With 15 million Facebook users in Australia, small businesses, just like yours, are seeing the opportunity to connect directly with current and potential customers.
Benefits of Facebook for your business
As long as your target market is on Facebook, using this platform can:
Reduce your overall marketing costs – While using Facebook is generally free, there are still costs, like your own time, that need to be factored into your budget
Increase traffic to your website – Once you have built your Facebook community, you should be directing them to parts of your website that are relevant. And Google likes this type of traffic!
Increase your brand awareness – If you need to build your brand, creating a community of social media advocates that you turn into brand champions, will help create more (positive) awareness.
Help you talk directly to your customers – More and more customers are taking to social media before ringing you. Being on top of your social media can help turn a complaint into a happy customer! You can also use social media to get real time market intel.
Allow you to provide value long after the purchase – Once a customer has made a purchase, consider how you can keep them loyal through nurturing a relationship with them through social media.
Scheduling content
Once you start using Facebook to market your business, it is important to make sure you are posting content regularly. It is better to post a few times a week (though once a day is ideal) than 5 times only on the first day of the month.
Let’s say you want to build engagement online, you want to be active by posting at different times during the week, so that your audience has a chance to engage with your content. It’s like saying “Hi, I’m a real account and I’m active”. Seeing you and some other stuff about you means a lot to your target audience.
This is where ‘ batch content’ can really help. Spending time once a week to write all your posts, then scheduling them in advance so that they appear when you want them to, is a tool you might want to look at.
With that, scheduling some posts can help a lot. Imagine, there is a way to maintain your activities without the need to be in front of your computer 24/7. The convenience is really there and it saves you time so that you can look after other parts of your business.
Want to get started with your scheduling today? Here’s how you can do it for your Facebook page:
Step 1:
Login to your Facebook Account to proceed to the page you want your post to come. Note that it does not allow you to schedule on your personal account. You can only do scheduling for your business pages, groups or fan pages.
Step 2:
Write your post in the area where you update your status. By default, it has a grey text saying “What have you been up to?”. You can also insert and attached some images, photo or video link if you prefer.
Step 3:
Click the arrow behind the POST button. Select “Schedule Post” and pick the date and time you want the post to get published.
And it’s that easy! So now there’s no reason you can’t post regularly on your Facebook page – you just need to start writing your content.
What if you made a mistake?
Oops. What if you forgot something and want to make some edits? Don’t worry, you can manage your posts to have it rescheduled, edited or deleted.
To do that, here’s how:
Click for Publishing Tool located on top of your Page
Pick the Scheduled Posts tab and the specific post you want to edit
Click edit if you want to do some changes and click the dropdown menu to choose to Publish, Reschedule or Delete.
Hope this will help small business owners reach their business goals! Go and schedule your posts and make the most of this feature!
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
What social media channel is best for your business?
We can’t underestimate the power of social media today – especially when there are hundreds of social media platforms at our disposal. In almost all areas of life, each social media channel plays a vital role in expanding how we communicate with each other, and even how we share information. No industry or business nowadays is immune to the impact of social media and many are making use of different social media channels to achieve their own goals in a much easier and faster ways.
So if you’ve just started your business, or even if you’ve been around for a while, you’ll want to use your time and resources effectively and use those social media channels that will connect you with your target audience. This way, you are able to market directly to those people that might be your potential clients and to those that matters most to your business.
What you might have some difficulty with, is that you have to determine which among the social media channels is best for your business based upon your target market. To help you along, we have taken some of the well known social media channels below and outlined how they might be used in your business. Take the time to think of what channel could be the most useful to you:
Facebook – this is far and away the most popular social media channel (outside of Youtube). It has more than 15 million users just in Australia alone, with at least half using it on their mobile phones. If you are a retail business (whether online or have a physical shopfront) then I’d highly recommend having a Facebook page as part of your marketing mix.
Twitter – can be useful in driving traffic to your website, if you post regular blogs. It can also be useful in live tweeting events and keeping your followers ‘in the know’. Twitter can be great for B2B industries, but make sure you have the time to dedicate to the platform as you do need to post a few times a day to be seen.
LinkedIn – this platform is the ‘Facebook’ for the professional world. LinkedIn plays an important role in connecting professionals not only in your own industry, but also can connect you with potential clients, or even referral partners. A word of warning – please don’t spam! If you want to connect with someone, make sure you have a specific reason for connecting with them, and if you do connect, don’t start spamming them with your sales pitch.
Instagram – if you have a visual based business, for example, photography, graphic design or food, then this popular photo sharing social media channel could really increase your brand awareness. You can use visual storytelling showcase beautifully crafted photos or videos that demonstrate what you offer, with directly selling your products. This could, for example, be a recipe that include an ingredient you sell.
There are lots of social media platforms you can use. Above are just some of the most popular among them. What you need is to investigate WHERE your target audience is. Meaning, you have to identify if they are fond of using Facebook or Twitter or any other social media channel so you know where to reach them.
Go and discover what channel fits your business best!
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Why Social Media and Search Engine Optimisation Go Hand-in-hand
When it comes to marketing your business online, social media and search engine optimisation can be the best partner in being seen by people who are likely to buy from you. Today’s competition among the countless businesses gets tougher and tougher as new tools, software and techniques are being introduced. However, having a website is not enough to promote your products and services. There are marketing strategies that need to be implemented properly to effectively generate results. Are you doing your online marketing techniques the right way?
Delving More about SEO
Search engine optimisation is an effective process of getting traffic from the ‘free’, ‘organic’, ‘editorial’, or ‘natural’ search results on search engines, according to Search Engine Land. It’s important to note than when using the process, you need to be informed on its important features. There are two major divisions of SEO: on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation.
On-page optimisation includes the process of finding the best keywords to be target and how they are to be placed on the website pages. This also includes some technical processes such as adding meta title, description, alt tags, headings, and focus keywords to pages and posts of the website.
On the other hand, Off-page SEO is implemented when links of your website are being shared such as when included in email, article sites, ads, listings, bookmarks, and more.
To sum up, SEO helps in building your site’s visibility on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Getting more Influencers through Social Media
Meanwhile, not because your site is already optimised and is starting to rank in some searches, it will stop there. Consistency must be taken into consideration. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn are effective help in getting traffic and popularity of the website.
These social media profiles are gateway on how people can find you and check your products and services. People nowadays are keen and more interested in using their social media accounts when doing online activities, either through their mobile phones or desktop computers.
Social media help in delivering updates and buzz about the website. Thus, once you’ve published and optimised post for instance, you can share it socially so that it will reach more audience.
Just an interesting FB post, a trending tweet, or an eye-catching image in Instagram can actually drive a massive traffic to your website. That’s why social media is now dubbed as a new and really effective way of link building.
Therefore, if SEO is for visibility, then social media is for consistency. These two are inevitably both important and work hand-in-hand to ensure improved ranking placement and social interaction.
Here are some additional tips to make your website and social media profiles effective:
Have a complete social media account. Make sure to have an image, description, and contact details.
Your website must be user-friendly, compelling, and relevant to the niche you are in.
Build your connection and establish your reputation to the right market for your business.
Do you have other tips or questions about SEO and Social Media? Feel free to share or send us a message.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
If you follow us on Facebook, you’ll see hat we’re huge fans of TED Talks. Here’s another talk, this time from Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter. This video is a few years old, but I think the message is still relevant today.
It’s interesting that Twitter started as a ‘side project’ and not the main focus, but because the founders followed their gut instinct and listened to users, we now have the explosion in usage that is seen on Twitter today. Especially as the concept of Twitter is incredibly simplistic – say what you’re doing in 140 characters or less.
Evan talks about how Twitter lets people share instantaneously, snapshots of moments in their lives, no matter how momentous or mundane. People feel more connected by sharing these moments in real time. What they didn’t anticipate, according to Evan was how Twitter would be used in real time events. He also talks about how users shaped the way Twitter evolved.
Here’s the video:
How do you think Twitter has transformed our everyday lives
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Many businesses with a Facebook page manage it internally – and plenty of them are not doing it effectively, perhaps only posting one or twice a week or month. I’ve seen one page that only gets updated once every three months or so!
Why schedule posts ahead of time?
To be successful and be seen by your followers on Facebook you have to put in the effort. This means updating your page every single day. No excuses. Have a look at the best performing pages and notice how often they are updated; sometime up to 5 times a day. Also have a look at the times. These are optimised so that they are in the most newsfeeds at any given point during the day.
A barrier to updating regularly is not being able to log onto Facebook at the time they want to update. What is not necessarily known is that there are tools that can help you.
Many social media managers use third party applications such as Hootsuite to schedule updates in advance. That way when you have decided on your updates for the week, you can set it up so that they ‘roll out’ automatically and all you have to do is periodically check on them for likes and comments.
Though it’s important to say that automating updates should be a last resort! When you can, post directly onto your Facebook page when you want to post an update and use these tools for when you are going to be away from your computer.
How to schedule on Facebook
Facebook now allows you to schedule status updates in advance so that you don’t have to use a third party tool. Here’s how you do it:
Make sure you are using Facebook as your business page
Create your status update as you normally would but DON’T press ‘Post’
Instead, immediately to the right of the ‘Publish’ button, there is an arrow. Click on this arrow.
Select ‘Schedule’, then you will be asked to select the date and time for your post.
Once you’ve selected these options, click ‘Schedule’
You can view any scheduled posts in your Activity Log. This function can also be used to ‘back date’ status updates.
It’s really that simple! So there is now no excuse to forget to update your Facebook page because you can do it in advance.
Over to you
Now that you know how to schedule Facebook posts, how will you increase the amount of content you publish on your page? Don’t forget, you can find Possum Digital on Facebook!
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
The digital marketing world changes quickly, and often. It’s can be very difficult and time consuming to wade through all of the information on the internet to find out exactly what you need. What information is useful for you and what information deserves to be on the very last Google search page!
Importantly, for my own clients, I ensure to take my information from reputable sources, so that I’m getting the best, most up-to-date information. It’s too easy to spend hours and hours just reading and not doing.
To help you out, here are the blogs and websites that I follow regularly. Not all of them are strictly about social media, but they do give diverse perspectives (and a lot of handy hints and tips!) on lots of related topics like digital marketing, language and building community.
In no particular order:
If you like all things technological, Mashable is the website for you. It curates a lot of interesting content around technology and social media. And there is an Australian version, so you can read a local flavour to your digital content.
For a site with more of a digital marketing focus, Likeable Media is the way to go. I also follow them on Twitter, where they provide lots of great content to read and share. These guy really know their stuff, and are specialists in the US on all things relating to community building on social. I love their approach to social media marketing for small business – it’s all local!
Mumbrella and B&T are Australian based websites with a particular focus on marketing and advertising. They will often have interesting information on trends in these industries.
No list of social media blogs can be complete without the inclusion of social media and technology guru Brian Solis. If there is one blog you should read, it’s this one. He has worked in the industry for many years and really knows what works and what doesn’t.
Over to you:
What are the blogs you follow?
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
