7 Ways to Reach Your Target Market on Facebook

Facebook is the second largest website on the internet. Having a Facebook account for your business is almost a mandatory requirement for any organization that wishes to expand their internet presence. However, a Facebook account for your business is meaningless unless you are able to reach the types of individuals that need your products and services. There are many ways to do this; some are simple and others are a little more complex. So let us now take a look at seven ways to reach your target market on Facebook:

1. If you haven’t already, open a business page

Most businesses already have a Facebook business page; however, if you are using your Facebook personal page and don’t have a business page yet, don’t worry, because creating a Facebook business page is an easy thing to do.

First, login to Facebook, go to your homepage, and select “create page” in the left sidebar. You then need to select a category and then fill out all of the appropriate information. You can then upload your cover photo. All of the controls are very intuitive and user friendly. If you have any problems locating anything, just run a search and you will find what you need in a matter of seconds.

2. Engage in conversations

This is the probably the best way to get more interest in your company. By interacting with your potential customers, you can get their attention in a very personal way that allows for a higher conversion rate. It is also worthy to note that by interacting with your customers in this manner, you increase the likelihood that they will help spread the word about your business by telling their friends.

However, there is one major issue that you must face, and that is the element of time. Posting in all of the appropriate places and interacting with all of the people that may be interested in your business is very time-consuming. The obvious solution is to hire additional staff members to do this; however, this requires a lot of money.

In order to reduce costs and increase the number of people working for you, go to upwork.com or freelancer.com and hire as many people as you want for pennies on the dollar. You don’t have to pay worker’s compensation, provide healthcare, or deal with any additional insurance issues. Just give them with all of the appropriate information and turn them loose.

3. Analyze your competition’s Facebook accounts.

In order to see what your competition is up to, just go to their Facebook account and see what they have. However, you can use this information to reach more members of your target market. See what types of groups that your competitors belong to, so you can join these groups and begin interacting there as well.There are also lots of businesses that are not in competition with you but provide things that are relevant to your business. By analyzing these accounts, you can gain even more valuable insight about other accounts and groups. Doing this will also help you expand your outreach to your target market.

4. Post regular updates

By posting with a great deal of regularity, you are constantly asserting your presence on Facebook in a way that is not intrusive and will expand your reach. If someone does not want your updates in their feed, they can always remove you, but if they do want updates, then you definitely need to make sure they get what they want.

However, it also important to not overdo it. You need to carefully estimate how many updates per day (or per week) is appropriate. Too many updates can be worse than not enough if they start to annoy people.

5. Offer exclusive deals

Another great marketing ploy is to offer your Facebook connections spectacular deals on your goods and services. You can offer percentage discounts on various items for a limited amount of time. You can also offer free information or products as incentives for them to purchase more or upgrade the free products they will receive.

The best thing about offering online deals to your Facebook customers is that there a greater likelihood that they will tell all of their Facebook connections about your great deals. If your deals are really good, this could go a long way. That’s why you need to make sure that the specials you offer are substantial so there is a greater chance that a lot of people will tell a lot of other people about the amazing deal they just heard about.

6. Create a Facebook group

In order to make a group in Facebook, you only need to do a few things. First, you need to login to your account and then click on the “create group” icon located on the left sidebar. You then need to fill in all of the relevant details and choose a cool icon for your group. Once your group is created, invite all of your customers to become a part of your new community. This is also the perfect opportunity to offer special incentives for those who join.

7. Advertise on Facebook

There are two kinds of advertising on Facebook: ads that appear in the right sidebar and ads that appear in news feeds. The news feed ads are far more effective and have a much higher success rate. However, in order to run news feed ads, you must have a Facebook business page. Facebook also has many options that allow you to target specific demographics. These options will be made available to you when you purchase your Facebook ads, so you need to have all of this information ready before you begin purchasing your advertisements.

Conclusion

Using all of the many tools on Facebook is rather easy. However, using these tools takes up a lot of valuable time and effort. That’s why you should seriously consider hiring several employees or freelancers to interact with your customers, gather information about your competition, and retrieve information about the various details of your target audience.

By using this powerful social media outlet, you can expand your online outreach exponentially in rather dramatic ways if you do things right and remain persistent with your efforts.

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How to Turn a Facebook Group into Fan Central

In the first article in my series on building raving fans, I wrote about the difference between influencers and advocates. I looked at the basics of Facebook groups and gave you a set of questions to consider before putting an advocate group together. In this post, I’ll show you how one of my author clients developed an active Facebook group and now uses it as a base camp for advance reader reviews and social media amplifiers.

First Things First

Before she started her Facebook group page, she had an active business Facebook page under her author name. She used the page to link to blog pieces, announce launch parties, invite readers to launch parties of other authors, run contests, and get newsletter sign-ups. She also posted pictures of vacations, favorite recipes, and promoted her Pinterest and Twitter accounts. She ran Facebook ads to promote her free books and newsletter sign-ups as well. She had about 600 fans before she decided to start a Facebook group. If you would like more information on the difference between a Facebook group page and a business page, here is a short informative piece from Facebook.

Start With A Goal

The initial goal was to form a Facebook group of dedicated fans with active social media followings of their own that would grow to 200 members in the first year. Notice the goal has a built-in objective: reach 200 members in the first year. She made her group private so she and another admin could okay everyone who wanted to get in to the group. It was just a formality but allowed them to keep spammers out.

How To Set An Objective

Setting a measurement for a goal can sometimes be tricky. Since this particular author already spent some time on Facebook every week writing content for her author page, she decided that spending additional time developing content for a group would not add that much time to her marketing tasks. There was some time involved up front making a graphic for the cover photo and coming up with a manageable promotion schedule to get the group off the ground.  She decided that she wanted a group that could produce at least 50 advance readers in the first year in addition to 20 or so social media advocates that would share her content and invite others to the group. She based those numbers on the engagement activity she had already seen on her business page.

Why Not Just Use The Author Page?

The author wanted to develop an inner circle. This would be a core group of fans that she could talk with on a regular basis, run ideas by, ask to share her posts, have some fun with, and review her books. Her main Facebook author page was a place to develop reach or get her name out to more readers. But she also wanted to develop a more intimate group of “friends” that were invested in her brand and would develop relationships with other group members as well.

Advocate groups have a bigger stake in a brand. They are already proven fans of your product (books) and since you give them value, they are willing to give back. According to Rob Fugetta’s book Brand Advocates, these inner circle friends are most motivated by helping others. And they are willing to use their platform to build yours.

Give And It Will Be Given To You

Advocate groups like rewards as much as anybody else. Be sure you have a plan to add value to your inner circle. Social media is very much built on reciprocity. Tom Webster, vice president of Edison Research said, “Much influence on the social web is built on a promise of returned favors. We coexist every day on small favors… like if you retweet this, I’ll retweet yours. I’ll like your page if you like mine. The effort to accomplish these things is low—so they are easily done.” Relationships are the currency of the internet.

Your goal to grow your Facebook group needs to be accompanied by a solid plan to add value to your fans to foster a spirit of generosity and thankfulness. Let's call this your strategy.  Our author made a list of “benefits” she wanted to add to her group over the coming year.

• Two major giveaways exclusive to this group: The 12 Days of Christmas (12 giveaways starting Christmas Day) and another exclusive giveaway in the summer, either related to a book launch or July 4.
• Offer free advance reader copies of all her books in exchange for fair reviews. This group was dubbed the Advance Reader Team (ART). This group will also be promoted through the author’s newsletter.
• Regular discussions with members of the group on issues of the day and fun topics.
• Regular poll questions to solicit feedback on character names, book covers, and pop culture issues.
• Ask for book recommendations regularly so members can develop a reading list. Fans love to share what they are reading with others.
• Solicit recipe testers for a series where the author gives out an original recipe in each book.
• Occasional random book giveaways of her books and books of author friends: 6-8 times per year.
• Special invites to book launches of other authors with giveaways.
• Occasional “shout out” video posts and thank you’s to groups members.
• Other benefits to be determined.

Because this author offered a steady stream of value to her fans (including her own time to answer questions and respond to their posts), she earned the right to ask her group members to help her. They are more than willing to help. These requests included an occasional ask to share an important post, review a book, invite friends to the group, give away a free book to one of their friends, or participate in polls.

Loyalty Is A Slow Build That Lasts

Loyalty comes in degrees and manifests in different forms. Some of your fans are not chatty. Some would rather invite a friend to join the group than post a comment. But the organic growth of Facebook groups, if done right, brings long-term returns. She reached her goal and then some, and has a thriving fan advocate group on Facebook that continues to grow.

What do you think? 

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8 Benefits That Come With Starting Your Own Facebook Group Page

Are you a part of a Facebook Group Page? With over 1.25 billion users, Facebook is the powerhouse of the social networks, but interacting with a large audience on Facebook isn’t as easy as it sounds. Few brands ever get to interact with 1% of Facebook’s users. When put into perspective, the millions of likes some Facebook pages accrued sounds minuscule compared to the number of active users on the platform.

However, having millions of likes doesn’t guarantee success on Facebook. Although the audience size is important, it’s not the only factor. How you interact with that audience and build a community with the people in your audience is just as important (if not more important) as having the large audience. Out of all of the methods of growing a Facebook audience, creating your own Facebook Group Page is the most underrated way to grow an audience that matters for your brand. If you don’t have a Facebook Group Page already, here are 8 benefits that you should think about when making the decision of whether to create your own Facebook Group Page or not.

#1: Build A Community Of Likeminded People

When you create a Facebook Group Page in your niche, people in your niche will be attracted to that Facebook Group Page. In the beginning, it may be difficult to get many people to know about the group, but as your Facebook Group Page grows in membership, you will start to build a community of people who actively engage with one another. Some people may go back on Facebook just to see the activity in the Group Page.

When all of these people interact with each other in a meaningful way, and you occasionally become a part of conversations, these people will be appreciative of you making this entire experience possible. This will translate to a better reputation for your brand and potentially more product sales.

#2: More Exposure

When you create your own Facebook Group Page, you are in full control over what is allowed and not allowed to end up on the Facebook Group Page. Moreover, you can post anything you desire on this Facebook Group Page, but anything irrelevant will hurt the community and anything inappropriate will taint your reputation as a whole.

You can use your Facebook Group Page as a platform to promote your blog posts, YouTube videos, landing pages, and products. You don’t want to over-promote on this Facebook Group Page because the members in the community will get sick of it. It is important to remember that the community can communicate via other Facebook Group Pages and other methods. If you want members to stick around, but you also want to promote your stuff on occasion, only do self-promotion 1-2 times per month and spend most of the time interacting in the Facebook Group Page in a non-self-promotional manner. You can also pin a self-promotional post to the top of the Facebook Group Page, but only if it is relevant and not over-promotional.

#3: Incentive For People To Buy Your Training Courses

Many of the top leaders have a habit of over-delivering so potential customers are more likely to buy their products. If you create a training course or a product of any kind, you can offer exclusive access to one of your Facebook Group Pages that is only given to people who buy your particular product. You get more product sales, and since the people in this Facebook Group Page are paying customers, they will take the Group Page more seriously (they paid for access), and they may buy your other products in the future.

#4: People Spend A Lot Of Time On Facebook

Out of all of the social networks on the web, Facebook gets most of our time. What is initially a way to see what’s new with our friends turns into an endless journey that consists of hours of reading other people’s posts and watching videos. The great thing about Facebook’s addictiveness is that people will scroll through their home feeds, and they may come across one of the posts from your Group Page.

When someone comes across a post from your Group Page on the home feed, that post doesn’t have to necessarily be a post that you published. If another member posts something to your Group Page, people will see that post (and your Group Page) on their home feeds. Being seen often builds brand recognition and trust. If you see the same Group Page often, and it seems interesting, then you will want a piece of the action. What may initially start out with a few likes for certain posts will turn into comments, and that will eventually lead to new posts on the Group Page.

#5: Friends Will Give Access To Their Friends

If you give your friends permission to give access to the Facebook Group Page to their friends, then the membership of your Facebook Group Page will grow. Not only will membership grow, but many of the new members would be people interested in your niche. How do I know this? It’s based on the way we communicate with one another.

People like to help their friends in part because of the friends’ reactions and the feeling of self-gratitude that goes along for the ride. People like to add relevant topics to conversations and make good recommendations that are relevant to another person’s interests. If your friend writes music, are you going to send that friend an invite to a Group Page about computers? What are the chances of that friend accepting that request? What would it do to the friendship if you send this friend multiple emails inviting them to join various Group Pages about computers (probably little to nothing, but many people assume the worst)?

Instead of sending an email blast to all of your friends about the computer Facebook Group Page you are a part of, you may only send the email to a few of your friends who are interested in that area. Then, you can have meaningful conversations with your friends about computers, and those conversations may turn into posts on the actual group page.

The main point is that when friends give access of your Facebook Group Page to their friends, most of the friends with newly given access will be interested in your Facebook Group Page’s topic.

#6: Get New Blog Post And Product Ideas

When your members interact with one another, you will start to get an idea of common questions your members have and what they appreciate. The content you post to the Facebook Group Page about one area of your expertise may get more likes and comments than the content you post to the Facebook Group Page about a different area of your expertise. Your readers may also post comments about your content that inspires your next blog post idea. Every relevant post and comment that goes on your Facebook Group Page can be the inspiration for your next blog post or product.

#7: Leadership Role

When you create your own Facebook Group Page, you are in essence the leader of that Group Page. You control what gets posted, create the rules, and provide your members with an empowering environment. If you do a good job at your leadership role in your Facebook Group Page, you will gain more respect from your members, and that respect will translate into your brand’s growth.

#8: Loyal Fan Base

The members who post and comment in your Facebook Group Page often form your loyal fan base. Having a loyal fan base is essential to the growth of your brand and spreading your message far and wide. The messenger can only do so much alone, but when the messenger has helpers, that messenger’s message will spread. Having a thriving Facebook Group Page is one way to get the helpers who will spread your message for free.

In Conclusion

If you do not have your own Facebook Group Page, then you are not tapping into the full power of the most popular social network on the web. Facebook Group Pages allow you to build meaningful communities of individuals interested in your niche, and as your reputation grows, these people may buy your products as the relationship builds.

What are your thoughts on starting a Facebook Group Page? Do you have any tips on getting more members on a Facebook Group Page? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

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