Six essential Facebook marketing tips for SMEs

Whether Facebook is a good platform to sell your product or service is an increasingly important question that start-ups have to ponder.

So what are the advantages of Facebook as a marketing medium?

Aside from the fact that over 845 million people use Facebook every day (and counting), you can get fast and easy exposure to your ideal clients with micro niche targeted ads.

Facebook lets you reach your target market with custom ads and a tight marketing campaign.

Getting your business in front of thousands of people is easy. The hard part though, is to make sales.

Why? Because Facebook users use the social network to make new friends and stalk their friends, not to buy stuff. This is why Facebook is called the social network.

Does this mean you can’t sell on Facebook? Or course not.

In fact, you can use Facebook to your advantage with the following tips and information.

The key lies in being strategic about your marketing. You have to follow through until you start to see results, or else risk losing your momentum.

1. Reach the right people

In order to make sales on Facebook you need to reach the right people first

You can do this two-ways: you can pay for Facebook advertising, split-test your ads, and then optimise them for increased conversions – or you can spend time and energy building your tribe.

The first option is more expensive (at least at first), and the second is cheaper, but can cost you more in the end (considering your time is money).

Here’s a quick overview of Facebook ads and how they compare to Google’s popular AdWords program.

Google AdWords vs Facebook ads

Unlike the more expensive Google AdWords advertising, Facebook ads are often less costly and give you fast statistics due to the sheer numbers.

The downside of Facebook ads is they cost more to test and their conversion rates are weaker than Google’s.

Having said this, you can test your campaign with a budget or around $300-$2,000.

The cost will be determined by the cost of the clicks (CPC) and the number of people who click on your ads.

If they click but don’t buy, then your ads are not targeted well, meaning they need to be niched tighter (shown to less people), or you need to adjust the cost of your clicks.

I’d start with the lowest denomination as possible – between $0.15 and $0.25 cents. You don’t want to spend a fortune while you’re still testing the market, but enough to drive traffic to your Facebook page fast.

It’s important to drive all Facebook ad traffic to a Facebook page and NOT a website if you want to keep people engaged.