Facebook has an active user base of more than 2 billion people along with a global presence. Almost everyone has a Facebook account, which makes it easier for business owners to reach a large local audience. If you plan well, you can use a combination of paid and organic techniques to get more converting traffic. Facebook is also an excellent platform to promote brands as it allows increased visibility. Here are some tips that help business owners reach a wider local audience:
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Set Up a Local Business Page
A local business page provides a foundation for all your Facebook promotional activities. Without a good profile, your endeavors might fail. Users will browse through a business’ profile to get more information. If that page is informative, engaging, and shows regular activity, users will be more likely to follow. You can also set up location pages for different branches of a business. For example, if you own three restaurants in different locations, it’s a good idea to create a local page for every establishment.
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Start With Your Facebook Friends
Invite friends and family to “like” your business page. This will automatically display your page to their connection, which will gain more visibility. Invitations can be sent out based on recent interactions, location, friends list, or shared groups. It’s also a good idea to ask your most professional employees to link their profile to the business page. This also helps improve visibility.
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Use Facebook Messenger Bots
These bots can communicate with your customers, answering simple queries and requests through Messenger. They can also provide information on offers, discounts, sales, etc. Most business owners believe this technology is too complex for them, but it’s easy to set up a Messenger chatbox with some time and research.
Once the chatbox is set up, it will offer prompt and efficient customer service to prospective customers. For example, if a customer wants to know if a branch of your business in near their location, they can ask the chatbox for information. The reply is prompt and will provide basic details.
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Facebook Advertising
Facebook has a feature-rich advertising platform with many options. You can design campaigns targeting specific goals like brand awareness, reach, gaining conversions, etc. This platform’s location targeting is precious and detailed so it’s easy to find converting audiences. This website also allows you to create different campaigns for different goals so if you want one campaign for conversions and other for boosting brand visibility, you can do that by selecting different goals or parameters.
Why Do You Need Facebook?
This platform offers several benefits, harnessing the power of word-of-mouth marketing along with Graph Search. Their search answers more than 1 billion queries every day and most of them are focused on local results. Their boosted/promoted content system is just as sophisticated as their ads platform, allowing advertisers to target based on age, gender, likes/dislikes, subscriptions, comments, etc.
It pays to study Facebook’s ad platform carefully. Understanding all the parameters, guidelines, targeting options, etc, can help advertisers reach a niche audience. This can help increase ROI and even reduce ad expense.