Facebook marketing is becoming increasingly more difficult as Facebook continues to change the rules – but because more than a billion people are on Facebook – your business needs to be there.

How to start marketing your business on Facebook?

Create your presence

Create your Facebook fan page at Facebook.com/page. The terms of service say you cannot use a personal profile as a business. Simply walk through the steps on the screen to create the basic page you need to get started.

Choose a profile picture and timeline cover

Your profile picture should be your logo if you’re promoting a company - a professional headshot if you yourself are the brand.

Whatever photo you choose here, make sure it is the same photo you use on all other social media outlets. This is critical to help you establish brand recognition. The over photo is an image that shows behind your profile photo. This is a great way to make an impression and get creative. Do not post any sort of promotional content, or anything that may infringe on someone else’s copyright in this space. Facebook wants you to use their ad platform, not your cover photo, for promotions.

Invite contacts to “like” your page

Without fans, your page doesn’t get any exposure. When you’re first starting out, reach out to people you’re already connected with – both on and off Facebook to ask them to like your page. You’ll get a head start on your page numbers, and may create a viral effect because friends of friends will like the page and so on. You can also gain fans by:

• Embedding your Facebook widget on your website
• Tell your email subscribers
• Add the Facebook URL to your email signature
• Encourage your fans to tag photos
• Load videos on your Facebook and embed them to your website
• Run a contest
• Link to your Twitter account
• Add your Facebook URL to print media such as business cards
• Add a link to your Facebook page on your Facebook profile

Create compelling content

With the number of brands out there vying for customer attention, it can be incredibly easy to get lost in the shuffle. That’s why in order to be one step ahead of the rest of the game; your content needs to be compelling. Here are some tips to consider as you craft your posts:

• Create value. Why would a fan want to read what you just published? Would you share what you posted in conversations with friends? If so, would it be shared the same way you just wrote it? Make sure you’re human. It’s okay to, and is expected, to sound like a person. You can write here the way you speak. If your posts come off sounding too much like a sales pitch or a press release, people will ignore you.

• Create an editorial calendar. Taking time every week to list the post topics you want to cover can help you. Define your goals. Come up with post ideas that will help you reach those goals, either create your own content, or find the content already out there, create or find images to accompany the posts, and write them.

• Keep your posts short, so they can be easily scanned as a user scrolls through their news feed. If it’s not short, no one will stop and read it. Think in terms of crafting a headline.

Advertise

Running a Facebook ad campaign is much like running a Google AdWords campaign, but you do not have to be an AdWords expert to succeed at Facebook advertising. Setup your Facebook ad at Facebook.com/ads. Here you can choose the type of ad you want to run, and you can super target your audience using a variety of demographic data.

For instance, you can target women over the age of 18, who live in the United States, who are also mothers, who are interested in makeup and beauty. With Facebook, you can set a daily budget, starting at a minimum of $5 per day, or two times your minimum cost per click.

Pricing will vary based on targeting options – but it is a good idea to start with at least $250. If you go with less than that, you likely won’t be able to get the actionable data you need to learn more about how you can optimize your campaign for a better ROI.

Measure and adjust as necessary

Use both the Facebook Insights tool and Google Analytics to take a closer look at the interactions on your Facebook page and see how any ads are performing. If you see a certain ad is not doing well, re-work it. If you see a certain type of post, or posting at a certain time of day is working better for you, remember that as you move forward.

Make it a point to look at these numbers every week, or every month, and make adjustments. Once you find something that works – don’t assume it will continue to work that way for you forever. Continually make adjustments to fine tune your Facebook marketing strategy.

Avoid making these mistakes

1. Posting too much. People like your page for a reason – but posting too often will annoy them. They will either unlike your page, or quite paying attention to your page when they see it in their timeline.

2. Not posting enough. If you don’t post at least a couple times a day – scheduled to reach people across multiple time zones – people will forget to pay attention to you all together. When they see if, if they see you in their timeline, they may not realize who you are or why they liked your page in the first place.

3. Not keeping up with changes on facebook. Facebook constantly changes things, and it is important to keep up with what’s going on with the terms of service. If you’re doing something wrong, you’re risking trouble with Facebook, and your fans may notice. When you’re building a community on Facebook – these people are not on your website – so it’s important to be careful when building business on rented land. Your website is your property – and you have more control. Make sure you play by the rules wherever you are.

4. Not filling out the page completely. Fill out your brand page completely with your business hours, address and other contact information, photos, etc. This way your users can access the information they need when they need it. Make use of that space to the fullest of its potential!

5. Focusing too much on likes. The number of likes on your page doesn’t matter as much as who it is that likes your page. If you have 25 targeted people who are loyal to your brand and listening to you – that’s much better than having 100 fans who are not interested in what it is you have to say. That’s why even though it is tempting to buy fans to get those numbers up, it’s not a wise investment. What good is 500 fans if none of them will talk to you, listen to you, or buy from you? Focus instead on engagement – getting the small number of fans you have talking to you and about you.

6. Lengthy post updates. If it’s long – people will skip over it. You may have a small number of people who will read the whole thing – the main idea is that be keeping it short – you will grab and keep attention.

Excerpted from the book Web Traffic Flood.

This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Download this book on Boostlane:

https://boostlane.com/p/boostlane/1076/web-traffic-flood/