With over 90 million small business pages, Facebook continues to be the most popular choice for brands looking to promote their products and services online. However, just 24 percent of them use paid ads to grow their follower counts. There are other ways to leverage this platform without spending money.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at why Facebook remains a worthwhile marketing tool. Then we’ll share three ways you can promote your Facebook business page without paying for ads.
Essential Data About Facebook and Why Your Business Needs It
Facebook is indisputably the largest social media platform worldwide. Its brand value alone is worth over $79 billion. With more than 1.6 billion daily active users around the globe, it presents a huge pool of potential leads for your business.
Plus, 25 percent of those users are between the ages of 25 and 34. If you struggle to reach the millennial audience with your marketing efforts, Facebook could provide a solution.
Fortunately, Facebook is user-friendly when it comes to both setting up and managing a business profile. It’s also free, making it a cost-effective marketing tool for just about any business, even if you aren’t ready to commit to spending money on Facebook ads.
Additionally, Facebook provides free marketing tools you can use to improve your profile, such as targeted campaigns and audience segmentation through its Custom Audiences feature. It also provides multiple ways to reach your target audience, including regular posts to your profile, responding to comments and messages, and live streaming.
3 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Business Page (Without Paid Ads)
The first step to successful Facebook marketing is to grow your following. While paying for Facebook ads is one way to accomplish this, there are many other strategies available to you. Let’s take a look at three specific tactics you can use to boost your business page.
1. Create Content Your Customers Will Find Useful
When it comes to how users interact with businesses on Facebook, 40 percent of those surveyed said they follow brands because they want to stay informed. Regularly posting valuable content related to your brand and industry is key to succeeding on this platform.
There are many types of content you can include on your Facebook business page to accomplish this, such as:
- Announcing brand news, like product launches
- Revealing behind-the-scenes details in exclusive Facebook content, such as a video about how your products are made
- Posting articles about industry trends
- Sharing media that features your brand, such as reviews or news stories
- Creating corresponding Facebook content for your blog posts
Although Facebook is one of a few social media platforms that is suitable for long-form written content, it’s important to note that video content is very popular. In fact, total Facebook video views average eight billion per day.
Your business can take advantage of this and grow your following significantly. Consider The Dodo, an animal-related content provider:
The Dodo’s heartfelt videos gather over one billion views per month from more than 26 billion followers. Its success stems from a few key best practices:
- Captions. 92 percent of viewers watch videos with the sound turned off and prefer videos that are automatically muted. Captions enable them to easily watch your videos without audio, and to meet certain requirements for web accessibility.
- Length. Shorter videos—around one minute—are typically more favorable for users. However, the length of your videos should be tailored to match your audience’s preferences.
- Content. Post video content that’s going to appeal to your audience and make them want to share your videos with others.
You can incorporate these same techniques when posting videos on your business page to catch users’ attention.
2. Run Engaging Contests or Giveaways
We mentioned earlier that 40 percent of people reported they use Facebook to stay informed about brands. Thirty-nine percent of people in the same study said they’ll follow a business page in order to receive discounts or deals.
One way to create special offers for customers and drive engagement on your Facebook business page is to run a contest or giveaway. This strategy is mostly free, with the exception of whatever you choose to invest in the prize.
Most often, social media contest prizes are free products or coupons. This is beneficial for your business because the winner will still be providing visibility for your brand by using your products. They may even become a loyal customer and return to purchase items at full price.
One of the easiest ways to leverage this free technique is to structure your contest so it encourages users to share or like your content and follow your page. This simultaneously increases your reach and follower count.
Alternatively, photo contests can draw people to your page as well:
Some approaches can also help you gain better placement in users’ newsfeeds. For instance, the more comments your posts have, the more likely people are to see them. ‘Comment to enter’ style contests can help with this:
You can use a random comment picker tool to help you fairly select a winner for random draws.
Keep in mind that you’re responsible for following Facebook’s guidelines for promotions and branded content.
3. Use Your Existing Channels to Increase Your Exposure
Finally, it’s important to consider how Facebook fits into your digital marketing plan as a whole. Sharing your business page across other channels can help increase its exposure and drive up your follower count.
One way to do this is to make sure you have social sharing buttons on your website:
This enables readers of your website’s posts to easily share them to their own Facebook profiles. In turn, this may lead some of their connections to visit your business profile.
We’ve already mentioned creating corresponding Facebook content to promote your blog posts as well. Some other ways you can connect your various digital marketing channels include:
- Mentioning Facebook contests or times when you’ll be Live in your email newsletter
- Promoting your page on other social media platforms, such as Instagram or Twitter
- Adding a Facebook Follow button to your website
You can even promote your Facebook business page offline by adding social media icons to physical marketing materials such as business cards or flyers. Encouraging people to follow your brand at live events or on podcasts can also help drive traffic to your page.
Don’t forget about your existing friends, family, and followers, too. Facebook did some research and found that we’re all separated by roughly 3.5 users. When you combine that with the fact that the average user has over 300 friends, it’s easy to see the potential your existing network has.
Asking your existing friends and connections to share your content is an easy way to spark momentum. As your follower count grows, it can act as a kind of social proof to boost your brand’s credibility and encourage more people to follow you.
Conclusion
Promoting your business page on Facebook can be done without paying for ads. Just keep in mind how users typically engage with content on the platform. This means you should keep them engaged with useful content (especially videos), run contests and giveaways, and leverage social sharing buttons on your website.
Are you still curious about how to promote your business on Facebook for free? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
Featured Image Credit: Pexels.
Bradford Henry on
Insightfull, Thanks!
consultusnow on
Thanks for sharing this blog!! It is more informative to succeed in Facebook marketing by promoting Facebook business page with these tips.
Prophet hope revivalist on
Show me the step with figure
Shahnaj Bagum on
Can you please tell me some method of facebook page boosting without using any dollar how can i earn from free boosting