How do you make social media work? Here are 4 ideas that you should at least try and maximise before you get to bogged down.

Marketing in general is the most confusing part of business and that’s obvious when you know that currently businesses spend under 1% on their marketing and advertising budget, as opposed to 5% plus only a few years ago. For many, it’s all too complicated and social media and Facebook are a big part of the problem.

I attended another Facebook for business workshop this week and again came out thinking how hard Facebook make this for small businesses to get any result, let alone a good one, without forcing you to spend a small fortune. (But then again, that’s what it takes to be one of the largest and most valuable companies in the world.)

There are several keys to Facebook that businesses need to be aware of and were confirmed again this week.

• Posts get to around 1% of the of your target audience but it could actually be as low as .2% (yes that’s right, 0.2%) regardless of whether it’s your own community of followers, or a paid audience. Facebook controls what goes out, who sees it through engagement but there’s also just too much to see, so it’s all about paying.
• Facebook are in total control, what goes out, who it goes to and even if it goes out at all. They can shut you down, stop your posts dependant on the content, heading, image and much more.
• Let’s say you actually get an add loaded, you then pick a target audience. You think, lets target tennis players (you sell tennis racquets) so you pick people that like tennis and the number is in the millions. That’s because it’s not just tennis players, but everyone that at some point have looked or engaged with a picture of Roger Federer! (Or similar) Target audiences are based on generic interest or likes, not always on actual. (I play tennis!)

The big mistake that far too many businesses make is jumping in, throwing money at it and not getting any result. Then stopping and giving it all away. The solutions is that you need to know a little about it, before engaging someone else to spend your money, on something that probably won’t work for at least a while.

There are some common-sense fundamentals that everyone that wants to get a handle on Facebook needs to consider before spending too much time or money on it.

1. Get used to organic posting. You don’t need to spend all day. One post a day is a good start. Experiment with images, content, video, try different things. But make it valuable, there’s just too much “stuff that just clogs it all up” that has no value at all. So much is about engagement. But at the end of the day, who cares if you have 1000 followers and they all like your images, if no one actually buys anything. If they buy as a result, keep going.
2. Critically important is getting everything else right, before the social media. Does the website work, can you collect data, is everything there that someone would need to easily engage with you?
3. Is the back end, the lead conversion process, right? It’s great to have leads, but if you can’t covert, don’t bother with the leads.
4. Collect data, not just on your Facebook page. If someone buys, ensure the data is backed up in a secondary way through a CRM so that even if Facebook shuts down, or shuts you down, you still have data to keep marketing. The data is also important about ROI on leads. How many, where they come from and the results. What happens to the ones that say no?

The important thing to remember with Facebook and social media in general is this. It doesn’t work for everyone, but everyone should be on it because at some point, someone’s going to check you out! So at least get the basics right, test and measure and get an understanding of the basics first. Could it work?

The secret to making marketing work, is get the basics right first. It doesn’t even mean spend heaps of money, let alone more than you are now.

• Get your brand and image right
• Make sure you can be found
• Get the back-end conversion process right
• Test and measure marketing. Don’t rely on one arm only, develop ten marketing arms.
• Collect and undertaken data.

Mybusinessnow helps businesses in uncomplicating their businesses and growing. 99% of the things that businesses do wrong and miss and are simple things that any business could get right, if they knew.

Mybusinessnow is a business growth training platform. We run monthly free introductory events to get an idea of what we are, how we worked whether it’s right for you. Our mantra is uncomplicating business. Make it easy, simple, quick and better.

Most businesses could double within 12 to 24 months, you just need to know what steps to take. You can contact us via our website or simply email for more information or click on the link to get one of our free “Business growth for any business” kits. https://form.jotform.co/erwinmbn/mybusinessnowgrow-build-any-busines

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