Manufacturing Marketing Tips - Facebook Edition
In case you missed it, on our latest episode of “The Manufacturing Fix” we focused on Facebook marketing tips every manufacturer should know and use!
We started off the episode explaining why it’s important to have a business presence on Facebook. Many B2B manufacturers perceive Facebook as only an avenue for the B2C marketing, when that could not be farther from the truth.
It’s smart for every business to have a Facebook business page. Why? Because having a Facebook business page is another way to get in front of your audience, increase your brand awareness, and engage with users. At the end of the day, it can help companies identify potential customers, build relationships, and start nurturing leads.
The first step in marketing on Facebook is setting up a Facebook business page. (It’s free!) When setting up your page, make sure you fill in all the relevant information. Don’t leave the About section empty or have an outdated phone number listed. It’s vital to keep your contact information current, so potential customers can reach you when they are looking for you.
Along with keeping your contact information current, it’s important to keep your posts current as well. It may not seem like a big deal, but it’s important to post on a consistent basis because it will make your organization look more dependable and trustworthy. A good starting point would be to aim for posting twice a week on Facebook.
To increase post engagement, it is wise to include an image or video along with your text. Articles, blog posts, and company updates are more likely to be seen if they take up more space in the news feed. Including a graphic in your post update will help attract a greater number of people to your post.
The good news is you don’t have to be a graphic designer or have a background in Photoshop to create visually appealing graphics. One tool to help you create beautiful content is Canva. Canva is user-friendly, quick, and easy-to-use. It’s free and includes a variety of images and templates for designing content.
Flat Icon is another great tool to use for building infographics. There are some free collections available for download, but most of the customizable symbols require a subscription. Flat Icon is only $9.99/month and can help your produce professional, easy-to-digest graphics. This inexpensive tool can save you a ton of time on design and output.
Pushing out quality content can be a challenge for many small businesses. Curating content and adding your own thoughts in the post or including a short summary can help add value to the reader and position you as a thought leader in your industry. Don’t forget to credit your sources and encourage others to engage with the post by expressing their thoughts and opinions.
One way to find relevant topics and articles related to your industry is to use Google Alerts. Google Alerts monitors the web for news related to your specific keywords and will deliver articles straight to your inbox when the applicable content is developed. It is free to use and highly customizable. Users can choose the frequency, sources, geographic region and more for their alerts. It’s a great way to find valuable content to share with your followers.
Feedly is another good tool people can use to discover content. One advantage to using Feedly is it compiles all relevant content into an easy-to-use dashboard. It also isn’t limited to just website content but can also pull from relevant Tweets and YouTube videos.
It’s good to be aware some free social media scheduling apps to make you more efficient.
Hootsuite is a great app that allows businesses to manage up to three social media profiles on their free account. For example, you can link your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram business page to Hootsuite to view and schedule all three platforms in one place. Be careful not to schedule out posts too far in advance, because you want your information and articles to be timely and relevant.
Buffer offers many of the same features as Hootsuite. One thing to note with Buffer is that it is able to suggest the optimal time to post based on follower activity.
Some final tidbits of information to leave you with are:
Try video. Currently video posts have the highest engagement rate. Keep in mind people like to digest information in a variety of ways, so mixing it up with video, blog posts, and infographics is a strategic way to go. If you are posting a video, remember to include subtitles. If people are watching a video at work with their speakers off, they will still be able to follow along by reading.
Experiment with different posting times. Some research has found it is better to post later in the evening than during business hours for maximizing reach. The idea behind this concept is that more people are on social media after work and fewer businesses are posting during those hours. However, all pages and audiences are different, so test out different times of the day to know what works best for your business.
Be authentic. When you share a more personal side of your business people can relate more to you. Talk to your audience like you would another human being. You do not have to sound stiff and robotic when you are addressing your audience.
Respond to messages and comments. It’s wise to monitor your page and provide good customer service.
Analyze your page. Look at Facebook insights to make sure you are putting the right content in front of the right audience. Don’t be afraid to re-post top performing posts. New followers are most likely unaware of a post that was published six months ago.
In sum, get on Facebook if you haven’t already and create a Facebook business page. Actively post and test different content to see what performs the best so that you can continue to build brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.
And if you haven’t already, like us on Facebook or better yet, follow us so you never miss what’s happening at South Dakota Manufacturing & Technology Solutions.
