How To Get More Likes: Facebook Marketing 101

Think of this as your introductory course into Facebook marketing. It’s not in-depth, but it’s a quick overview to help you when talking to your marketing team. We have three options: free, small investment, and larger (but still relatively reasonable) investment.

Free: Provide Valuable Content 

Create content that people will invest time into reading. If it benefits the readers, they are much more likely to engage with the content (and hopefully be inspired to share) over a post which shamelessly promotes a company, product or brand. Of course, you need to promote your brand, but we like to stick to the 4:1 rule. Post 4 pieces of valuable original content and 1 self-promoting piece.

We like to post marketing tips, creative inspiration and overall office advice. We aren’t losing clients by providing industry advice, instead we’re gaining respect and becoming a trusted resource in the market. Posting content that benefits others in some way encourages engagement and appreciation for your organization.

The Small Investment: Simple Contests

If there’s anything today’s society is obsessed with, it’s free stuff, competition, and voicing opinions. Try holding a contest for small items (gift cards, mugs, or T-shirts.) Make the prize relevant to your company. Are you a restaurant? Give away a gift card! A veterinarian? Give away a basket full of dog toys and treats. It is a low cost way to get people to engage with, and tell their friends about, your Facebook page.

Some of the simplest contests can be the most successful. Take a look at this quick contest we posted last week. Our storage area is overflowing with branded coffee mugs and Starbucks gift cards, so this contest cost us a total of $0.

The Larger Investment: Boosting Facebook Posts

If you’re really anxious to spend some money, boost a Facebook post. It’s a low-cost and legal way to get your content to show up in more Newsfeeds. (Do not buy likes.) The new audience your content is exposed to will have the choice to see more in the future by liking your page. (And if you’ve done your targeting correctly, the fans WILL come.)

This insures that your fans will be authentic and have some level of personal investment in your product or service.

When boosting a post, you can promote your content in two ways:

1. People who are already fans of your page and their friends
2. People you choose through targeting

When choosing people through targeting, you select the demographics for your target. Facebook will show you your potential reach based on your presets and budget.

(Left) Boosting targeted at your fans and their friends. (Right) Boosting targeted towards a specific demographic.

There are so many different things you can do with Facebook, it’s impossible to contain all of it to one blog (or even one book!) Check back regularly for more tips and tricks to master this ever-changing beast, but I hope this short blog gave you a jumping-off point.