Facebook has massively grown into much more than what it was planned to be or what it actually is recognized to be. Quoting the lines from the movie The Social Network, both Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and then Napster founder Sean Parker defined Facebook simply as “it’s cool, but we don’t really know what it is yet.” Nearly a decade and a half later, they now run Facebook as the largest social network across the globe with the world’s youngest billionaire at the helm.
Now, Facebook is more than just “something cool.” It’s what’s in. It’s a means of communication. It’s a platform where people store their memories. It’s a place for sharing. Above all this however, the biggest identity or role that Facebook has eventually evolved into is the leading and largest digital marketing tool for brands worldwide.
Brands across the globe, both big and small, have turned to Facebook as one of the preferred tools in communicating to their respective target audiences. The social media platform has provided a portal for businesses to run their campaigns, increase brand exposure, and engage with their customers at a very close proximity without having to go out into the streets. With digital marketing paving the way to faster and easier customer engagement between businesses and consumers, Facebook has capitalized on its simple function of sharing and providing information with just a tap of a finger or a click of a button. As a challenge, brands have created various unique ways of optimizing the platform to cater to their needs. That being said, your business shouldn’t be any different. Facebook is a platform available to you, and if you’re planning to build your brand, Facebook Marketing is crucial to your business.
Brands have immensely grown through use of Facebook Marketing. From start-ups to the biggest players in any industry, Facebook Marketing has proved to be a highly effective tool. So what are the next steps for you? How can you start? What can it do? How can you apply it to your brand? Below are some of the reasons why Facebook Marketing is crucial to build your business as proved to you by the top brands on Facebook here in the Philippines according to Socialbakers.
1. It’s cost effective
The Department of Tourism (DOT) in the Philippines decided to turn their sights on working through social media to build on their awareness campaign back in 2012. With the hopes of bringing more life into tourism, the DOT thought that it might be good to finally get in with the times and utilize the Facebook platform who was then gaining 5 users per minute landing the country in the top 8 countries with the most Facebook users according to Rappler.
#itsmorefuninthephilippines was the campaign that brought about a 16% increase just a couple of months into launching the campaign. With all the hype created prior to the launch, the DOT began to share images of the Philippines and its culture where you can do simple things such as “getting upstairs” (imposed on a photo of the world famous Banaue Rice Terraces) and the like. The campaign immediately went viral with users starting to create their own images and garnering up to 10,000 shares just within the campaign’s first day. As an effort by the government, minimal to no expenses were required and it worked well under its fairly low budget. Facebook Marketing can help your brand create the buzz it needs to get on its feet and even better, it’s easy on the wallet.
2. Increase Brand Exposure
Samsung is one of the World’s leading brands in Mobile Technology. With its rapid rate of releasing smartphones, the brand continues to grow globally, even slowly overtaking the ever impressive Apple of the late Steve Jobs. As they continue to provide more and more smartphones, they continue to provide more accessibility to Facebook as well.
The Facebook page Samsung Mobile is currently the top Facebook brand page in the Philippines according to Socialbakers. The page is kept very simple yet highly informative of the brand and the multitude of products and services that they offer. Effectively able to gain around 70,000 fans on a monthly basis since the time they’ve started focusing on Facebook Marketing efforts. This page is worth mentioning as they maintain their Facebook Marketing at a minimum yet receive the feedback and engagement that they would want to have through their efforts. Though the platform may not equate to immediate sales, the exposure that the brand gets from the page does create the leads and build on better branding campaigns for Samsung.
You can do the same for your brand very simply by focusing on the tools that Facebook provides you. For example, the cover photo is automatically a top level advertisement that can communicate easily to your Facebook audience. Make sure that you optimize the photos you use on your Facebook page and keep all branding and campaign content visible from your logo to your new campaign materials. Additionally, your Facebook posts can easily provide useful information to your audience wherein they can learn more about your brand, your products, your offers, and help create a relationship with your audience.
3. Build close relationships and speak out to your target audience
Why build a relationship with your customer through Facebook? You’ll have to understand that everyone is on Facebook nowadays. People spend around 2/3 of the day online and Facebook is one of the top activities that users engage in whether it’s on a desktop or mobile. Facebook is on the go and Facebook is everywhere – just as friends use it, it’s a way for your brand to stay in touch with your customer. The more important your customer feels, the better the relationship you have with them which definitely builds brand character and effectively, brand loyalty.
Kitkat Philippines is in the top 5th and 6th brands on Facebook in the country at the moment. “Have a break, have a Kitkat” has grown into a popular tagline amongst the consumers of the country. Now around 2 million Facebook users have liked the Kitkat Philippines Facebook Page and these users have been getting health and wellness tips, daily inspirational quotes, hunger attacks, and even customer support thanks to Kitkat’s Facebook Marketing efforts. The brand even responds to user comments just to remind everyone that it’s always a good thing to “Have a break” every now and then, lifting the spirits and hearts of their audience. Make sure your brand can cater to your audience the same way and it’ll boost brand credibility and customer loyalty – two factors that will definitely define your brand’s success.
4. Engage with your customers
It’s not enough that your brand’s name floats across Facebook timelines of users. More often than not, users will just scroll through their timeline and even skipping any post that your brand might have shared. However, if your post is engaging enough to the user, then you’ll get feedback and user activity on your page and effectively, build on the relationship that you have with them.
Kimstore is one of the country’s top e-commerce websites and is currently growing its Facebook Fan page. It started out as an online store on the Multiply platform which later on moved into a website of its own and is now using Facebook as one of its Marketing tools. Kimstore engages with its customers through Facebook by providing teasers, asking questions, and promoting their new products available on the store. These simple tasks catch the attention of Facebook users increasing the likes of each post and more importantly, getting the customers to post comments expressing their excitement for new products, inquiring about stock and prices, or even just commending the brand for its services. Always make your brand available to your customers and keep them coming back. Having them feel that you actually value them and you give them information and content that stimulate their emotion builds on their trust to the brand and in effect, their loyalty.
5. Compete on the same level
Kimstore is not the only e-commerce website growing in the Philippines now. In order for the other players in the industry to compete, they have to stay up to date with their competitors’ strategies and offers and in line with the topic, Facebook Marketing is also done by other e-commerce websites. The strategy is publicly available to all brands, this includes you and your brand’s competitors as well. It’s worth taking a look at what your competitor does on their Facebook page. Take a look at what they do and what seems effective and see if you’re doing the same thing. Try to capitalize on what you can for your brand that they can’t.
6. Advertising made easy
Facebook offers advertising on their platform on a Pay-per-Click or per Impressions basis and this works well for brands utilizing online marketing as it is a highly cost effective tool in itself and it helps in narrowly targeting your audience. You can use the page engagement ad objective to boost brand engagement through advertising to help build your fan base and increase their participation with your brand as well.
Zalora does this very well not just by sponsored posts or ads but also through Facebook’s custom website audience. If you go to the Zalora website and browse around to look at the products that they offer on their e-commerce site, you’ll be surprised to see that when you log in to your Facebook account, you’ll see a post on your timeline that actually shows you the product or products that you were browsing through their site, encouraging you to have another look at it with the hopes of you completing the purchase. This remarketing strategy will potentially increase sales and even get your customer to keep coming back to your brand. Additionally, Facebook allows you to provide offers that your customer can avail directly from Facebook and apply it when the purchase is made.
7. Get friendly with Search Engines
Search engines will definitely help define how your brand is known across the internet. By targeting the right keywords, your brand will come up as the top results when being searched. Facebook comes in to play as it is one of the largest networks in the internet and providing your brand a Facebook Page of its own helps in its “search-ability”.
This will definitely apply to any brand, even to start ups. As long as you’re able to get word across to your audience, and your brand begins to get searched, you’ll definitely rely on Facebook to show in search results and make your brand accessible to your customers.
8. Get insights for your Brand
With all the tools and platforms Facebook provides, one of the most important would be Facebook insights. The biggest brands depend on this tool to discover and know how their brands are performing on Facebook and effectively, how they fare in the relationship with your customers.
Know your audience more by seeing which demographic actually engages in your posts. Find out what time your audience is usually online and schedule posts accordingly. See which posts tend to receive the most engagement and which ads are performing at their best. Any brand with a Facebook page will surely be able to come up with better strategies on marketing through the social network and in the process, they’ll make better decisions to directly drive sales to the brand.
Never forget that measuring the performance of a campaign is a must for your brand. All the biggest global brands of the world make it a point to monitor their performance and Facebook already provides the tools for this. Make sure that your brand is able to utilize it just the same.
With everyone already on Facebook almost anytime and anywhere, your brand should be able to make its presence known. The platform already offers the tools that you would need to help build your brand but also take note of one key factor in this process – time. You don’t have to rush your campaigns and Facebook page growth. It will still require time as it is a process in itself. Study your audience, study your competitors, and plan out your strategies. It’s pretty much guess and test in the beginning but when you’ve finally found the strategy that works best for you, your brand is sure to grow. So if you haven’t created a Facebook page for your brand, you might want to take the time to do so. Harness the power of social media, I promise you, you won’t regret it.