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While Facebook frustrates content creators and advertisers about the lower and lower organic reach, this platform remains the most popular social network in the world, with over 2 billion users worldwide (out of a total population of 7.53 billion). The recent algorithm changed things even more, with Facebook making it clear that they will prioritize content from friends, family, and groups and less from “businesses, brands, and media” in the feed. At the same time, ad prices have increased, making it even a bit harder for brands to develop a good campaign setup that will deliver ROI.

So, can brands and businesses still grow with Facebook?

The good news is that despite the changes, brands, advertisers and content creators can still use Facebook to grow their visibility. In fact, I dare to say that you can grow faster if you adapt your tactics to match the trends in content marketing and the new focus shift Facebook took with prioritizing content on its platform. In other words, what got you here, might not get you there.

This would be a good time to evaluate what you’ve been doing and what you could be doing going forward on Facebook. Look at your target audience (client, market), research what they want to see and experience on Facebook and use this information to optimize your Facebook strategy, copy, ads, community engagement tactics etc.

These Facebook usage metrics will help you better understand this channel

• The most popular social network in the world (2320 millions worldwide), followed by YouTube (1900) Statista report

• Facebook is used by 53% female and 47% male. Of all the people on the internet, 83% of Women & 75% of Men use Facebook. Source

• This channel is popular among seniors. 62% of online Seniors aged 65+ are on Facebook and 72% are between age 50-64. Source

• Facebook is the most popular in India. The largest population on Facebook is from India with over 270 million users followed by 210 million from the US. Europe has 376 million Facebook users. Source

• This channel is becoming more competitive every single day. Facebook has over 5 million advertisers as of 2017 and 93% of marketers use Facebook advertising regularly. Source

1. Using Video Marketing

Video has become the king in content lately, and the word on the street is that it will continue to grow. Facebook itself has multiple opportunities to use video marketing, like publishing prerecorded videos, going live, doing stories, running ads. The exciting part is that video posts on Facebook are seeing at least 59% more engagement than text, links or images. Stats also indicate that there are over 8 billion video views through the platform every day.

An interesting aspect of video marketing on Facebook, specific to ads and prerecorded videos is that users prefer to watch captioned video rather than watch with sound. This minor detail increases video view time by an average of 12%.

There’s a lot to learn and optimize when it comes to video marketing, and same applies on Facebook. Don’t just post your videos and forget about them, use Facebook Page insights to see how your videos perform and how users are viewing and engaging with them. For instance if you’re doing long videos (5 to 20 minutes), you might want to check the Post Details section in your Page Insights to see just how long your audience watches. You might discover your audience only watches a couple of seconds before leaving.

You can see insights such as where most of your viewers are dropping off, how many unique views you’re getting as well as how many clicks to play you’re getting (the number of times people click on your video to play it rather than viewing it on autoplay in the feed).

2. Using the Facebook Live Feature

This feature of Facebook has some very appealing stats when it comes to boosting your visibility. Stats say that Facebook Live has 10 times more reach than all other types of Facebook content and it gets on average six times more interactions than recorded video. It’s also a great way to get on Facebook’s decision to “prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people.” (statement by Facebook’s Head of News Feed, Adam Mosseri).

With Facebook Live you have a chance to get multiple people to engage with your content, aka interact in comments. There are many ways to do that. One way that businesses have been using this feature is to make it an event in itself. Schedule your Live ahead of time and create a marketing campaign around it. Send a newsletter, create some stories and teasers (or reminders) on your Page’s feed to build up interest ahead of the actual Live.

When you hit the Live button, spend some time interacting with your audience. Ask them how’s their day, ask them to leave you a message in the comments, reply back to their comments and give them a shout out during the broadcast. You can even ask them to post a comment if they are watching the replay. You can share your Live in your groups, on your personal profile audience and invite your friends to watch it. All of these tactics will help you increase the engagement of your post and essentially your visibility.

A great way to make use of this feature is to have guests, something that can be done either by having them all in the same location with you, or with third party apps such as belive.tv, which allows you to operate live broadcasts on Facebook Pages with up to 3 guests at the same time. Having guests on your Live’s is a great way to cross-promote your Page with their audiences, and thus increasing the potential for engagement.

I recognize that out of all growth tactics for Facebook, going live might just be the one that triggers entrepreneurs the most. I get it. I had the same issue, but at the end of the day, the benefits outweighed the fear, and during the process I not only gained new partnerships and increased my visibility, but I also learned some very important lessons about myself. I created a training to help you too better understand this shyness of going live on Facebook, which you can get on my Resources page.

This is also part of my coaching system for entrepreneurs who want to grow their visibility, so if you feel stuck, or even worse, paralyzed with fear, but you still want to go Live on Facebook, hit me up on the contact page, and lets see how we can help you overcome this challenge.

3. Publish content daily

This shouldn’t come as a surprise: consistency, marketing and growth go well together. Stats indicate that the most successful brands are publishing 4–5 posts per day, but engagement rates drop significantly after 1 post per day. So, if you can’t publish 4–5 times a day consistently, then publish at least once a day and mix your content types to make the most of Facebook’s features.

The other way to make the most of a daily content calendar is to publish at the ideal time for your audience. There are multiple studies indicating various “ideal” times. For instance, Buffer says that the best time to post to Facebook is between 1pm – 3pm during the week and Saturdays, with Thursdays and Fridays getting the most engagement rates (up to 18% higher).

At the same time, other sources indicate Thursdays and Fridays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. to be the best times to post on Facebook (Hubspot), Thursday at 8 p.m. (TrackMaven), or 1–4 p.m. late into the week and on weekends (CoSchedule).

So where does this leave you? You can try two things. Test with what these studies have found and keep track of engagement and reach over the weeks, or simply go to your own Page Insights to see personalized metrics for your specific audience and page.

Keep into account that if you’re running a Page for an audience spread across multiple time zones and even demographics, you are going to have to analyze through more complex data.

Facebook remains a marketing channel with plenty of potential for brands and content creators. It all depends on how ready and capable you are to embrace the trends in communication, and to create content that your audience wants to consume on Facebook. So create content that is visually appealing, engaging and prompts reaction. A focus on inspirational, funny or practical content generates the most engagement.

Books to Learn more about facebook marketing

• The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising by Brian Meet

• Give: The Ultimate Guide To Using Facebook Advertising to Generate More Leads, More Clients, and Massive ROI by Nicholas Kusmich

• Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising: How to Access 1 Billion Potential Customers in 10 Minutes (Ultimate Series) by Perry Marshall

• Facebook Marketing: A Step by Step Guide to Guaranteed Results (Facebook, Facebook Advertising, Facebook Ads) by Greg Brooks

Need help figuring out your visibility strategy?

Hello go-getter. It’s great to have you here. I love working with business owners and marketing professionals who are ready to take their brands to a whole new level of growth. I am a visibility and marketing coach who helps entrepreneurs & leaders grow their businesses with powerful visibility strategies and personal growth. I have over 10 yrs experience working in international markets, both with B2B and B2C audiences.

Contact me here and lets see how we can work together to create a tailored marketing strategy that serves your audience and helps you increase revenue.

Hi there! My name is Monica. I am a visibility coach who works with established entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses with powerful visibility strategies and personal growth.

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