How can Tradies use Facebook to bring in new and existing customers back into their business
I had the pleasure of hanging with Stephanie Campanella of Tradies Get Online today.
We had a quick Facebook Live.
She asked me what tradies can do to draw new and existing clients into their business from Facebook. (more…)
Facebook Advertising audiences you can target
With Facebook announcing changes at the beginning of the year (just organic news feed changes, not Facebook Advertising), many Facebook page holders went into panic. How will these impact reach? How will engagement be effected? Will anyone see my content ever again?
But just like any good marketing plan, you need to be flexible to changing outside circumstances. So if you haven’t before, you may want to consider investing some budget in Facebook Advertising.
Have you advertised on Facebook before? What was your experienced? Did you get the results you were after?
Chances are, one of the biggest challenges you faced was knowing who to actually target and how to find them. With 15 million monthly active users on Facebook in Australia (source) there’s a huge pool of potential customers. But if you have a limited budget, you need to be laser focused on how you spend your advertising dollars.
Before you start any more ad campaigns, below are the types of audiences you can use. The type you’ll need will be based on your own circumstances, but the more you test and measure, the better your targeting will be.
TIP: Make sure you get a Facebook pixel from your account and place it on your website. This article from Social Media Examiner walks you through how to do this.
Let’s look at the types of audience targeting options available to you:
Core Audiences
This type of targeting allows you select your audience through personal and behavioural characteristics. You can target:
It’s important to note that Facebook has announced changes to access to 3rd party data providers, which may impact on some core targeting. (source)
Custom Audiences
You can target people on Facebook who have engaged with you and your business. There are two sources for where this data come from:
This type of targeting is my favourite, as you are using your own data to create Facebook Advertising campaigns.
Creating a Custom Audience from your email list is easy. You simply upload your list in a .txt format and Facebook will do the rest. What you may want to think about is segmenting your list into categories like:
This helps you refine your targeting even further, and will help with Lookalike Audiences.
For website traffic, you can use your Facebook pixel to create an audience of people who do things like:
Again, the more defined your audience is, the better you can target your message.
Lookalike Audiences
Facebook can help you find other users who look like you custom audiences. All you need to do is create your Custom Audience, then ask Facebook to create a Lookalike Audience for you.
Importantly, the quality of the Lookalike Audience is going to depend on the quality of your original data and how you have set up your Custom Audience(s). There more specific or segmented you can be, the better the outcome.
Over to you
How will you change how you target people on Facebook?
Do you have a plan for each social media channel?
Hands up if you have a marketing, or more specifically, a social media marketing strategy? If you do, well done! If you don’t, stop reading and go and get my 1 page template social media plan template.
In your plan, you are likely to have identified what channels you are going to use to promote your business (hopefully through building a community and sharing valuable content). And if you are going to be using more than one social media channel (or platform) to market your business, then I always recommend creating a mini plan for each one.
Creating a mini plan for each channel is really easy. Get a blank piece of paper, and some different coloured pens (if that takes your fancy!) and start writing.
Putting it simply, this is the WHY. What is the value that this channel brings to your business?
For example: “I will use my LinkedIn profile to build my credibility as an expert in [your industry]”
Here you will look at no more than 3 specific goals for your channels. These goals should be SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Time Limited) and relate to your business goals.
For example: “I will ask for 3 recommendations on my LinkedIn profile each week for the next 3 months. This will help build social proof and credibility for my business.”
Who will you be talking to through this social media channel? Who your audience is for your Facebook page may be different to who you will be speaking to through Twitter or your LinkedIn profile.
Make sure you are specific as possible – you can’t target all SMEs in Australia, but you can target SMEs owners aged 35 – 50 in Sydney who are B2C focussed.
What are the actions will you do each day, and each week to reach your goals? Tactics are actions that are in line with your strategy, and will help you achieve your goals.
Examples of tactics include:
And that’s it! I’d love to hear how your planning is going. Did you find this exercise hard? Did it help you get clarity on what you’re doing? Did you remove or add and social media channels to your marketing mix?
Regular versus Business Instagram
Instagram is the favoured social media platform for many visual based business across Australia. There are around 400 million monthly users on this platform so there are huge opportunities to get yourself know. And if you’re a business owner, Instagram is an awesome way to build or market your brand in a creative way.
But to some, there is confusion over whether to have a personal business instagram account? Others will say, I’ll just switch my instagram account to business account but then will think how will I share updates to my followers that are more personal? Deciding is not easy so let me give you the difference between the two.
Personal Instagram Account
It is normal for us to regularly publish pictures about our every day life. That’s why we have account for personal use. If you do love taking photos and you have a personal blog then it’s ideal to use your personal account. A personal account is usually for yourself.
If you’re account is full of images of your kids, family, you might want to keep that personal. If you’re images reflect a part of your brand and then you might consider transitioning your account for professional use. Or even better, have 2 separate accounts.
Business Instagram Account
A professional business account needs to focus on your customers and not your friends. Your customers and readers don’t necessarily need to see pictures of your baby or your dog or the bag that you’ve just purchased. You can post this type of content, but it would not be all the time.
There are lot of benefits that Instagram can do in helping you grow your business and having a business instagram account can work for you Let’s check some of these benefits:
I hope this helps you decide how to use Instagram and what type of account to use!
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Accepting LinkedIn connections
LinkedIn is the best social network for professionals. In Australia it is a platform that is used mainly for connecting to colleagues and other work related matters (and for recruiters to head hunt for talent!).
As a social media tool, LinkedIn is built around making connections; and has prompts to encourage you to grow the number of people you are connected to. But one question I’m often asked about is ‘Should you accept requests from people you don’t know?’ The short answer is: it depends. Below is the longer answer.
The next time that someone send an invitation in your LinkedIn account, think twice before accepting it. Not just because you don’t know the person but this is because it is part of LinkedIn’s official rule. This is under Section 8.2 wherein it states that members agree not to “invite people you do not know to join your network.” This is because LinkedIn’s purpose is to build connections that are appropriate and build genuine professional communities. But, and this is a big but, as long as you do your due diligence, it is ok to accept a connection from someone you do not know.
You might also consider these factors when it comes to accepting connections from LinkedIn.
Quality over quantity is key when connecting with other on LinkedIn. Remember, LinkedIn is designed to build connections to help you in your professional life so before accepting, always take a little time to think about it.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Planning content with Buzzsumo
Social media content is a great way of communicating to and building relationships with your potential customers. One of the best ways to promote businesses of all sizes is through developing a strong content marketing strategy. The tool I love using when it comes to planning content is Buzzsumo.
However, you can’t simply fill in a website with all and any content that comes to mind and then expect it to bring potential clients. You need to have relevant content that will appeal to your target audience and will answer their questions. But what tool can help you in doing this? Buzzsumo is a great tool to find out what content performs best. This tool allows a user to find out what the content is popular by website or by topic.
With the use of Buzzsumo, it can help you identify key influencers based on keywords. But what can Buzzsumo do in your business?
Writing content is a tough task and no matter how we allot a certain time to gather and think of new ideas, we rarely devote enough time to curating and creating good content. Buzzsumo, to my mind, has proven to be an effective tool when it comes to improving your content marketing strategy. Just always remember in using any kind of tool or system just like Buzzsumo will depend on what you want to achieve and where are you in terms of your own content marketing.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!