the attention of your viewers. SMS & Messenger Another tip for generating more leads is by incorporating SMS and Facebook Messenger into your ad strategy. Facebook provides businesses with the ability to have an auto responder. This improves your response rates overall and assists businesses to convert leads more frequently. Messenger and SMS have significantly high open rates as opposed to email. Messenger has 70% open rates and SMS even higher with 98%. You have a greater chance of conveying your indented message by utilising this technique. Once you have obtained the contact details of your prospects via your ads, you can use these details to alert users of special promotions or important updates via SMS and Messenger. Advertise on Instagram In case you are unaware, Facebook actually owns Instagram. This means you have the ability to use the same ads created in Facebook ads manager, to target those who fall within your target audience on Instagram. This provides you with another window of opportunity to target those who may be interested in your products or services who actually may not use Facebook, however, use Instagram. Instagram is a highly effective platform for social media marketing and one you should incorporate into your ads strategy in order to obtain more leads. Facebook advertising is a powerful way for businesses to promote their products or services and gain a significant amount of leads. Facebook’s targeting capabilities provide business owners with the potential to reach a significant number of prospects who would actually be interested in their business. Facebook has the highest number of active monthly users, compared with other social media platforms. This is why DGreat Solution recommends Facebook for businesses and marketers to invest in advertising campaigns.
An algorithm is essentially defined as a set or rules or processes used to solve a problem or work towards an end result. In terms of social media, an algorithm is a process with which each user’s posts are filtered and shared with others based upon a number of factors such as their online behavior, interests and profile interactions. Algorithms are important because they determine whether or not your posts reach the top of your follower’s newsfeeds. Social media algorithms can be quite a difficult topic to grasp especially when platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are continuously making changes to how user’s posts are viewed. This can be equally frustrating for business owners and marketers as having your content visible isn’t as simple as it used to be. Previously, posts were shared to users in chronological order so timing your posts was a top priority. Nowadays, the algorithms are based upon a number of factors and will vary depending on each platform. Although they are undeniably inconvenient at times, learning the ins and outs of each social media platform’s algorithmic approach will greatly benefit your organic reach. THE FACEBOOK ALGORITHM Being one of the most popular marketing platforms, Facebook is an ideal space for businesses to reach out to potential customers or clients. However, recently Facebook has made it harder than ever for businesses to reach people organically. This is due to newsfeed changes which mean Facebook users are more prone to seeing content from family and friends as opposed to businesses. Facebook essentially prioritizes posts which are from profiles you frequently interact with, or posts which have a large number of reactions or comments and video content. Some tips for mastering Facebook’s algorithm include sharing your businesses content on your own personal account, frequently interacting with your account followers or friends, encouraging others to share your content and utilise video content as much as possible. Also, ensure your business page is set to public so you are still visible to those who don’t follow your page. Boosting posts and Facebook ads aren’t organic, but are highly beneficial for business and do guarantee audience reach. THE INSTAGRAM ALGORITHM The Instagram algorithm has received much criticism over the past year especially from social media influencers and business owners who rely solely on the platform to operate. Timing of posts was always one of the main features of the Instagram algorithm in the past. It still is important; however Instagram also prioritises other features such as profiles users frequently engage with, the popularity of posts (including likes and shares) and hashtags each user follows. It can be very tricky for posts to be seen by users if they are not frequently interacting with their followers. If you want your posts to reach more of your followers organically, interact with your followers on a regular basis. By commenting, liking and sharing their content, in return Instagram will prioritise your content. Utilise hashtags, and use as many as you can (Instagram allows up to 30) based on a number of categories such as location and hashtags relevant to your content and industry. Post consistently and at times where your followers or target audience are most active. If your account is set to a business profile you are able to see this in your insights tab. Finally, share your content on your story highlights. Although they do last for only 24 hours, this is an additional way to share your content with your followers and can track who has viewed it. THE LINKEDIN ALGORITHM LinkedIn is potentially the most popular social media platform for B2B marketing. Quite similarly to Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn prioritises a number of factors in their algorithm. When sharing content on LinkedIn, it’s important to keep it professional and ensure it provides value for its audience. LinkedIn will favor content from profiles which you have interacted with previously as well as posts with high levels of engagement (shares, likes, comments etc.) and does not particularly favor content from business pages. In order to obtain good organic reach on LinkedIn, share your content on your business pages as well as your own personal accounts. This will enhance the likelihood of your posts being viewed and provides a more personal approach. Posting various formats of content such as text, image and video will also boost your visibility. And finally, as with all social media platforms, be consistent! Social media algorithms aren’t necessarily the easiest concept to grasp and will take some time to understand entirely. The best step you can take is to stay updated with each social media marketing platform and make note of any changes which occur to their algorithms. The more you familiarise yourself with each platform, the greater you will become at mastering the algorithms!