Is Facebook still important for small businesses?

Small businesses have never had the luxury of wider visibility. So, Facebook has become a critical part of a modern business marketing strategy. It is one of the most viewed sites in the world.

Good engagement has the potential to reach more people through the platform’s highly developed system of friends, followers, groups, and pages. Equally, without the requirement of a big budget, businesses can utilize the platform to target their content and services toward the right audience, making it one of the most useful platforms available to small businesses. In this section, the practical insights and case study will be explored.

Before discussing the use of Facebook for small businesses, it is worth spending time on the individual elements that the platform can offer. Engagement is now the unspoken rule of the marketing world. Facebook, which began as a way for friends and family to keep in contact with one another, has epitomized that culture as large and small businesses seek to engage a potential audience.

Though the shift in the requirement of user content does vary from time to time and is influenced by the understanding of user patterns and behavior, the response from users is that it is a move in the right direction. The increase in user-tailored information means that they are seeing more from a business that they might be able to access and want to, such as the upcoming promotion, race, or product release.

So, businesses are creating content that reflects the interests of that individual group of people. Data, rightly or wrongly, is important. Knowing who viewed, liked, or commented on a post can be a way to measure potential interest. Businesses can then measure which paid posts received high engagement and carried a high potential for site conversion.

1. The Benefits of Using Facebook for Small Businesses

As the most widely used social media platform globally, Facebook is an incredibly important and useful tool for small businesses. More than 1 billion people around the world use Facebook daily. Additionally, nearly 90 million small businesses list a presence on Facebook, which makes it an invaluable tool for modern-day businesses.

On Facebook, businesses can interact and engage directly with their customers, which both strengthens customer relationships and promotes brand loyalty. Through Facebook Shops, businesses can sell their products directly to their customers on the platform.

In 2021, there are 54.4 million small businesses in the United States, accounting for 99.9 percent of U.S. businesses. To stand out in an overcrowded marketplace, small businesses need to invest marketing efforts in order to effectively generate consumer interest and engagement.

With 2.91 billion Monthly Active Users, Facebook has the largest monthly count of any social media network that businesses can interact with to reach their target audience. More importantly, 61 percent of small business owners believe that Facebook ads did help their company grow.

If you are a small business owner, are you putting your best foot forward in leveraging the connective potential of Facebook? Understanding the many benefits of Facebook can give you an edge in maximizing your reach and impact.

1.1. Increased Brand Awareness

Facebook is an ideal platform for small business owners who are looking to grow their brand. The strengths of Facebook are in its numbers. Since its launch, Facebook has expanded an international outreach of more than 68 million active users, including small businesses and companies.

An increasing number of businesses are including Facebook as part of their online marketing strategy due to its ability to gain and reach more users and potential buyers for their products. The reason is very obvious. Facebook is the largest social networking site in the world and is already a globally recognized brand and a pivotal tool in a business's online and offline marketing strategy.

One of the most significant benefits of Facebook to small businesses is its extensive reach. Small companies usually have tight marketing funds and need to change the amount of users through their online and offline marketing initiatives.

On Facebook, when you have set up your own profile page, you can attract traffic by creating an in-depth network of friends who are naturally part of your target market. By utilizing Facebook, it is possible to connect with billions of potential customers. For example, to give you an understanding of how many people are using Facebook, there are at least 30 million users from the UK and approximately 20 million users from Canada.

In the United States alone, there are more than 70 million active users at the moment, providing a detailed playground for small businesses.

1.2. Targeted Advertising

One of the core reasons why businesses, both big and small, are fascinated by Facebook is its targeted advertising opportunities. Let’s have a look at some of the tools for constructing audience segments that Facebook offers.

First and foremost, there are three global data types that can be used individually or in combination to form a target group. They are demographics, such as age, gender, education, or relationship status; location; and interests and behaviors that can be gleaned from users’ activity on Facebook, such as pages and places liked and visited, apps installed, ads clicked, or newsfeed looked through, and likes, shares, and comments made. The ad formats that can be used for Facebook’s targeted advertising are quite flexible, and they include not only the standard image posts but also videos, carousel ads, canvas ads, and more to captivate the attention of users.

Another merit of advertising on Facebook is the full control of the ad budget, regardless of whether the total budget for the promotion of a post, the number of leads, or both is set. No matter what budget a business wants to have, the targeting tool by Facebook will help its advertisements reach the right audiences, who are more likely to result in conversion instead of focusing broadly to reach all internet users. Consequently, by targeting the right audiences, a small business does not overspend on the ads, which may result in no sales.

There are many companies that have experienced the advantages of using targeted advertising on Facebook. In addition to that, Facebook also enables a business to place its ads in front of people who have previously interacted with its brand via its retargeting tool. Given that Facebook has around 2 billion monthly active users, with a significant number logging on to Facebook every day, approximately 67% of its users authenticate their age through their Facebook account, making it a powerful, data-rich advertising avenue for any small business.

In general, by advertising using targeted demographics, interests, behaviors, or prospecting targeting, Facebook can introduce a business’s brand to people whose characteristics match their customer persona, making the connection more personal and potentially increasing the user’s engagement and interaction with the company.

1.3. Customer Engagement and Interaction

Another very important reason that Facebook is so important for small businesses is the customer engagement and interaction potential. Small businesses can directly communicate with their customers through comments, posts, and messages. When a customer posts a comment or sends a message with a question, businesses can quickly respond.

When a customer posts a negative comment, businesses can either explain the real situation, apologize, or thank them for their feedback and let them know how they are going to fix the problem. Another value in interaction is that the audience sees other customers being responded to and cared about, and that can make them more likely to stick around and make their own purchase.

Businesses can also begin to get a sort of content team built up. Customers who love a product or a local company are likely going to leave positive comments and reviews, and Facebook is the new word-of-mouth in most cases. Not everyone sees everything that goes down on Facebook, but many do, and businesses just need one person to share to their page or onto a group to really get some exposure.

To get interaction, businesses should ask for it, use a variety of posts, and analyze what works. Customers like to answer polls, and asking a question is a sure way to spark up a conversation. And, when a business asks for suggestions or requests photos, the users are doing some of the work.

Businesses could offer a contest for the best photo of their product posted, or something in that realm as well. Contests and giveaways are pretty much a guarantee that a post will be seen, commented on, and shared. Posts can be text, images, local community events, and more.

Graphs and infographics in images are also popular on Facebook and can get a lot of likes, shares, and comments to help the business get traffic and reach more of its audience. Businesses can poll the audience to see what products they are interested in, what website layout they like, what they would like to see in a blog post, and more. Businesses can show a photo of a new project or idea and ask the audience what they think. The opportunities are endless for engagement.

2. Case Studies of Successful Small Businesses on Facebook

Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has grown to more than two billion monthly active users. This makes it an indisputably important platform for people, but the business implications are enormous as well. The problem is that advertising your local pizzeria looks a lot more difficult than advertising a multinational corporation.

While these marketing activities may seem overly complicated or outsized for your small business, the following examples should help illustrate how practical and powerful the medium can be:

1. Smoothie Social: A small smoothie shop decorates its wall art at a growing café to attract busy university students. An impromptu dish was featured on Facebook and quickly advertised. It has outperformed every other item on their odd menu.

2. Brick and Mortar: A merchant account and a thriving online community helped grow a brick-and-mortar video game store in the Gulf Coast to the largest independent video game store in the area.

3. Kelly Blue Book: Facebook has transformed the small online company into the largest provider of used automobile blue book values. It started with one fan and, after two years, grew to 90,000.

4. She's the Deal: After losing her job, a woman bootstrapped her way to a successful, rising daily deal site. They secured major investors and started up a daily deal site to help local businesses harness the power of Facebook. She spearheads all deal writing in the Lubbock office branch.

5. Smudge Ink: They are growing their sales, reach, and finding the voice of their authentic brand while shopping in the U.S. and internationally.

6. Grilled Stickies: University students go home for summer or post-college graduation. They long for sticky buns. Lots of towns have bakeries, but only one has the Stickies: The Ye Olde College Diner in State College, PA, where the culinary delights called Grilled Stickies are handmade in small batches and baked fresh every day on the corner of College Ave and Pugh St. Now, residents in Jacksonville, FL, and Los Angeles, CA, and the surrounding counties of both communities, as well as New York City, can wake at 4:00 a.m. and have fresh coffee and Stickies delivered to their front doors every Saturday.

3. Best Practices for Small Businesses on Facebook

Small businesses can become very successful on Facebook with the right strategies. If you are a small business owner, you should create a content strategy that is most effective for your business. Without some thought beforehand, posting random updates won’t give you the results you want.

Your content strategy should be based on your target audience’s interests and preferences. Is your business related to fashion, food, or pets? Share posts that are related; this increases shareability and encourages more likes. Your content should be relevant, creative, and consistent.

Make sure that the content you create is engaging as a result of things that are happening in today’s society or because of the season. Interesting and unique visuals increase engagement and can result in more comments and shares. Fans will visualize these visuals when they think of your brand, which is more likely to happen if they remember what your brand looks like.

You should post between one and four times a day depending on your fans’ schedule, meaning when they go on Facebook. It is important to post whenever your fans are normally online to increase the chances of getting likes, shares, or comments. You can discover the best time for posting your updates by looking at the Insights report on your page.

This shows which days of the week and times during the day have the most traffic. Use this information to schedule your posts when the majority of your fans are online so they will see it. Once you have posted some updates, keep a close eye on the comments and feedback.

Is there a way that you can use this information to improve your Facebook page, your customer experience, or your business? Always think about customer feedback when it is received and use it. This will help fans feel like a part of the community when they visit your page.

Look for relevant local groups to join and make comments in, and think about collaborating with local businesses. This could help you make new contacts and engage with the local community to gain fans or increase your online friendships.

3.1. Creating Engaging Content

In addition to being an engaging visual, photographs can also include text components, such as store hours, location, or sales that are mentioned in the post itself. Think of the picture and text as two parts of a complete shopping experience. Exceptional photographs can be paired with slide shows to create a richer shopping experience.

High-quality videos can provide a lot of information in a short amount of time. They provide a vivid, dynamic shopping experience for people at various phases of the purchasing process. If your business offers a product or service that requires clarification, a frequently asked questions video or presentation is a wonderful approach to pull people in and differentiate yourself.

Diversity of Content Varied formats and content types on Facebook appeal to a larger audience while also providing a different point of view or insight into the company. While posts should let people know you have services or products, it's ideal not to make every post about sales. Instead, aim to entertain and educate individuals.

One can do this by creating life-at-work posts, streaming live from an event, sharing behind-the-scenes content, conducting polls to learn more about people's wants or opinions, or asking questions about something they're passionate about. Storytelling posts can be entertaining and offer something the audience can relate to, such as personal stories or milestones in the company's history. This helps users connect on an emotional level. Tailor the storytelling to your audience, or speak directly to them in a relatable way.

You can use Facebook Post Generator which generates Facebook Post templates for your brand in seconds.

3.2. Utilizing Facebook Analytics

One of the most important aspects of doing anything on Facebook comes after thoughtful deliberation—measuring the results. It's the only way to assess the success of a digital marketing effort or a social media one. Facebook's activity-tracking tool is appropriately named Facebook Analytics. Through it, individuals and organizations can measure page performance in terms of reach (how many people saw its content), engagement (how many people engaged with that content through reactions, comments, or shares), and the percentage of middle-ground users that took action.

The platform notes other interactions which you may find valuable metrics, such as people clicking on your business. Facebook Analytics for Apps allows businesses to measure their websites, such as the average time spent on URLs and which devices are being used for that access point. For businesses, there are several strategies in deciding which Facebook and social media goals to pursue with the platform. It includes setting benchmarks and figuring out how you or your organization’s content strategy hopes to engage others.

Not satisfied with your reach and engagement on Facebook? Facebook Analytics, which is free and accessible once you create a Facebook business page, is how to make data-driven decisions to change that. From researching the competition to learning about the customers that support you, the service aggregates details about those who interact with your page.

As one pocket-sized restaurant pointed out, they evaluate the monthly service. The compiler felt themselves unable to tweak their pay to reach an online audience, even if they were getting about 550 post reaches, without Facebook Analytics. It’s unclear exactly when they began using the system, but by September 2022, it recorded 1,200 post reaches. In the first four months of using a tracker, their post reach varied from 765 to 1,250 and an average of 345 hits on their Stories.

Even after going through the service, content still didn’t land on the desired restaurant customer. The company determined it wasn’t working, so they stopped paying and increased spending on other platforms to score a wider audience. Monitoring this information, either quarterly or monthly, is suggested to account for trends like differing marketing strategies nearing the end of the year or quarter.

3.3. Responding to Customer Feedback

If customer feedback can make or break a purchase decision, responding to that feedback is a critical component of relationship building and customer retention. Timely responses to correct problems—as well as positive feedback—communicate proactive customer service and a commitment to community engagement. They also provide an opportunity to demonstrate your enhanced value.

A good business owner—or any functioning infrastructure of a brand reputation management team—will make a point of responding to feedback. Responding to positive feedback shows the world you appreciate and acknowledge it. Events and promotions can also be highlighted in a corporate response. Here is an example: “Comments like yours are the reasons we work so hard to make sure everyone in our operation is driving customer-focused. To that end, we’re having an information session in store for anyone looking for a career. Here’s your chance to see 'behind the scenes' of the company. Keep up the outstanding work!”

Use listening to manage negative feedback. Negative feedback is also a way to look at our service and product. It is okay to receive negative comments as a way to grow, get better, and rethink policy. Consider a proactive means to spin any negative response post.

In the advent of any sort of social media “crisis,” there are a few things you can do to either mitigate damage or turn a potential disaster into an advantage. Let people know that you know. If negative comments are posted, users will comment on and share them. If you let the original complainer know that they’ve been heard and are being dealt with, it will establish a reasonable level of resolution.

Negative comments don’t matter as long as the person posting them believes they have been heard. You can make a positive out of a negative post. If someone posts something negative, fire back with something positive. Spin a negative comment to highlight strengths. Offer a credible resolution. The old “customize a marketing plan” response offers your detractors a way to actively involve themselves in improving your product.

Map out exactly how the dissatisfied customer can offer input into whatever their problem is, and make them part of the solution. It also means doing what you said you would do to resolve the issue. Resist the urge to delete bad reviews. Unless it is overtly hate speech or someone just trying to be really mean, there are reasons you want to keep negative comments or reviews.

4. Conclusion

In conclusion, Facebook can possess a wealth of benefits for small businesses. These include creating and increasing the public recognition of a brand, ensuring that content is delivered directly to targeted demographics, and thereby increasing its relevancy and likelihood of engagement, in addition to promoting the specifics of products, discounts, and events.

It is important for the business owner to treat the official Facebook page as complementary to a business website, as they are quite nearly the same—joined together by domain. Facebook can also serve a customer service purpose, in that customers can ask questions, post reviews, and promote the business for free, in the form of sharing a business post on their own page.

But for Facebook to become this all-in-one solution, it has to be actively managed. Best practices for utilizing Facebook as a promotional and engagement tool must be sought, and tracking metrics for a specific customer demographic and region can be useful by taking note of an increase or decrease in traffic and the need to adjust.

Not only does a small business need to discover what the best practices are for them, but they must also be willing to use Facebook as a tool to market their business. It should also be noted that the social media landscape is ever-changing, so what is current and common today may not be so in the coming year. I think this issue is very important to all business owners.

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