HOW TO PROMOTE A PAGE
Now that you’ve built your Page, you need to get some fans. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
. Create an engaging Page. Use applications like the discussion board and YouTube video box to add more interesting and engaging content to your
Page. Give users a reason to become a fan of your Page and engage with you.
. Leverage the viral nature of Facebook – the news feed. The added benefit of creating an engaging page is that every time a fan engages with your
page – from becoming a fan to posting a comment to attending an event – that activity is published to their “news feed” which is seen by all of their friends
on Facebook. When a user first logs into Facebook, they see a feed of their friend’s recent activity, so each and every activity of your fans on your
page gets shared with a greater network, giving your business more visibility.
. Draw on your existing network. You most likely already have email subscribers and blog readers – so make sure they know that they can now become
a fan of your business on Facebook.
. Make your Page publicly searchable. By default, your Page will be public so that it can get indexed by search engines and give you the opportunity to
drive organic search traffic to your Page. If you don’t notice your page showing up in searches, make sure you have set it to be publicly indexed
and searchable. Go to Edit Page and then Settings and set your page to be “Published” (publicly visible).
. Use Facebook Ads for an extra push. Facebook ads allow you to advertise a website or something on Facebook, including Pages, groups, and events.
If you’re familiar with Google Adwords, the system for building and running ads on Facebook is very similar. Check out the Hub Spot Page
(http://facebook.hubspot.com) to see some of the ways to create an engaging page, become a fan to get updates about future resources and events.
Also see: http://bit.ly/fbseo and http://bit.ly/fopages for additional information.
HOW TO ADVERTISE ON FACEBOOK
To get started, go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising and click “Get Started”. (You must be logged into Create an Ad). Then, choose what you would like to advertise: an external website, a Facebook Page, a group, or an event you manage.
Build your ad via the Simple Facebook Wizard.
Add social actions, they are free, and can dramatically improve the click through rate of your ad.
Learn more about the opt-in/opt-out options for social ads:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4532/facebook-s-Assumed-consent-for-Social-Ads-Smart-or-Suiaday?source=Facebook eBook.
Facebook allows you to target the reach for your ad by location, gender, age, and interest. As you add filters, Facebook will automatically update the count of people fitting your criteria so you can gauge the size of your target market on Facebook.
Select a payment type and budget for your ad campaign. The two main payment types are “pay for clicks” and “pay for views”. Because the click through rate is notoriously low (less than .1% for most ads), the “pay for clicks” option will offer the best value for the cost. Particularly if you include your company logo as the photo for the ad, you will get a large number of brand impressions to your target audience, and you will only pay for the actual clicks to your Page or website.
Facebook has built-in analytics to help track ad performance in terms of number of impressions, clicks, and click through rate. Run multiple ad variations at the same time and use the ads manager to determine which ones deliver the best results for your business.
Want to watch the step-by-step process? See this link to set up Facebook pay per click ads:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4385/How-to-use-facebook-to-get-a-99-Discount-off-Traditional-B-to-B-Advertising/?Source=facebook eBook.
MEASURE AND ANALYZE
Check out the insights for your page by visiting your page and clicking on “View Insights” in the left hand navigation.
Facebook Grade: The overall marketing effectiveness of your profile or page. Visit http://facebook.Grader.com to grade your profile or page for free.
Download the free kit to get more tips and tricks on using Facebook to market your business and drive more inbound traffic and leads. (http://bit.ly/FBKit).
ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK
Advertising on Facebook is similar to advertising on Google : You create ads and then allocate how much money you’ll spend on the campaign. It is, in essence, a bidding war. Facebook claims that your ad can reach as many as 400 million Facebook users.
When you log into your account. Facebook teases you with a projected facsimile of your ad in the right corner of any tab except the wall. Of course, you’re the only person who can see it until you create and place the ad.
The Facebook ad process is fairly simple. Follow these steps:
1. Log into your Facebook account. Your Facebook page appears.
2. Click Promote with an ad. The design your ad page appears. When you create an ad for a page, people who view the ad can become fans by clicking
the ad or visiting your page directly from the ad.
3. Choose an option from the Facebook content drop-down menu. If you have more than one Facebook page in your account, it appears on this menu.
The title has by default, the same name as your Facebook content.
You can also promote your web site or product rather than your Facebook page. Click the I Want to Advertise a Web Page link.
4. Accept or modify the default body text (the information that appears under your avatar).
You’re creating an ad, and basic marketing principles tell you that an ad should satisfy a need or solve a problem. Tell potential fans how they can benefit by following you. You are limited to a maximum of 115 characters for your ad.
Be sure to include a call to action at the end of your ad, such as asking the viewer to order online or call the number at the end of your ad.
5. If you want an image with your ad, click Browse. You can browse for an image on your hard drive and upload it. It must be 110 x 80 pixels, the maximum
size for a Facebook ad image.
6. (Optional) In the Targeting section, choose a location you can target an ad for or limit the ad to a state or province or city. Limiting an ad to a city lets
you choose to show it to users within a given radius of the city. Facebook uses IP addresses to determine user locations.
7. (Optional) Choose Options in the Demographics section. You can target an ad to a certain age group, send an ad to people on their birthdays, target
the gender of ad recipients, and do much more.
8. (Optional) Enter information in the likes and interests area. Eg: Enter photography if your page is about photography.
9. (Optional) Choose parameters in the Education and Work area. In this area, you determine the education level of ad recipients. You can also enter
information in the workplace field to display the ad to people working for a specific company or organization.
10. (Optional) Enter the information you want in the Connections on Facebook section. You can target users who are connected by an event, page, group,
or application. You can also target users who are connected by an event, page, group, or application. You can also target users who aren’t connected
to a page event, group, or application. You can also target friends of connections.
11. Click Continue. The Campaigns and Pricing section appears, notice that the estimated reach is displayed on the right side of the page.
12. Choose an option from the Currency drop-down menu. Choose the currency of the country in which you live.
1. Enter a value for your daily budget. This value represents the maximum amount you spend each day for targeted ads.
2. Choose a schedule option.
You can run ads daily beginning on the date you fill out the forms until you cancel. You can also choose to run your ad during specified dates, which is a wise choice when you’re testing the waters or advertising an event.
3. Choose whether you want to pay per impression or pay per click. If you choose to pay per impression, the per-impression charge is applied to your
account every time someone sees the ad. Your other option is to incur the pay-per-click charge every time someone clicks the ad.
This amount is the maximum you’re willing to pay per 1,000 impressions or per click. Facebook suggests a value based on the demographics you specify. If you enter a higher value, your ad appears more often than those from advertisers who bid lower.
4. Click Review Ad. The Review Ad page appears, at this stage, you see a preview of what your ad will look like. You also enter your credit card information.
5. Enter your credit card information and click Place Order. Your ad campaign is under way after Facebook accepts your ad. Alternatively, if you don’t like the
way the ad looks, click Edit Ad to change any parameter, including the budget.
If you decide to cancel one or more of your Facebook ads, visit www.facebook.com/advertising and click the Manage My Ads link. You can select an ad and then cancel it.
CHECKING REFERRALS FROM WEB SITES
If you have a Google account and you’ve enabled Google Analytics for the web sites you want to track, you can use this service to see how many referrals are a result of your Facebook activity. Follow these steps:
1. Log into Google Analytics.
2. Select the web site you want to monitor from the View Reports drop-down menu.
3. Click Traffic Sources. When the page refreshes, you see a graph measuring visits to your web site.
4. Click All Traffic Sources. When the page refreshes, you see a list of sources that generated visits to your web site.
5. Enter Facebook in the Filter Source/medium text box using the default containing parameter.
The page refreshes and shows you the number of visits resulting from Facebook.
MEASURING LINK EFFECTIVENESS
The solution is a unique URL through bit.ly for your Facebook posts that you can easily track.
After you create a shortened URL and add it to a Facebook post, you can easily track the number of hits the link receives by following these steps:
1. Open your favorite web browser and navigate to http://www.bit.ly.
2. Enter the shortened URL in the address window followed by the plus sign (+).
3. Press Enter or Return.
The web site returns statistics about the shortened URL.
USING THE ADS MANAGER
You can track virtually every conceivable statistic regarding your ad by following these steps:
1. Log into Facebook and navigate to your business page.
2. Click Edit. A list of the settings you can edit appears.
3. Click Ads Manager. The Ads Manager appears.
4. Click a link in the left column. You can change settings and view reports, billing information, and tracking information. The tracking information is especially
helpful because it lets you see web site activity resulting from someone clicking or seeing an ad.
MAKING THE GRAND ON FACEBOOK GRADER
The web marketing company HutSpot has created Facebook Grader (www.facebook.grader.com), a free tool that shows you lots of information, including how you rank with other Facebook users. You simply enter the URL to your business page or enter a keyword or URL. The web application looks for your page, analyzes certain data, and then posts a score along with other pertinent information.