Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world to promote any business. It is crucial to be actively present on facebook. Social media marketers are applying different tactics to grow the page, awareness, reach, etc. Facebook has become an important platform to generate leads and products at comparatively less cost.
- Set Goals
- Pinpoint Your Target Audience
- Set Your Budget
- Plan Content Engagement
- Plan Equally Engaging Ads
- Daily Monitoring
- A/B Split Test
- Do not worry about organic reach.
Organic reach in Facebook is very limited. Facebook has been changing its algorithm over time. Earlier people were able to reach 25% of their target audience organically. So marketers thought it is a very easy and cost-effective way of marketing. There was a mad race for fan acquisition. Now Facebook is very smart. It wanted to make more money. So it kept on changing the algorithm to reduce the reach. Now the reach is such that you can organically reach only 1% of your fans. So, if you are marketing on Facebook, do not be disappointed by looking at a very small reach. So if you are marketing on Facebook, do not be disappointed by looking at a very small reach. So for marketing on Facebook you have to basically paid ads.
- Hack the Facebook algorithm.
Do you know what is the criteria, what factors Facebook considers for determining what is shown in the fans feed? The Facebook algorithm is called EdgeRank. Now, what is an Edge, you may wonder. Any activity on Facebook is called an Edge. So a status update, alike, a share is an edge. So, the Facebook algorithm is called Edge rank. So basically, any piece of content which has got more score will have higher EdgeRank and will show higher in the feed of your target audience or your fans. There are 3 main variables that determine the Facebook algorithm.
#1 factor in the algorithm is weight. So what it means is that every piece of content will have weight. Weight is determined by engagement. All forms of engagement are not the same. Now, can you guess which type of engagement will have a higher weight? You guessed it right. Shares will have higher weight because if someone is sharing your content, it will reach out to all their friends in their network. So you will have virality. You will have exponential reach if your fans are sharing your content. Then the second highest would comment because it takes more effort to write a comment as compared to only liking, and then it would be liking or reaction. Facebook is giving different weights to different types of engagement. So a piece of content that has got more engagement will have higher weight and will go up higher in the feed.
The second important factor for the Facebook algorithm is affinity. So what it means is that Facebook will try to determine which 2 users have a greater affinity. So if you are having a brand page then followers which are interacting more with your page and its content, Facebook will infer that there is the greater affinity between the brand and those followers. And hence your content will be shown to more of those followers. So what it means is that all your friends are not equal. So if some friends are engaging more with you, Facebook will infer that you have a greater affinity with those friends and you will see more content from those friends in your feed, and vice-versa. So affinity is an important factor in Facebook algorithm.
The third factor in Facebook algorithm is time decay. Facebook wants to show content that is fresh and not stale. So content which is generated a few hours ago is given more priority. So content that is generated in the recent past will have higher weightage than that which is days old because that has already become stale. Facebook will give less priority to it. So basically, there are 3 things in the algorithm. No. 1 is engagement, which will determine weight. No. 2 is affinity and third is time decay. Now there are many people who log in to Facebook only infrequently. So Facebook has some tweaks in its algorithm, called Story Bump. So those who are logging in say only once in a week now they may miss out on important content from their network because they are infrequently logging in and so the content has become stale. So Facebook will try to bump up higher in the feed content which has got a lot of weight but has become old so that infrequent users are not missing out on that great content. Another important factor in the Facebook algorithm is the Last Actor. So what it means that users that have engaged with you in the recent past, they are more likely to see your content in their feed. So recent interactions are more important than engagements which have happened years ago. Now once you have understood the algorithm of Facebook you need to customize your strategy to be able to hack the algorithm in a good way. So what matters on Facebook is engagement. So create content that engages. Create content that is quality and not really quantity.
- Prioritise quality over quantity
When Facebook started, marketers started putting one post per week. Then as they saw that the fan base was built up they started posting more content. So it became 3 posts per week and then one post every day and then 3 posts per day because marketers say that this is a very cost-effective way of reaching out and communicating with the target audience. Then Facebook tweaked its algorithm and it limited the reach. So now it’s not important to churn the content in so much quantity because anyways you can’t reach out organically. So if you want to reach out to your target audience you have to go for paid ads. So quality has become more important than quantity. Instead of trying to produce mediocre content you should hire good quality resources, do research and produce content that will engage. And then use the money which you are saving on creating mediocre content that you put in buying the media and then amplify the good quality content with paid ads on Facebook. So remember quality over quantity.
- 3E model of content creation.
So no.1 of 3E is exciting your target audience.
So create content that will excite, inspire people. For example, Top 10 Books to Read Before You Die. Now this will make people sit up and notice, or Top 10 Movies to See. So people will be inspired to take action, to engage.
No 2 in E is to educate people. People are on social media to solve their problems. They want to learn things. So tell them some content which is & how to and they will be welcoming your content.
3rd type of content in 3E model is entertained. People are on social media to entertain themselves. They are not always serious on social. They come there to take a break. They are looking for entertainment. So create content that relates to their passion points. So if your target audience is interested in cricket, then create content around cricket or outdoor enthusiasts or fashion and so on.
- 70-20-10 model of content creation.
So basically 70% of your content should be routine content. It is a hygiene type of content. So you can either bust myths, or you can talk about festivals, or you can celebrate days. You can talk about some important quotes which will inspire people. For example, BBC. They are getting a lot of queries about the editorial pressures on BBC. Because BBC is known for unbiased reporting. So they create content on how they negotiate these pressures and how do they maintain unbiased editorial reporting. For example GE, which is a B2B company, asks people to identify wrench in the machine. So it is not creating heavy-duty content that ordinary citizens cannot understand. So 70% content should be routine, hygiene, regular content. Your everyday post on Facebook. 20% of your content will be medium risk. So you take more risks so that you can get more rewards. So this is more creative. It will break the clutter and reach out to new audiences.
For example, when Micromax wanted to launch its new model Micromax Unite, they wanted to make a video. Now this new model had vernacular capabilities. So users could type in multiple languages. So they created a remake of a popular AR Rehman song and it was sung by artists in different vernacular languages. So Raghu Dixit from Karnataka and many other popular artists from different states of India came together to sing the song and it became very harmonious and it was launched on Independence Day. Basically signaling unity in diversity. Now, this video became a trending video on many social media platforms for a few days. So it was a medium risk because it’s a remake so it is guaranteed to be little successful. 3rd is your 10% high-risk content. Now, this is very risky, but no risk, no reward. A very good example is Red Bull. So Red Bull came out with stratus campaign. It was basically a project in which there was a free fall from space to see if they could break the record of speed of sound. No this is very risky because they may not be able to break the record. Or its very risky because parachute may not open and the person may die. They built a lot of anticipation among users and they were 8 million people seeing live streaming of Red Bull Stratus Space Jump on YouTube. The moment the project was happening, within 40 minutes of the project, they got 29000 shares. The project became hugely viral and they got huge interaction and it became like a case study that continues to garner more and more views.
So take some risk.70% hygiene, 20% medium and 10% high-risk engagement content strategy.
- 50-50 model of content creation.
50% of your content only should be related to the brand. Remaining 50% should not be related to your product or brand. Let’s face it: consumers don’t care what product you are selling. They are only there to serve their own purpose. So beyond a point, don’t blow your own trumpet. Talk about things that will interest the consumers. Talk about their passion points, their hobbies, and interests, entertain, educate, and excite them.
- Amplify the post.
We have already seen that the Facebook algorithm is such that it limits your organic reach. So if you want to reach out to more people, then we have to go for paid ads. So save money on content creation and create only some stellar content and then amplify it and run paid ads and buy your reach.
- customise the tab
You can customize the entire look and feel of your Facebook page. So it doesn’t have to be the default tabs. So for example 10 Downing Street. Now it is a pub and a restaurant which is having a chain and many outlets in the whole country. They’ve customized the tabs. So they’ve integrated Instagram in the Facebook feed. It has also integrated the loyalty program. It is also integrated the franchise enquiries. People can also book a table. So basically the entire business is carried out through Facebook. So you can also customize the tab. So Facebook will become like a mini-website and you may not need your own website and it is very easy to maintain the Facebook page. So there are companies that provide services like Woobox which provide services to customize the tab.
These are the best facebook marketing strategy in 2020 to grow business rapidly.