If you’re not marketing on Facebook, you’re missing out on a lot. Quit leaving money on the table, you have to get your Facebook marketing efforts planned, organized and optimized. This should be your plan in all social media marketing strategies. It’s no secret that Facebook is the social marketing platform of the world. Facebook has over 1 billion active users, no other social network comes close. Doesn’t mean that you can’t make money elsewhere, just the fact that Facebook is where the opportunity is.

Proven Facebook Marketing Techniques

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of great people that do great things. Today, I’m going to introduce two awesome resources that you may or may not know. Either way, after today, you’ll know them and they will help your Facebook marketing across the board. Powerful resources. Now, I want to give a special shout out to Mari Smith. Mari is an expert Facebook marketer, we all stand to learn something from her when it comes to Facebook marketing. Mari doesn’t know me but I had the opportunity to watch one of her old webinars on YouTube. You can view her YouTube channel here.

Mari has done many webinars on Facebook, she has written books and spoke publically. If you set down and watch one of her webinars, you’ll walk away with a lifetime of knowledge. Be sure to check out Mari’s YouTube channel. Now, Mari introduced me to an awesome website called Social Bakers. Click here to look at Facebook statistics. Social Bakers collects a ton of useful, informative Facebook stats that are crucial to your Facebook marketing efforts. Be sure to check them out and a big shout out to their founder.

Social Bakers collects information on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn. Social Baker has a ton of free tools and resources. They also have premium resources that I would suggest that you invest in if your a social media marketer.

Our statistic is 171,754,610  This is the sum of fans in “Retail Food.” Interesting, huh. Who would have thought retail food would have the highest number of fans. “Retail” was in a close second with 168,143,366 followed by FMCG Food with 130,530,377. What about 4th? “Beverage” is fourth on the list at 96,918,093 and fashion at 96,663,785 rounds out the top 5. What does this tell you in terms of Facebook marketing? If you’re in these niches, you have plenty of marketing fans and similar interest. Perhaps a few post on food, retail or fashion if you can mix your marketing efforts within your niche. Be creative and test it out, trial and error my friend.

Our second stat is American users male vs. female. This is important to know, right? Especially if you’re in a gender specific niche. Female users on Facebook in America as of 5/14, 53.9 percent. Males are 46.1 percent. Not a huge margin but a statistic that matters. If you market to women, you have an advantage. It’s important to know who your marketing too. If you move to India, the rate is 75 percent male and only 25 percent for females.  Women are also more social then men. Nearly 50 percent of all women on social media platforms visit their social accounts multiple times a day. As for men, you’re looking at around 34 percent.

A decent percentage of all Facebook users check their Facebook account 5 times or more a day. The total, 23 percent. Surprising to me, nearly 48 percent of marketers believe that Facebook is overrated as a legit marketing platform. I’ve seen great success on Facebook, I’ve seen both sides of the street. I know for a fact that this 48 percent, probably over half of them didn’t run their Facebook marketing campaigns correctly. It is also possible that they didn’t run one paid ad.

78 percent of users log in from a mobile phone. This is a huge stat to take notice too. 78 percent of all Facebook users are logging in from a mobile device. If your website is not mobile friendly, your leaving dollars on the table. If your business is not running mobile ads, your missing out on getting your ads to a large audience. Mobile usage is still growing, this can easily surpass 80 percent and beyond. In fact, it is expected to. Make the changes needed and make sure your website is responsive.

Facebook now has 1.28 billion active users. User growth is up 15 percent year to year. This is great growth and even more opportunity for you to cash in on your Facebook marketing efforts. On average, 1 million links are shared on Facebook every 20 minutes. This is a huge amount of links. That is also a lot of competition to deal with. This is why every marketing technique you use on Facebook needs to be properly planned and optimized. I can’t say it enough, trial and error. Test to see what works for your business, keep what works and move on from Facebook marketing techniques that don’t work.

Facebook averages 809 million visits per month. Again, this is a big opportunity for your business to capitalize on the traffic. Surprising to some, this monthly amount is only second on the list. First, no surprise to me is Google+. Google+ leads the social community with 1.2 billion monthly visitors per month on average.

These are just a few of the many Facebook statistics out there that can influence Facebook marketing. The more in tune you are to such measurements, the better results you’re going to likely see. Trends are trends for a reason, stay on top of all the major Facebook statistics as well as all your other social media profiles. Be sure to watch some of Mari’s webinars and check out Social Bakers. Good luck.

Social Media Marketing On Pinterest

Social Media Marketing On Twitter

Facebook is still the social giant and no other website comes close to comparing. Marketing on Facebook gives you a variety of different benefits to help your business grow online. The largest social platform has several advertising features to help you reach your targeted audience. Both paid and free advertising campaigns on Facebook work if you know how to successfully run a campaign.

Nearly every big corporation and business has a Facebook page. Over a billion people has a Facebook account and Facebook has over 700 million regular uses. No other social platform compares. The key to marketing on Facebook is audience targeting. Face it, the key to marketing in general is finding the right audience. As you’re going to learn, there’s several ways that you can do this, both free and paid. These proven marketing techniques have worked time and time again.

Connecting And Interaction With Your Fans

No other Facebook marketing technique may be more powerful then interacting with your followers and fans. This proven marketing technique has worked time and time again. Studies have shown the success of connecting with fans on a personal level. Your Facebook page should be diverse, one way of doing this is through personal Facebook post. Post pictures of your new born child, a company party or your family vacation. Successful companies on Facebook are those that have a diverse profile and page.

Many experts believe in the 80/20 rule when it comes to Facebook marketing. For 80 percent of the time, you should concentrate on your business. For 20 percent of the time, you should share your personal side. This shows your fans that you’re a real person. You won’t believe the difference that this can make in your marketing efforts on Facebook.

Engage With Your Audience

This corresponds with our first Facebook marketing technique but this specific strategy has to be mentioned. Two-way dialogue as it is called is a great way to engage your audience. Remember, you want a diverse Facebook page. You want it to be useful, interactive and educational. You also want it to be fun and engaging, this brings fans back to your page. So, why not start the conversation?

Here’s what you can do if you come out with a new product or new service. You can create a post with pictures of you and the new product. Ask your following if they have tried your new product yet. If so, ask them if they liked it. You can try a poll, asking questions or any other technique you can use to engage your audience. Do this through a diversity of post, such as text, pictures, text and pictures or videos.

New Daily Content

Having fresh updated content gives your audience plenty to read, increases engagement and also brings fans back. Some companies try to keep their content at a limit, some even skip days in between. We say you can’t never have enough content. Your audience comes back to your page because they find it useful, helpful and fun. If you’re not keeping your page updated daily, why would they come back to your page? You have to be active daily if you want your Facebook marketing techniques to work.

Make sure you’re using your content right, keeping it diverse and useful. This is especially true with your call-of-action post. We know that a mix of pictures, text, audio and videos perform much better together then alone. Don’t forget to draw attention to your page with free giveaways, contest or specials. Make sure it is part of your marketing on Facebook.

Encourage Conversation And Engagement

There’s big benefits to having your audience talking about your brand. Of course, you want it to be positive rather then negative but it can have huge impacts on your marketing efforts on Facebook. Studies have shown that fans trust their friends more then brands. You want to build trust and you want to become an authority in your respected niche. If you’re getting your audience to mention your brand positively, it can have a huge impact on your success with Facebook.

One of the best ways to create conversations is through a community page. Make sure you build a community page for your business. You also want to make sure you’re active on your community page also. You can offer recognition to the most vocal fans in your community to encourage others to begin the conversation. Give them a free prize or a shout out to show them that their voice is appreciated. This is a great way to get other fans involved and talking about your company.

Smart Branding

There’s a number of different ways that you can brand your company on Facebook. If you already have your logo, you probably can’t go back and have it changed. If you don’t have a logo, you want to bring brand awareness with your logo. Your logo should be unique and remembered. Branding is always important. More then likely, you already have a website. You want to bring your brand to Facebook. Familiarity is important in branding. It doesn’t do your brand any good if your website looks completely different then your Facebook page. Remember to take elements of your website and brand to build into your Facebook page.

You can use your tabs on Facebook to promote your products and services. This is a great area for short videos promoting your business. If you have a new product or service, be sure to at it to your tabs. Having familiar logos and themes will help your audience remember your brand easier.

Have A Purpose And Goal

You should set purposes, goals and milestones for your Facebook page. You can have fun with your Facebook page but you need to remember the goals of your page. More then likely, it is brand awareness, networking or selling products and services. What is the purpose of your Facebook page? What is the mission or goals? What can fans expect by becoming a fan of your business?

Tracking the success of your Facebook marketing techniques is the most important element of Facebook marketing. You have to monitor what works and what doesn’t. See which types of post get the most views or get the highest conversions. All of these Facebook marketing techniques can be done for free, we haven’t even discussed paid advertising on Facebook. You have to have a record of what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t, how can you improve? Always track your marketing efforts and the results so you have a roadmap for future marketing on Facebook.

Paid Facebook Advertising

Paid Facebook advertising can be extremely beneficial to your marketing efforts. This type of Facebook marketing does increase viral reach and organic reach but at a cost. Studies have shown that we see small click-through-rates with paid advertising on Facebook. Paid advertising on Facebook will increase impressions and exposure but less people click on the ads.

Negative feedback increases with paid ads. We all know that negative feedback can hurt business too. The only exception we see is paid links. If you’re looking for brand awareness, paid Facebook ads would be the way to go. If you’re looking for CTR, you need to consider which type of ads to use. According to Salesforce, sponsored check-in stories have the highest CTR at 3.2 percent.

What about hashtags? Many experts believe that hashtags don’t work and there is evidence of this fact being true. However, we believe it depends on a number of elements, including keywords chosen, post type and niche sector. My advice, trial and error. I’ve seen hashtags bring in a big audience and I’ve seen post with no hashtags do the same.

Just like with any type of marketing technique, what works for one may not work for another. Keep records of this, I mentioned this earlier. Try different Facebook marketing techniques and see which work best, which don’t and make the appropriate changes.