Facebook lives on! Despite the onslaught by Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, which led to younger users leaving the platform in droves, many companies still plan on spending most of their marketing cash chasing after the almighty ‘like’ in 2019. 👍
It’s a no-brainer that Facebook is here to stay and that it should continue occupying an important place in your internet marketing strategy. It is after all the main online haunt of the 25–45 demographic, which shows no sign of wavering from its total devotion to the News Feed.
Here are three things your business can do to level up its Facebook marketing in 2019.
LOVE it or LOL it — 3 Types of Content that Get a Positive Reaction
But wait, we cannot talk about content before knowing which medium is best to serve it to your fans. A recent analysis of how people prefer to consume content on Facebook points to one conclusion:
Video is the way to go. 🎬
According to a report on Facebook marketing by Buffer, posts that include video get 59% more engagement than images, links or plain text. Posts that include only links are the least effective for marketing, earning 76% less engagement compared to video.
The same report reveals that even link posts containing images are very likely to be ignored by users scrolling through their feed. The logical conclusion? Forget about sharing links, or at least make sure to reduce the number of posts on your page that use links in favour of more content with video.
Navigating the transition to video is going to be the toughest challenge facing brands that want to stay relevant on Facebook today.
That’s why a team with experience in video marketing can help businesses achieve better marketing results on Facebook in 2019 and beyond.
As to the type of content that produces the best results, focus on messaging that is:
- Inspirational 💪
- Funny 😂
- Practical (How-to) 🛠️
Any content — preferably in video form — that hits one or more of the above is more likely to encourage users to respond positively with a ‘love’ ❤️ or ‘haha’ 🤣 reaction. These types of posts also increase organic reach since people are more likely to share them with friends if they elicited a favourable emotion in them first.
And if users go as far as sharing your content, then you can rest assured they will also act on it and click through to find out more.
Don’t Throw Good Money after ~Okay~ Content 💸💸
Test. Learn. Repeat.
This marketer’s mantra holds true for every platform and channel in use, but nowhere is it more critical to follow these three steps than on Facebook.
Don’t throw away your content (aka your money) all at once. Rather, create a calendar where you schedule your content to be released piece by piece. Make sure to leave enough time in between uploads to analyse the performance of your posts and adjust your subsequent efforts accordingly.
Facebook offers marketers a wealth of insights directly from its dashboard. Make sure to study carefully the data you have at your fingertips — for free! — and find patterns you can use to create more engaging content that builds on past success.
Segment to Convert, or How to Make Content for One
The paradox of social media is that it’s designed to connect the masses, but the masses demand from it an experience that appeals to one person only.
ME. 😏
For a brand, thinking in the first person is an unselfish act because it involves putting the needs and wants of the individual user/fan/customer before anyone else’s.
Reaching this standard is impossible — for now. So as marketing maestro Gary Vaynerchuk suggests: the next best thing is to segment your audience.
You are likelier to make an impact with your content if you tailor it to specific segments of your customer base using criteria such as who they are, what they do, and what they like.
Don’t be afraid of going as narrow as possible because if you tailor your message SPECIFICALLY to one segment, then conversion is far more likely.
If you settle for an ad that is intended to reach everyone, you’ll almost surely end up with an ad that appeals to no one. 🙅
The lesson here is clear: diluting your marketing efforts with vanilla messaging can only lead to lacklustre results.
BONUS: Hook ‘em on Facebook and Reel ‘em with Google
With all this emphasis on Facebook, it’s easy to miss the wood for the trees and forget that FB is just one implement in your social media marketing toolbox. Use it in combination with other platforms to super-charge your brand’s reach online.
Here’s a powerful 3-step technique you can try out that uses the two biggest marketing platforms available today:
- Find your blog post that has most shares
- Re-purpose it into a video post and upload it to Facebook
- Run re-targeted ads on your most engaged viewers with Google Ads
Facebook is an invaluable tool to connect with your brand’s biggest fans and make new ones. This still holds true in 2019, so ignore the insights contained in this blog post at your peril. ☠️
Follow the latest Facebook marketing trends and suggestions above, and you too can attain great results from social media this year and beyond.
