7 Ways to Promote Your Business on Facebook

Facebook has become a ubiquitous social network over the past decade or so and is being used by almost everyone, starting from your teenagers to adults to senior citizens. So, naturally, every business venture has a Facebook page to connect with their customers because there are very few platforms that could rival the social media behemoth’s coverage and range. The days of making an employee stand outside handing out flyers are almost gone.

Facebook has also become the go-to platform for local small businesses to promote their products and services and to better connect with local consumers. But, nearly about 62% of the businesses on Facebook are not really adept at making it big through Facebook and most of their tactics are almost always in vain. This is because most local businesses do not exactly know how to leverage the omnipresent power of Facebook to their advantage.

So, on that note, here are 7 tips to help you in promoting your local business on Facebook so as to attract more walk-ins and sales:

1. Facebook Offers

They are special posts that let users buy or claim an offer online and then redeem the offer at your business or store. To get maximum people to redeem their Facebook offers in person, the business owner, besides creating the offer and running Facebook ads to promote it, must pay attention to the offer’s design, messaging and value so as to make the offer seem irresistible. For instance, if you own a restaurant business, try hosting a giveaway or a contest exclusively for the people who visit your restaurant and make it lucrative by giving away some attractive offers, like free food or drinks.

2. Location Pages

They are a method to showcase your Facebook presence, especially if you have multiple locations inside a city. It is an easy and cost-effective way for people from various locations to find your business faster. Create content based on individual locations, organize and manage the various location pages, and come up with location-specific ads.

3. Advertising on Facebook

Facebook advertisements are an easy and sure shot method to promote your brand’s visibility without burning a huge hole in your pocket. The demographic and geographical targeting of Facebook is amazing for delivering your message to the ideal customer. Also, Facebook has multiple types of ads to cater to all the varied demands and requirements that a business might have.

4. Local Awareness Ads

This kind of ads belong to a more targeted form of advertising that is dedicated to the people in the vicinity of your business. With call-to-action (CTA) buttons like “Get Directions” or “Call Now”, these sort of ads help substantially in bringing foot traffic to your doorstep. These ads, besides focussing on the various demographics and interests that customers tend to have, also concentrates on a specific area of the location, by placing a radius around the address of your business’ location.

5. Creating Events

Events are another easy, cost-effective method to boost your business. Developing an invitation for some event, for example, shop opening, restaurant menu change etc. always goes a long way in informing your customers about the event. The advantage with creating invitations is that when someone from your list accepts an invitation to an event, it automatically shows up on their friends’ notifications, thus creating a virtual form of word-of-mouth, and hence bring much more attention to the event. Also, businesses can boost these invitations in a manner similar to ads, thus bringing more attention to themselves.

6. Boost Posts

This is the simplest and most common method to promote your local business. When businesses boost a post, they are actually running a Facebook ad, with the minor difference that Facebook runs these kinds of ads separately from their main advertisements interface. Every time you create a post, you will see a blue CTA button asking you to boost the post to share your post with a wider audience. It is the simplest way to apprise your local customers about an event.

7. Target a specific audience

Using Facebook, businesses can target regular customers or customers who have visited your business at least once. This can be done by sharing your ads and posts with a specific audience using Facebook’s Custom Audience Targeting Option by using their email ids and phone number that you have already collected. This is by far one of the most powerful features of Facebook, as you can create a sense of loyalty and trust among your customers thus encouraging them to visit your business time and again.

These seven tips will definitely help you in creating a stronger and more loyal audience on Facebook, which in turn will increase the number of walk-ins and sales, but it should be kept in mind that no matter how adept you are at your social networking game, you will not get any customers if your service is below par. So, always remember that Facebook and other social networks are just platforms to promote your already successful business to reach a wider audience.