(Contributed By John Gower, a writer for NerdWallet.)
Creating a Facebook
brand page is a popular way to reach out to users, especially because so many
people already use Facebook. However, just setting up your brand page isn’t
enough to fan the flames of user engagement. You need to find ways to stoke
your brand’s fire and light up your user base. There are lots of ways to build
your brand using Facebook — and many of them are actually quite simple. Check
out these five ways to spread your brand using Facebook.
#1 Know your audience. You can’t spread your brand if you don’t know whom you’re
trying to spread to, so do a little research. Facebook is informal, so posts
like “Tell us about yourself,” “What is your favorite product of ours?” or
“What kind of things do you want to see on our Facebook page?” are an
appropriate way to find out who is following your brand. Once you have a
baseline idea of who your users are, make some posts and see how they do. If
you don’t get the level of engagement you expected, feel free to tweak your
strategy or do more research using surveys or other methods.
#2 Make exclusive offers. You want to incentivize following and engaging with your
brand on Facebook, so making special offers available to Facebook only can be a
good way to drive activity. There are several ways to go about this. You can
offer coupons that you aren’t posting anywhere else for products you want to
highlight, or for services like free shipping. This lets Facebook followers
feel like they get something out of interacting with you. You can also gamify
the process. For example, the Facebook page for Sid Meier’s Civilization is
gearing up to release a new expansion. Since followers want to know more about
the new features, the Civilization page has run several promotions along the
lines of “If this gets over 400 shares, we will release a new feature.” This
has proven quite effective.
#3 Go visual.
Images and video spread across social media much more quickly than long bits of
text. Although this might be seen as low-level content, you can use it to your
advantage. Try sharing coupon codes superimposed on pictures, images of your
team working on a new product, or video demonstrations of your product. People
generally like easily digestible content and this is a good way for you to
encourage brand engagement.
#4 Be real.
A pet peeve of many netizens is companies on social media who only communicate
in corporate jargon. You’re on social media, talk to people as a real person.
Half the reason users are following your Facebook page is that they want to see
the real people behind the brand. If you’re a professional or own your own
business, don’t be afraid to share things about yourself along with updates
about your brand. Another popular technique is to post about new employees in
key positions. Posts like “Meet our [job title]” can help people relate to you.
#5 Have quality content. You don’t need to post constantly, but when you do post,
make sure that it is good. Quality content comes in all forms: pictures, video,
links, etc. Don’t limit yourself and post anything you think is interesting for
followers of your brand, but be sure to vet everything you post. If you’re
linking to an author, poke around his or her page to make sure that the overall
message meshes with that of your brand.
Spreading your brand on
Facebook doesn’t have to be difficult and these strategies can help you get
started. Figure out who your user base is and engage them in authentic ways and
your brand will spread!
John
Gower is a writer for NerdWallet, a personal finance website dedicated to
helping you save money with financial tips on everything from the marketing
tips to info on discount codes.
Comments