Small Business Big Brand Facebook Marketing Tips

Social media marketing is continuing to play a major role in how big brands connect with consumers. It removes the distance between company leaders, marketers, and innovators with the general population. Now, even global brands like Coca Cola can connect like a local soda shop. As a local business, you can use their best practices and have one specific advantage they don’t – you are local and can add posts and information about things happening in your community. Your Facebook marketing can be better than the big boys by simply incorporating their ideas.

Marketing Tips for Social Media Campaigns

• Customer Service – Social media is an excellent place to provide exceptional customer service. When someone comments on your page you can reply immediately, answer questions, provide solutions, and help someone that may be feeling frustrated. Instead of waiting for bad reviews to pop up, you can resolve any customer complaints immediately.

• Leverage Popular Events – Coca Cola did a huge campaign around the Olympics by encouraging people to upload photos and videos of their playing made up Olympics inspired games using Coke products. You can do the same thing for any major event. For example, the World Series could lead to a campaign where your fans and followers upload a photo of their summer baseball moments with a #hashtag for your company. Give away a prize for the best photos. As a bonus, this is the type of social media content that will be shared and liked by their friends which increases your exposure.

• Play the Numbers – Your Facebook marketing should be 70 percent brand and business related (pictures of your products or services along with information). Another 20 percent should be content originated by others. This could be news, local events, blog posts etc. and the final ten percent should be promotional. If you go too heavy on the promotions, your page will come across like an ad.

• Be Fun – Yes, it’s that simple. Your social media marketing should not be too serious. Save that for white papers or technical writing. Ask people in your office to help you come up with funny ideas, silly quotes, jokes, and goofy photos. People have enough serious in their lives so the more fun and engaging you are, the more likely they are to come back to your page.

• Focus Group – Ask your fans to tell you what features they would like to see in your products, new hours that would be more convenient for them, another service they need etc. You can run mini focus groups on your social media profiles and get free feedback that can help your company to grow in the long run. Make sure to reply to your fans and tell them you are considering their suggestions so that they know you are listening. Lays potato chips has done this successfully for several years and brings out new flavors based on fan requests.

Make sure that you have someone dedicated to managing your Facebook marketing and social media campaigns. They should post daily and respond to everyone. Constant engagement is key to building your online brand so be consistent and have fun doing it!