If your answer is yes, then you need a detailed guide on how to start a startup.
For those of you who haven’t launched a business before, it can sound like an intimidating task.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that getting your startup off the ground is an easy mission.
It takes hard work, dedication, money, some sleepless nights, and, yes, some failures before you succeed.
Nearly 20 percent of businesses fail in the first year, and just because you make it beyond 12 months doesn’t mean your startup is going to continue to thrive.
According to government stats, 30.6 percent of businesses fail after their second year, 49.7 percent fail after five years, and 65.6 percent fail after their tenth year.
Once you get your company off the ground, it doesn’t get any easier: you need to work just as hard to keep it going each year.
With that said, it’s useful to have a guide and a set of instructions to follow to learn how to launch a startup.
When I write about launching a startup, I’m talking from personal experience. I’ve created several startup companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and NP Digital.
I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help make things a little easier and less stressful for you as you go through this process.
Realistically, it takes hundreds of stages to launch your company, but I’ve narrowed down the top 7 steps into a blueprint for you to follow if you want to learn how to start a startup and learn how to create and develop your own business.
In the following article, I outline and discuss each step in detail so you have a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
Let’s begin with the basics.
1. Create a Business Plan
Have you heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail?’ That was the thinking of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Well, research appears to back that up. Study after study shows that businesses with a plan are more likely to succeed. In addition, you can find many articles spelling out the importance of a business plan.
“A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.”
It’s pretty straightforward, really. Having an idea is one thing, but having a legitimate business plan is another story.
A proper business plan gives you a significant advantage, but what should you include in a business plan? It helps if you think of it as a written description of your company’s future. Basically, you outline what you want to do and how you plan to do it.
Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy and detail your business’s purpose and aims. Ideally, your document should outline your business goals, strategies, and your plans for achieving them.
Here are the key steps to writing a successful business plan:
Outline your business goals
Describe your target market
Explain your product or service
Detail your marketing and sales strategies
Write down your financial projections and detail the funding
Summarize your overall strategy
If you need some help with your plan, the Small Business Administration has an easy-to-follow guide, along with some templates.
2. Secure Appropriate Funding
Without adequate funding, your business won’t launch or stay afloat long-term. According to Statista, in 2021, there were nearly 840,000 businesses that had been in operation for less than a year. Many of these startups won’t survive because they underestimate the cost of doing business.
Perhaps you’re wondering what level of financing you need? When it comes to raising cash, there’s no magic number that applies to all businesses. The startup costs vary from industry to industry, so your company may require more or less funding depending on the situation.
Costs also vary depending on whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, e-commerce enterprise, or service business. If you’re unsure how much you might need, try the SBA’S startup cost templates to get a better idea.
Online startup loans, which you can apply for online and pay back over time, with interest.
SBA microloans, providing up to $50,000 in loans for start-up businesses. The main advantage is the lower interest rates.
Lines of credit, which is a type of loan available in both secured and unsecured formats.
Invoice factoring/financing, a process in which a business sells its invoices to a third party, at a discount.
Friends/family/personal loans, which are unsecured loans.
Business loans, which you pay back over an agreed period.
Angel investors, who have considerable wealth and give seed funding to start-up businesses.
Crowdfunding, where you raise money from a group of investors online.
Let’s circle back to our business plan for a minute.
All business plans contain a financial plan. This usually includes a:
Balance sheet, which displays your business’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity of the company.
Sales forecast, which predicts future sales.
Profit and loss statement, which details your earning and spending patterns. This figure helps calculate your net income.
Cash-flow statement, or financial statement detailing how much your business has spent and generated.
You use these financial statements to determine how much funding you need to launch successfully. Additionally, you may discover that the number is significantly higher than you originally anticipated.
For example, I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “That would make a great app,” or “I should make an app for this.”
Do you know how much it costs to make an app? Depending on the complexity, you’re looking at anything between $40,000 – $300,000, and that’s just to make it.
This is the point I’m making: to secure the appropriate funding, you need to find out how much money you need.
To find this number, you must research and predict realistic financials in your business plan.
Let’s say you discover that your startup needs $100,000 to get off the ground.
What if you don’t have $100,000?
You’ve got some options, like bank loans and commercial lenders, and that’s the way many small businesses go. With this said, banks are less likely to give large amounts of money to new companies with no income or assets to default on, which may make it hard for your typical startup to get the funding they need.
Don’t worry, your dream isn’t dead yet. You can find investors. They could be:
However, whichever method you use, proceed carefully because you don’t want to start giving away significant equity in your company before you launch.
Then, if you get lucky and find a potential investor, you need to know how to pitch your idea quickly and effectively. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Memorize your financial numbers; ensure you know them inside out.
Refer to your business plan and ensure your financial figures cover the costs.
Make sure your business plan is presentable so you can give potential investors a copy.
Practice and perfect your pitch.
One more thing: It’s imperative that your business plan has a proper executive summary to entice busy investors.
Once you secure the appropriate funding, you can proceed to the next step of how to start a startup business: finding the right people.
3. Surround Yourself With the Right People
No one makes it on their own. William Proctor might not have been a high-profile, successful businessman if he hadn’t met James Gamble.
Where would we go for advice if Larry Page hadn’t met Sergey Brin? Not Google, that’s for sure.
Then what if Ben Cohen never met Jerry Greenfield? We would’ve been denied one of the world’s most famous ice cream brands.
Even if you’ve already got a co-founder in place, you need some core staff.
CEO and COO. Between them, they develop a vision and put it into action.
Product Manager, who is responsible for taking a product from its development stages and onto the market.
Chief Technology Officer, who works with executive members to oversee the technical side of a business.
Chief Marketing Officer, whose job involves creating a marketing strategy and executing it.
Sales Manager, for managing customer relationships, selling products/service, and motivating the team.
Chief Finance Officer, who manages the financial planning and decisions for a company.
Business Development Officer. This is a varied role that involves drawing up a business plan, establishing funding, and building customer/relationship funding.
Customer Service Officer, who assists customers with their questions, any complaints, and providing product information.
However, your business structure depends on the industry, so look at the above as definitive.
When you’re just starting up, hiring an entire team often isn’t realistic, and you find yourself wearing several business hats. That’s OK, to an extent. Just remember to play to your strengths and outsource if you can’t afford to recruit.
That said, there are some experts you should consider essential, including a:
Lawyer
Accountant
Financial advisor
Unless you’re an expert in law, finances, and accounting, these three people can help save your business some money in the long run.
They can explain the legal requirements and tax obligations based on how you structure your business. For example, it could be a:
Sole proprietorship
Partnership
Corporation
Limited liability company
While your lawyer, accountant, and financial advisors are not necessarily employees on your payroll, they are still important people to surround yourself with.
Finally, for this section, don’t forget the fundamentals for starting any company:
Get a federal ID number from the IRS. The IRS lets you submit your business information online to get your employer identification number (EIN).
Get insured: Shop around and find an insurance agent who can get you plenty of coverage at an affordable rate.
Now that you’ve got staff, you need to start work on a website and find a place to base your business.
4. Find a Location and Build a Website
Now you’re ready for the next stage of your how-to start a startup plan: finding a physical location and setting up a website.
Whether it’s offices, retail space, or a manufacturing location, you need to buy or lease a property to operate your business.
Unless you’re working from a home office, your two main options are leasing or ownership. Leasing usually works as out more expensive long term; however, don’t just base your decision on costs. Leasing and ownership both have their pros and cons. Look at the whole picture before making a decision.
I appreciate that it may not be realistic for all entrepreneurs to tie up the majority of their capital in real estate.
Strategize for this in your business plan and try to secure enough funding so that you can afford to buy property. It’s worth the investment and can save you money in the long run.
Let’s move on to setting up a website.
Today, your company can’t survive without an online presence. Don’t wait until the day your business officially launches to get your website off the ground, either, and remember, it’s never too early to start promoting your business.
If customers are searching online for a service in your industry, you want them to know that you exist, even if you’re not quite open for business yet.
The beauty of an online presence is you can even start generating some income through your website before you find premises. If it’s applicable, start taking some pre-orders and scheduling appointments.
Here are some tips about how to launch and promote a successful website:
When designing a website, it is important to keep the user in mind. The layout of the website should be easy to navigate and use. The colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes.
Make your website visually appealing. Use eye-catching images and dynamic designs to make the website stand out from the competition.
Keep the content of the website fresh and up-to-date to keep users coming back to visit your site. Your website is an ideal place to keep your audience up-to-date with a glimpse inside your company, product launches, and, of course, the details of your business premises.
Another important thing to keep in mind is usability. Your site should be easy to use on all devices, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets.
I’ve got a video tutorial that explains how to speed up your website.
All of these items combined may sound tough, but it’s really not that difficult. Just focus on one task at a time, and you’ll get there.
Once your website is up and running, you need to expand your digital presence. To do this, use social media platforms like:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Linkedin
Snapchat
Your prospective customers are using these platforms, so you need to be on them, too. However, when choosing a platform, ensure you go where your core audience is. For instance, if you’re targeting a younger market, TikTok may be ideal.
5. Become a Marketing Expert
If you’re not a marketing expert, you need to become one.
You might have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then your startup can’t succeed.
To start spreading the word, you must learn how to use digital marketing techniques like:
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media marketing (SMM)
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
However, if you’re starting a small business in a local community, some of the traditional methods can still work well. Think:
For those of you who aren’t efficient marketers, there is no shame in hiring a marketing director or even a marketing team, depending on the size of your company.
Your marketing efforts will be one of the most important, if not the most important, components of launching your startup business. To improve your chances of success:
Allocate a marketing budget.
Determine how you’re going to distribute this money across different channels.
Have a plan and try to maximize your return on investment for each campaign.
Take these numbers into consideration before you spend your entire budget on something like banner ads.
If you’re following this plan in order, the good news is that you’re already on the right track to building a customer base.
Starting a website, growing your digital presence, and becoming an effective marketer are all steps in the right direction. However, now it’s time to put these efforts to the test. That means:
Opening your doors (or website) for business.
Getting a customer to make a purchase is the first step.
Retaining customers.
There are three keys to customer retention:
Customer service
Customer service
Customer service
It’s no secret. The customer needs to be your main priority. They are the lifelines of your business, and they need to be treated accordingly.
Once you establish a steady customer base, you can use it to your advantage.
As illustrated above, you face peaks and valleys while your company operates.
Mistakes and setbacks happen.
Some of these things will be out of your control, like a natural disaster or a crisis with the nation’s economy.
Employees will come and go.
You’ll face tough decisions and crossroads.
Sometimes, you’ll even make the wrong decision.
That’s OK.
Part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your mistakes.
It’s important to recognize when you’ve done something wrong, move forward, and try your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Pay your bills.
Pay your taxes.
Operate within the confines of the law.
As long as you’re doing these things, you’ll be able to fight through any obstacle your startup company faces in the future.
FAQs
How Do I Start a Startup?
Check if your idea is viable. Do some research and ask around. Are people looking for a business/service like yours? Then ask yourself: How are other businesses in your sector performing? Have you spotted a genuine gap in the market?
Then you’re ready to start drawing up a business plan.
Where Can I Acquire Startup Funding?
There are several sources, including personal financing, banks, crowdfunding, friends, family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Do I Need a Website to Launch My Startup?
In the vast majority of cases, yes. You also need a social media presence that is applicable to your audience. After all, social media is a free, efficient way to reach a huge volume of people that you couldn’t otherwise target.
How Can I Use Marketing to Launch My Startup?
It depends on your budget. Begin with strategies like social media, free press release distribution, and content marketing. As your business grows, you can allocate a budget for affiliates, email marketing, SEO, online ads, and influencer campaigns.
The percentage of entrepreneurs in the United States is growing strong, and each one of them is going to face challenges along the way.
With that said, having a proper blueprint to follow helps simplify the process. You can get learn the basics of how to start a startup by following the seven steps, and adapting them to suit your individual needs.
With that said, most successful businesses start with validating an idea, creating a comprehensive business plan, and raising adequate funding. Without proper financial planning, your startup doesn’t stand a chance.
Then, surround yourself with the right people and play to your strengths.
For instance, if you’re great at organizing and motivating, focus on that; If marketing just isn’t you, outsource it to a professional who excels in that area.
Don’t forget about lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants to keep your business in order, and make sure you have essentials like an online presence.
Launching your startup is an imperfect journey, and you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. However, proper planning and execution help limit these hurdles and get your business off to a flying start.
How will you raise funding to get your startup company off the ground?
from Neil Patel's Digital Marketing Blog https://ift.tt/N6zDAvb
via IFTTT
In the quest for more conversions, there’s an element most PPC advertisers overlook; invalid traffic—aka IVT, fake traffic, click fraud, or ad fraud.
You might have noticed the IVT column in your Google Analytics dashboard, although it isn’t displayed by default. And if you’ve ever searched for invalid traffic online, you have probably read Google or Facebook’s policies on the matter.
IVT is common. In fact, invalid ad traffic accounts for over ten percent of digital ad traffic.
Marketers often assume tech giants are in control of IVT. But are they? And how much actual invalid traffic really makes it through to your paid ads?
The Challenges of Digital Advertising
Although pay-per-click advertising is one of the most important elements of digital marketing, its reputation has taken a beating in recent years.
Marketers have watched CPC rise, an increase in competition, less-than-accurate tracking, and even noticed they’re paying for fake or fraudulent traffic that doesn’t drive results.
Plus, consumer groups have been campaigning for more privacy and control over our personal data.
So, where does this leave the average marketer?
First, some stats.
Between 40 and 60 percent of all internet traffic is from non-human sources. This includes bots, web crawlers, and other automated scripts. Despite the wide range, we can assume, on average, that around half of all web traffic is non-human.
It’s also estimated that ‘bad bot’ traffic outnumbers good bots, with bad bots conducting up to 25 percent of total internet activity. Bad bots can include spam bots, scalpers, or data harvesters, to the bots used for hacking, stealing logins, or committing ad fraud.
Added to this, marketers are also seeing their tracking and targeting capabilities changing as Google and Facebook adapt to the changing data laws around the world.
The growth of fake traffic combined with reduced targeting and analytics sounds like a recipe for a marketer’s headache.
But Facebook and Google are putting a stop to all this—right?
The Battle Against Fake Traffic
In 2021, the cost of click fraud and ad fraud was estimated to be around $42 billion.
The tech giants have long claimed their invalid traffic filters remove the worst of the bots and bad clicks.
And those IVT rates in Google Analytics might be encouraging.
Most marketers using Google Analytics see an IVT rate in the low single figures, somewhere between 2 to 8 percent.
But data from ClickCease shows an average of 14 percent of clicks on paid ads come from non-genuine sources, aka click fraud. Some industries even see click fraud levels way beyond this, with invalid clicks making up 60 percent of traffic.
Why the discrepancy? Surely the big ad platforms would want to put a stop to fake traffic?
The truth is, it’s complicated.
On the one hand, yes: Google, Facebook, and Microsoft do want to put a stop to fake traffic and protect their advertisers. After all, advertising revenue is by far the biggest earner for all of these companies.
However, the methods they use to filter invalid traffic are considered less strict than third-party click fraud solutions.
A common way for click fraud and ad fraud operators to get around the filters is by masking their location. Most ad platforms block traffic sources by IP address. Using a VPN, bots and click farms can cycle through multiple IP addresses to click repeatedly without getting blocked.
In fact, the click thresholds for the ad platforms are thought to be much more generous than using a third-party fraud blocker.
For the more cynical amongst us, there is also the issue of money.
Fake clicks are still a source of income to the ad platforms. And for many advertisers, the metric they’re looking for (beyond just conversions) is a good click through rate.
More clicks or impressions equals a bigger reach and a job well done, right?
For the ad giants, so long as advertisers see something is being done, then the fight against click fraud is winning in some way.
Well, I did say that’s the cynical view.
Protect Your Advertising Spend With Click Fraud Blocking
Blocking invalid traffic using a third-party solution is the most effective way to block bots, automated clicks, and even malicious traffic such as brand haters and competitors.
For starters, the clicks lost to fake traffic are more than just lost budget.
Companies operating on a limited ad budget might find their daily or monthly ad spend exhausted prematurely. With their ads out of service, the missed opportunities will go to their competitors.
For those operating with a bigger ad budget, the issue of misattributed success comes into play.
How can you tell if those impressions or clicks resulted in conversions? Well, it’s increasingly difficult.
A tool such as ClickCease doesn’t just block bad traffic in real time and flag suspicious activity. It also offers another level of analytics marketers can use to examine their audience – something becoming more crucial as the tracking changes come into play.
Seeing which search terms attract the most invalid traffic, or how many VPN or out-of-geo clicks your ads, attract allows advertisers to adjust their targeting.
This applies to search and display ads on Google or Bing Ads, and social media ads such as Facebook or Instagram.
Marketers looking to get ahead of the trends, especially as the tracking changes come into play, should take the opportunity to see how click fraud blocking makes a difference to their campaign results.
from Neil Patel's Digital Marketing Blog https://ift.tt/bSojkdx
via IFTTT
Hoje todo mundo sabe o que é um “influenciador”. São especialistas dentro de comunidades específicas que apoiam ou avaliam produtos, software, ou mesmo ideias dentro de suas especialidades. Outras pessoas naquelas comunidades consideram as opiniões deles na hora de tomar decisões de compra.
Influenciadores têm muito poder. Se você conseguir um influenciador para apoiar seu produto ou marca, poderá explorar o mercado que está à disposição dele, que talvez seja muito maior do que o seu.
Assim, o marketing de influenciador é o campo do marketing em que influenciadores são pagos (em dinheiro ou outros benefícios) para divulgar uma marca ou produto. Vamos explorar como você pode criar este tipo de campanha.
Parte 1: O que é um influenciador?
Hoje, com as recomendações e críticas boca a boca se espalhando pelas mídias sociais mais rápido do que fogo em tempo de seca, os influenciadores são mais importantes do que nunca. Eles geralmente têm públicos enormes nas redes sociais e são representantes de marcas e divulgadores de nichos.
A influência real leva à ação, não só ao reconhecimento.
Jay Baer
Mas encontrar um influenciador não é suficiente. Se quiser fazer uma campanha de marketing de influenciador, você terá que encontrar alguém que seja conhecido na sua indústria. Se o influenciador não for adequado ao seu contexto, o post ou tweet dele pode ser completamente ineficaz para direcionar leads.
Isso faz sentido quando você considera um contexto mais pessoal: você não confia em alguém que vem até você em uma festa para se gabar e contar coisas divertidas sobre si mesmo porque quer te convencer a fazer amizade. Ao invés disso, você geralmente acredita em um amigo em comum que fala bem daquela pessoa.
O influenciador é o amigo em comum que conecta a sua marca aos seus consumidores alvo.
Quando você se alinha com um influenciador, ele não só traz um público, mas também a rede dele. Devido à lealdade do público, um influenciador tem a capacidade de direcionar tráfego para o seu site, aumentar sua exposição nas mídias sociais, e até vender o seu produto diretamente, através de recomendações ou histórias sobre a experiência dele.
Com a queda do marketing externo tradicional, o marketing de influenciador está se tornando uma das formas mais eficazes de atrair consumidores e clientes. O consumidor moderno já não enxerga os anúncios ou ouve os comerciais. Ele é auto-suficiente e quer pesquisar a marca sozinho, e ouvir alguém de confiança falar sobre ela.
Como influenciadores podem te ajudar com o marketing inbound? Eles criam conteúdo sobre a sua marca, recomendam sua marca a seguidores fiéis, e se inserem em diálogos em torno da sua marca. Atraí-los antes que o seu concorrente o faça pode fazer uma diferença enorme para o sucesso (ou insucesso) da sua empresa ou produto.
Pense em seu público
Como profissional do marketing, você já tem uma ideia sólida do público que deve segmentar para a sua marca. Para localizar o influenciador ideal, você precisa ir um pouco além e pensar nos tipos de temas, blogs, e perfis do Twitter que o seu público seguiria.
Como eu comercializo uma ferramenta de outreach para blogueiros da minha empresa, os influenciadores que eu selecionei são blogs de relações públicas e marketing que enfatizam o marketing de conteúdo e de influenciador. Os seguidores destes blogs geralmente são profissionais de RP e marketing que querem se manter atualizados sobre as tecnologias e tendências nesta área.
Assim, eles provavelmente vão considerar a minha empresa relevante quando um blogueiro fizer uma recomendação. Se eu tivesse optado por blogueiros que escrevem sobre o mercado financeiro, talvez algum deles até gostasse do meu software, mas o público dele provavelmente não teria interesse.
O ModCloth, um site de moda estilo vintage, faz isso muito bem. Eles compartilham ativamente (nas mídias sociais) imagens que seu público produz vestindo roupas da ModCloth. Isso deixa o público deles se sentindo especial, o que encoraja ainda mais posts sobre as roupas.
Eu já vi muitos sites de moda enviarem seus produtos para influenciadores que promovem sorteios entre seu público. Ou às vezes, o site envia créditos de compra para um usuário ativo nas redes sociais, um colunista de revista, ou um blogueiro, para que eles vão ao site, escolham algumas roupas, e aí avaliem a experiência como um todo.
Como selecionar o influenciador certo para a sua marca
Contexto: Mais uma vez, influenciadores para cada marca variam porque, acima de tudo, eles precisam se encaixar naquele contexto. Essa é a característica mais importante na hora de segmentar os influenciadores certos para a sua marca. Por exemplo: o Justin Bieber é um dos usuários de redes sociais mais influentes, com mais de 37 milhões de seguidores. Mas será que um tweet dele sobre o seu software geraria vendas? Provavelmente não, porque o público de software de tecnologia e o público alvo do Justin Bieber não são os mesmos. O apoio dele não seria relevante.
Alcance: Além de procurar um influenciador no seu nicho, você precisa de alguém que tenha alcance. Porque assim ele vai compartilhar um conteúdo incrível ou uma recomendação positiva do seu produto ou da sua marca de uma forma que realmente será consumida. Se sua loja online vendesse roupas para pré-adolescentes, talvez uma menção do Justin Bieber para 37 milhões de garotas fosse uma boa ideia.
Capacidade de ação: A capacidade de um influenciador de levar seu público a agir. Essa característica ocorre naturalmente quando você segmenta indivíduos alinhados com o contexto da sua marca e com alcance suficiente.
Os influenciadores não podem ser forçados sobre um público. Eles são uma rede “opt-in”. O público escolhe seguir aquele blog ou perfil no Twitter. Assim, o público de um influenciador é engajado e está ali para ouvir sobre um determinado tema. E é por isso que o contexto precisa ser apropriado.
Quero adicionar aqui que há muitas pesquisas de mercado sobre influenciadores médios no momento. Eles são influenciadores com um alcance razoável, mas não têm um público tão grande que seja impossível nutrir relacionamentos com o público e ganhar a fidelidade deles. Um público fiel absorve recomendações como uma esponja!
Dê uma imagem ao seu influenciador
Tipo de personalidade: Decida se você precisa de um ativista, um educador, uma autoridade etc para melhor promover sua campanha ou produto.
Gênero: Selecione seu influenciador entre um ou dois gêneros. Exemplos incluem tecnologia, moda, turismo, marketing etc.
Nicho: O influenciador que você utiliza pode atuar em dois ou três nichos. Para promover meu próprio produto, eu geralmente segmento influenciadores de RP e marketing, já que meu gênero e nichos são empresas que escrevem sobre outreach de blogueiros e segmentação de influenciadores.
Temas: Selecione um tema que o seu influenciador ideal discute às vezes nas mídias sociais ou em seu blog. Você vai se referir a este tema na hora de fazer contato, explicando porque você acredita que vocês dois são uma combinação perfeita.
Tipo de alcance: Você deseja tráfego para o site ou seguidores nas redes sociais? Seu influenciador é um blogueiro ativo? Você tem uma campanha visual e precisa que seu influenciador use o Pinterest e o Instagram? Ou você quer tweets? Qualquer que seja o melhor alcance para a sua marca, na sua visão, filtre os canais e o número de seguidores em cada um deles.
Parte 2: Onde procurar o influenciador ideal
Agora que você já atribuiu uma imagem ao seu influenciador, ele não é mais aquela figura difusa que mal enxergamos. Ele é uma figura tangível, e conseguimos entendê-lo e reconhecê-lo.
Monitoramento de mídias sociais
Defensores de marcas são os influenciadores mais visíveis que a sua marca vai ter. Além de o público segui-los porque o que eles escrevem se alinha à sua marca, eles também falam ativamente e abertamente sobre o quanto gostam da sua empresa.
Monitorar as mídias sociais também te permite encontrar influenciadores que defendem o gênero ou nicho que você selecionou no primeiro passo. Por exemplo, alguém pode publicar e twitar muito sobre equipamento para yoga, mas não mencionar o seu site como um lugar incrível para comprar equipamento para yoga. Você precisa engajar essa pessoa e expor sua marca a ela.
Pesquise hashtags
Identifique as hashtags que seus influenciadores segmentados estão utilizando. Para a minha empresa, eu sigo #bloggeroutreach e #influencemktg. Ao observar as conversas em torno dessas hashtags, eu identifiquei não só usuários ativos nestas categorias, mas também identifiquei temas para posts de blog que escrevi para atrair estes influenciadores.
Quando começar a encontrar influenciadores que parecem uma boa opção para a sua marca, eu sugiro que você os adicione a uma lista do Twitter para organizá-los e segui-los com mais eficiência. Eu uso o HootSuite para organizar meu canal do twitter. Veja como as minhas hashtags aparecem na plataforma:
Alertas do Google
Configure alertas para palavras-chave relacionadas à sua marca a fim de identificar pessoas que escrevem ativamente sobre temas no seu nicho. Você também deve criar alternativas para o nome da sua marca, para encontrar posts e artigos com menções a você e identificar os defensores que você já tem.
Mention
O Mention permite que você insira o nome da sua empresa para encontrar menções em diferentes mídias, como YouTube, Twitter, e Facebook, entre outras.
Outreach de blogueiros
Blogueiros geralmente são o elemento mais forte dos círculos de influenciadores. Um dos benefícios extras de segmentar blogueiros é que eles quase sempre estão ativos em muitas plataformas de mídias sociais.
Na hora de localizar blogueiros influentes para a sua marca, comece pesquisando blogs em seu gênero e verifique os nichos, lendo as publicações para determinar se eles escrevem sobre temas relevantes. Após fazer uma lista de blogueiros relevantes para o seu contexto, é hora de localizar os números de SEO e dados de mídias sociais deles para definir aqueles que significam o melhor alcance para a sua marca.
Examinar os dados de blogs manualmente para encontrar todos os critérios que você definiu com a imagem do seu influenciador pode levar muito tempo. Felizmente, existem muitas ferramentas de outreach excelentes para facilitar esse processo. Existe uma ferramenta para cobrir cada seção.
Marketplaces de influenciadores
Marketplaces de influenciadores como o AspireIQ e o Famebit conectam marcas e influenciadores nas mesmas indústrias. Eles muitas vezes ajudam a monitorar o ROI de campanhas, gerir pagamentos e rastrear métricas de engajamento. Mas eles retêm uma fração do seu rendimento, e portanto, você deve conferir se eles são uma boa opção para a sua campanha antes de investir.
Parte 3: Comece sua campanha de influenciador
Estimule a criação de conteúdo
Um influenciador de marca de verdade é apaixonado por seu produto ou serviço, e essa paixão é visível. Ela se espalha entre aqueles que leem as palavras ou assistem aos vídeos desse influenciador. E isso resulta em potenciais leads para a sua empresa.
A sua meta é conseguir o máximo possível de conteúdo com consumidores felizes, ao vivo, e frente ao maior público possível. Aqui estão algumas formas de obter conteúdo gerado por usuários de clientes que já amam a sua marca:
Peça aos seus clientes para publicarem fotos e vídeos usando seu produto: Se você prometer que vai compartilhar o conteúdo publicado, aposto que o narcisismo das mídias sociais vai consumir os seus clientes e muitos deles vão ficar felizes em te ajudar.
Incentive o conteúdo gerado por usuários com sorteios de produtos ou descontos em seu serviço: Promover uma competição é uma forma simples de encorajar engajamento e reconhecimento de marca.
Peça a clientes satisfeitos para responderem perguntas de estudo de caso e assegure-os de que podem aprovar seu conteúdo antes da publicação. Eu tive taxas de resposta mais altas quando ofereci gift cards em troca disso, porque responder a essas perguntas toma bastante tempo.
Participe em todos os tipos de fórum de discussão: Ao participar de discussões com o seu público, você pode usar os posts ou palavras deles como citações ou até inspiração para o seu blog. Você pode também pedir que eles escrevam posts baseados em comentários e publiquem. Eu prometo que quando eles virem suas palavras publicadas, vão compartilhar muito.
Envie produtos gratuitos ou uma demonstração gratuita do seu software sem compromisso para influenciadores: Se eles gostarem do produto, talvez te mencionem ou escrevam sobre você, recomendando seu produto incrível.
Se alguém vai dizer coisas boas sobre a sua marca, ele ou ela devem ser recompensados. Não é preciso ter uma recompensa financeira, mas essa é uma das alternativas. O importante é que você quer que o seu influenciador se sinta recompensado, reconhecido, amado, importante, ou uma combinação disso. Aqui estão algumas formas de compensar os influenciadores da sua marca:
Referências: Compartilhar um post que alguém escreveu sobre você nas suas redes sociais vai direcionar mais tráfego para o site deles e fazê-lo se sentir importante. Além disso, até um tweet simples dizendo “Obrigado pela menção incrível, influenciador fantástico” ou algo assim, vai dar um resultado incrível.
Desconto em produtos ou sorteios: Oferecer um desconto em seu serviço ou um produto da sua marca vai encorajar bastante um influenciador a continuar falando sobre você.
Comissão: Para influenciadores que estão se inserindo ativamente em diálogos sobre a sua marca e gerando grandes vendas, não é má ideia oferecer algum tipo de comissão pelos clientes atraídos
Perguntas frequentes sobre o uso de influenciadores no marketing
Será que o marketing de influenciador vale o investimento? Para a maioria das marcas, a resposta é sim. Aqui está o que você precisa saber antes de mergulhar no marketing de influenciador.
Quanto custa contratar um influenciador?
O custo pode variar segundo a indústria, a campanha e o alcance do influenciador. Influenciadores menores no Instagram ganham entre 100 e 300 dólares por post, enquanto grandes celebridades podem receber milhares ou centenas de milhares de dólares.
Onde posso encontrar o influenciador certo para a minha indústria?
Como posso monitorar o ROI de campanhas de influenciador?
Combinar campanhas de influenciador e marketing de afiliados é a forma mais fácil de monitorar ROI. Oferecer links únicos para cada influenciador facilita o rastreamento de vendas e engajamento.
Qual é a expectativa de sucesso do marketing de influenciador?
Como com qualquer campanha de marketing, o sucesso depende da estratégia e das metas. No entanto, 80% dos profissionais do marketing consideram o marketing de influenciador eficaz, e 89% declaram que ele é tão eficaz ou mais eficaz do que outros canais.
Conclusão
O marketing de influenciador tem evoluído desde que surgiu como uma estratégia de marketing digital, mas a técnica continua trazendo sucesso para muitas marcas.
Se você quiser ajuda para criar uma campanha de influenciador para a sua empresa, fale com a nossa agência e podemos te conduzir neste processo.
Onde você procura influenciadores para a sua marca? Vamos abrir uma discussão interessante nos comentários abaixo!
from Neil Patel's Digital Marketing Blog https://ift.tt/r4EGUYX
via IFTTT
But reaching that massive audience is harder than ever before.
What’s the answer on how to grow a Facebook page? That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this article.
Let’s get started.
What Exactly Is Organic Reach On Facebook?
Organic reach is the number of people who see your content without paid distribution. It includes people who are shown your posts in their own feed or because their friends have interacted with you.
Paid reach is the people who see your content as a result of paid promotions. It is influenced by your ad targeting options and can also impact how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
But it’s not so simple.
Your content’s reach has a lot to do with engagement — that is how many people like, react, comment, or share your post.
Engagement rates are way up — but organic reach is way down.
And it is still on a rapid decline. So why aren’t our posts being surfaced more often?
More content: More content is being published than there is news feed space for it to be shown. Every minute, more than 510,000 comments and 293,000 statuses are posted on Facebook.
Personalized news feeds: Facebook provides the most relevant content to each user. To increase engagement and optimize user experience, content is tailored to each user’s individual interests.
Can businesses keep succeeding with this decline in organic reach? Absolutely.
You can still get tons of traffic from Facebook.
The network’s ad platform has cushioned the damage for those who’ve made the most of it. The advertiser count to date has surpassed 10 million.
Knowing this, should marketers really worry about how to increase organic reach on Facebook?
Wouldn’t we be better off focusing on Facebook ads?
Yes and yes.
Here’s why.
Why You Need To Think About Declining Facebook Organic Reach
Organic reach is important for several reasons. Mainly so you don’t have to pay to play. So, don’t underestimate the importance of how to increase organic reach on Facebook:
Reason 1: Nurture More Leads and Organic Conversions
Many people use social media solely for brand awareness.
That’s fine – but it leaves so much opportunity on the table to drive real results for your business.
Lead generation is one of the missed opportunities. It also happens to be the linchpin of any successful marketing campaign.
You need to attract potential buyers and lead them into your sales funnel. When you do this organically, it won’t cost you anything besides time and effort.
In turn, the price of converting these potential buyers into actual buyers will be less.
That’s because the results of an organic campaign tend to snowball. This means that when more people engage with your content, it adds context to your campaigns.
The more organic reach that you have, the better your lead generation and conversion funnels will work.
Reason 2: Reduce the Cost Per Click of Paid Campaigns
Yes, Facebook’s ad product is one of the most intuitive and impressive that we’ve ever seen.
And yes, the sophistication of the audience targeting options is every marketer’s dream.
AdExpresso analyzed over 636 million dollars of ad spend and determined the average ad cost for the whole of 2021.
Here’s what they found:
As you can see, the average CPC for ads can be very low if you master the other variables.
But here’s the deal:
You can just as easily spend a fortune on Facebook ads and see no return. This means that to increase the effectiveness of your ads and stretch your advertising dollars, learning how to increase organic reach on Facebook is critical.
Reason 3: There Are Tons of New (Under-Utilized) Facebook Features
Many companies aren’t making the most of these features — which creates an opportunity to drive organic traffic by filling the gap.
With that said, let’s look at how Facebook’s news feed algorithm works to surface content.
Then, we’ll dive into some strategies on how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
Understanding Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm
Facebook’s algorithm has changed drastically in recent years. The introduction of reactions and the “Why am I seeing this post” feature has changed how Facebook decides what posts to show users.
Facebook uses hundreds of thousands of factors to decide which posts show in a user’s News Feed.
Who you interact with, the type of media, and the popularity of the post are all used as ranking signals.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook now prioritizes posts that spark “meaningful interactions” and posts from friends and family.
There are other detailed data points that come into play:
how recently the post was published
how frequently the publisher posts content
the number of likes, comments, and shares on the post
how often the user has interacted with the page posting the update
past user interaction with the same post type
negative feedback on the post
how useful the post is
The list goes on, but these factors give us enough food for thought.
So, with this in mind, what’s Facebook’s ultimate goal for News Feeds?
Like other platforms, Facebook cares the most about its users. It wants to continuously improve their experience with high-quality, relevant content.
Facebook is a social platform and your brand needs to have a human touch. Don’t just schedule your latest blog links and product updates. Post your team photos like Zappos.
Social media marketing should show your funny or creative side, like Nutella.
Facebook is based on interest, not intent. Not every update you send out on your Facebook page should be promotional. Rather, 80% of your updates should be social. Otherwise, users won’t hesitate to click the unlike button on your page (it’s just a click away).
Instead, use Facebook to build a community. Add value and start conversations with your audience.
It’s best to vary your posts to include different types of content:
Brand story posts
Authority building posts
Lead nurture posts
Personal posts
3. Don’t Try to Cheat the Facebook Ecosystem
Buying 5,000 likes for $5. Using clickbait headlines. Bombarding your fans with 10 poor-quality updates in an hour.
It’s a sheer waste of time and money.
Facebook seriously cracks down on spammers. Stick with the Facebook code and stay in their good graces.
Not only that, these manipulative tactics add no real value to your business. In fact, they’re likely to hurt you.
AdExpresso conducted a paid like experiment where they posted an identical video on three of their fan pages. They then paid to boost each post.
The result?
The two pages where they bought likes saw zero engagement, even after Facebook had automatically deleted the likes that were paid for.
4. Don’t Build a Fanbase You Can’t Sustain
The brutal truth about a large fanbase – no matter how targeted – is that your reach will automatically be lower.
This means that you have to put in extra work to create content that is relevant and useful to several different segments of your audience.
Would you rather have a small but hyper-engaged audience or a large and unresponsive one?
It’s a no-brainer.
How To Track and Analyze Your Current Facebook Organic Reach
Now that you know what you shouldn’t do, it’s time to work on how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
The first step is to pinpoint where your shortcomings are. We’ll be gathering some key metrics to measure your performance.
Without this diagnosis, you won’t know where to focus your efforts.
Let’s jump in.
Step 1: Export Insights Data from Facebook
First, click on the “Insights” tab on the left sidebar of your Facebook business page.
At the top of the insights page, there’s a button that will allow you to export your data both on a page and post level.
A window will pop up with three different options for your insights:
Select your option and click “Export Data.” Your data will be saved onto an excel file.
Step 2: Delve in Deeper to Post Metrics
In my experience, post level metrics are more insightful than page metrics.
Page metrics give a great panoramic view of your performance. Post metrics provide a more detailed look at how users interact with your content.
And that’s what really makes the difference.
To get a deeper view, go to “Posts” and then “Post Types.”
With the data you collect, you can tell:
Which posts have the highest organic reach
What types of posts that your audience prefer
Number of likes on each post
These will give you a good guideline for launching an effective content strategy.
Step 3: Fine Tune Your Data and Select Only The Metrics You Need
Not all of the data points will be useful.
Sift through them and choose the ones that make sense for you — and that might vary based on your industry and social media goals.
Here’s the data that will tell you the most:
Organic reach
Engagement
Link clicks
Number of people who gave negative feedback
Now that you’ve analyzed your organic reach, it’s time to make some improvements.
20 Strategies to Boost Facebook Organic Reach
Remember that every industry and audience is different. I don’t recommend implementing all of these strategies right now. Instead, look at your data and see where you can make the most improvements, then pick a handful of strategies to try.
Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t, then try another strategy. Rinse and repeat.
1. Build Your Presence and Authority
I know what you’re thinking.
If organic reach decreases as the size of your audience increases, where is the value in growing your presence?
Well, there are still several benefits of having a large presence.
You get to add social context to your ads, which makes them cheaper and more effective.
You’ll have better posts and page insights to tailor your marketing efforts. This includes both demographic and psychographic data.
Your perceived influence will increase, which amps up your credibility factor.
Growing your presence is not about increasing your page likes. The number of likes your page has gives no indication of how your content will perform.
What matters is that you build enough authority to command your audience to action. This means that they will engage with your content more favorably.
Here’s what you can do to increase engagement:
Attract the Right Kind of People to Your Facebook Page
Random fans are useless.
They don’t engage and they don’t have a positive influence on your marketing campaigns.
This is why I don’t recommend trying to grow your Facebook page at the expense of building a targeted audience.
You want people who are finely tuned to your business interests.
This way, the content you publish will be more relevant to them. In turn, it will have a greater chance of showing up in their newsfeeds.
What can you do to build a targeted audience?
Have a Strong Brand Presence
If your brand is watered down, chances are your audience will be too.
What you want is a brand image that sticks in the minds and hearts of your audience.
Constantly reinforce your message, post content that is relevant to your business, and always be consistent.
Use Audience Insights to Build a Target Persona Specifically for Facebook
Earlier, we walked through the tracking of your page and post insights. This same information can be used to construct your persona.
Gender, age, background, location, and occupation are all black and white data points that you can collect.
You can then flesh it out with more substantive information like:
What are their pain points?
What are their interests?
What are their attitudes and beliefs towards your business or industry?
What are their objections and how will you address them?
Target That Demographic When you Boost or Promote Your Posts
You can create a custom audience modeled after your ideal persona. This way, when you boost or promote a post, you’re more likely to reach those people.
Later, I’ll walk you through the best practices for paid campaigns.
Make Sure Your Like Campaigns are Very Targeted
I’m all for more likes – but not if it’s only a vanity metric.
You want quality over quantity.
There are a few ways you can attract the kind of people who care about your brand:
Apart from running like campaigns on your target audience, you can invite people who have liked your individual posts to like your page.
First, plug in your page in the search bar.
Select one of your posts and click on the group of people who’ve liked it.
This is a goldmine for finding people who already have an affinity for your content.
Browse through to see how many people who’ve liked your posts but have not liked your page.
Invite them to do so.
9 out of 10 times, they will.
Add Integrations and Customizations to Your Page
You can integrate your Facebook page with other apps, tools, and platforms. These can increase the usability of your page as well as amplify your marketing efforts.
Here are some of the customizations that you can include:
Cross-Promote Other Social Media Platforms with Facebook
If you’ve built a sizable following elsewhere, you can use these platforms to grow your Facebook page.
Here’s what you can do:
Leave a link to your Facebook page in the bio of your other social accounts
Place clickable social icons on your cover photos
Broadcast to your other networks about your Facebook page and ask them to engage
2. Drive Facebook Organic Reach By Publishing Evergreen Content
Too many people aren’t strategic with their social media content.
Whatever your goals are for your Facebook page — be it to generate revenue or drive traffic — evergreen content is the most powerful tool at your disposal.
The life of a post in Facebook News Feed is also dependent on recency. If you publish timeless content, then it will be useful for your audience for longer periods. They’ll keep engaging with your post.
Be sure to let users know that they can revisit evergreen posts that they’ve liked and engaged with in the past.
This will lead to an increase in engagement and Facebook will ensure that your post gets distributed further and that it appears in feeds for longer periods.
I challenge you to boost post durability with evergreen content.
The above evergreen post appeared 18 hours after being posted.
That’s an extremely long lifespan!
For posts that perform this well, you can repurpose them to ensure that you maximize their reach.
Here’s a simple process for repurposing evergreen content:
Select posts that have done exceedingly well and continued to provide value to your audience long after it was published. Take a note of them in a spreadsheet.
Approach that piece of content from a different angle. Put a new spin on it or change the context. Keep in mind that video content can outperform the same content in text form and vice versa. The key is to test what resonates best with your audience.
Publish your repurposed content at different times. This ensures that some fresh eyes get to see and engage with your newly revamped content.
But what if you don’t want to do the legwork of creating and repurposing your own posts?
Curate Other People’s Evergreen Content
Content curation is not about taking someone else’s work as your own.
It’s about collecting posts from across the internet and sharing them with your network.
But it’s a little more than just stumbling across a post, liking it, and pressing the share button.
Instead, you should treat the curation process just like you would if you were publishing your own content. Spend some time reviewing and analyzing several posts on the same topic and share them with your audience on a consistent publishing schedule.
Prime example: Later tells the stories of brands they’ve impacted successfully through their resource offerings.
While they do this on their blog, you can adopt the same concept for your Facebook page.
Here are some examples of evergreen content using curation-type posts:
Video tutorials
Recipe posts
Testimonials
Interviews
“How To” posts
Q & A’s
Thought pieces
Lists
Checklists
Industry-specific stats
Weekly roundups
Company mentions
Industry news
How can you ensure that your audience engages with this content?
Ensure your posts have all the persuasive checks and balances.
Join a highly engaged and relevant group that serves your business goals.
We’ll focus on number 1, as it is the best addition to your Facebook marketing arsenal.
You can use it to listen and engage with your brand advocates.
Before we get into the steps for building your group, let’s talk about the reasons you may want to start your own group.
Most people form groups around:
Their brand/business
Their products/services
A specific lifestyle, e.g., a book club or a journaling club
Specific topics, e.g., a content marketing group
Of course, these aren’t your only options. As long as you can rally a group of people for a common goal, you’re good to go.
I’ve found that the most valuable groups for business are those that are either brand-specific or product-specific.
Here’s why.
You can use a branded group to build and nurture a community around your business. It also makes for a powerful tool to market your products/services.
Similarly, a product-specific group is geared towards helping customers get the most out of a product or service that you offer.
It’s all about customer success, retention, and loyalty.
You can do live coaching sessions, live Q&As, personal implementation feedback sessions, and accountability systems in your groups, to ensure that customers receive the transformation that they paid for.
Let’s get into the steps for creating a group.
Step 1. Create and Name Your Group
Find the option that says “Create Group” to begin the process.
It’s easy to find from your homepage.
After you click on this tab, you’ll be prompted to name your group.
Step 2. Create a Description
Write down your value proposition in your group description and lay down clear rules for posting in the group.
Pro Tip: Pin your rules post at the top of the group feed. It will guide new members to act appropriately.
Also, set up your group’s privacy settings properly.
Step 3. Invite Engaged Audience Members to Join
Depending on the type of group, you may have to incentivize people to join.
However, with most groups, the promise of community and support is enough to get them on board.
But in case you need some incentives, you can:
Have an actual launch for your group. Why not turn it into an event? You can set up an email capture form to get people on a notification list.
Offer a welcome gift to new members. It could be a coupon code, an ebook, or anything related to your business.
Offer a bonus referral gift to anyone who recruits other members.
Step 4. Ignite Conversations Relevant to Your Industry
Great conversations help boost post engagement. Don’t solely promote or sell your content and products.
Other ways to increase engagement in Facebook groups:
Consider giving active members of your groups admin/publisher status so they can help nurture the group.
Do live Q&As
Create challenges for group members
Step 5. Create a Content Strategy for Your Group
This can include creating content themes and inciting user-generated content campaigns. User-generated content actually drives 6.9x higher engagement than brand-generated content.
For example, you can set a designated topic or engagement theme for each day.
Melyssa Griffin’s group does this very well:
Step 6. Moderate Your Posts
Moderate all of the posts in the group and have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to spam.
You want your group members to have the best possible experience, so weed out the spammers quickly.
This is a lot easier when you establish in your group rules what qualifies as spam.
So, that’s it for setting up a group.
I want to warn you, though: Groups require a time commitment. You’ve got to show up to welcome new members and encourage discussions.
Also, as groups grow, engagement decreases. At this point, you may want to consider segmenting larger groups into smaller, more focused ones.
Some people completely dismantle groups with tens of thousands of members because of poor engagement.
You don’t want that.
4. Use Organic Post Targeting
Targeting isn’t limited to Facebook Ads.
You can target your organic posts to make sure that they reach the right people.
While it’s been around for a while, the feature has gotten more useful with the decrease in organic reach of quality content. You can serve your post to relevant customers based on their age and location.
Your post has to at least target 20 people. You might get below this threshold if your page only has a few thousand fans.
Here are the steps to get started with targeting.
Step 1: Enable the Targeting Feature on your Page
Head to General settings to enable targeting from your page settings.
Step 2: Create Your Post and Customize Targeting Options
Dig into your Facebook Insights for data about your audience and choose targeting parameters based on your goals.
When you create your post, click the “Public” setting under your page name, and you’ll see the option to set a “restricted audience.”
Select “Restricted Audience,” then set the age and location you want to reach. This is especially useful for local businesses or those with multiple target audiences.
Step 3: Run Several Targeted Posts Using Different Parameters
This is so you can test how your content performs for different audiences.
Step 4: Check the Results
Hop on Facebook Insights and check your results. Did the organically targeted post perform better?
Compare these social media marketing results with your average engagment rate. Also, figure out the targeting parameter that’s performing better.
your audience profile (age, interests, occupation, etc.)
the type of content that you create
the scheduling tools that you have at your disposal
CoSchedule reports that the optimal times are 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM.
They even broke it down according to each day of the week:
Friday at 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM Wednesday at 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM Monday at 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM
For the most shares and clickthroughs, they’ve cited 12:00 PM, 6:00 PM, or 9:00 AM as the optimal times.
Here are a few more studies and optimal times for any media marketer or business owner to best time good content.
Scratching your head already, aren’t you? Don’t blindly post at any of these optimal times.
Dig into your Facebook Insights. Find out when your fans are online.
Then, conduct your own test.
Post in the off-peak hours (6 PM – 8 AM) with the maximum possible fans online. Your chances of appearing in the feed increase since other Facebook pages aren’t posting during this period.
Here are the results when Track Maven tested with this social media marketing strategy.
Jon Loomer also tried posting links at off-peak hours and had positive results with his organic reach.
The reasons why this strategy is effective (besides less competition) are:
If you have an international audience, you’ll reach out to fans in a different time zone.
As your post receives higher engagement, Facebook will distribute the post to more of your fans.
It might even boost post views over the newer content published during peak hours.
Note: You can monitor the social media marketing posting strategies of your industry competitors using Fan Page Karma.
6. Post the Content Your Users Like
Links have worked better for driving traffic. Sometimes.
Photos have become an unpopular post type with users, and hence, with marketers.
My recommendation is to post all types of updates that add value for your fans, be it links, images, polls, Facebook Lives, Facebook Stories, or even Facebook Watch videos.
Don’t stick with one content form into another just because a certain type of post is (currently) performing better on Facebook. Just like Google Facebook updates its algorithm regularly.
Instead, analyze your data from Facebook Insights to find the type of posts that resonate with your audience.
If you can, try serving value in the types of content that your audience likes.
You can also ask your audience what they prefer and respect their choice.
Simply create a poll on your Facebook page:
Post your question.
You might be surprised by the results! Don’t forget to test new features when they come out.
Facebook Watch, for example, drove tons of traffic when it was first released, and a lot of marketers are still not using it!
7. Publish Videos Natively on Facebook
In recent years, there has been a shift to video content.
Facebook tends to favor video updates, causing media marketers to use more video blog post content.
Native videos are one of the strongest performers in the news feed.
The video plays silently until a user clicks on it. It’s important that your video is high quality from the first frame. It also needs to capture attention, even without sound.
To further engage the video viewers, you can add a call-to-action (CTA) to visit your website or a destination of your choice. This can be included in the final frame, or you can boost the video and use Facebook’s Ad CTA buttons.
AdExpresso found that “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” and “Sign Up” are more popular.
You also get rich video insights, so you can find out what is working with your audience.
If you want, you can pin a video to the top of your videos tab on your Facebook page. Just click on “Feature this Video.”
BuzzFeed got 1.7 million views for a featured video.
The featured video also appears prominently below your About section. Social Media Examiner used it to promote their upcoming event.
You can also embed the video in a blog post. It’ll make for a good multimedia experience for your blog audience and it can also increase the engagement on the Facebook post.
But, can you embed videos from YouTube or should you upload them directly on Facebook?
Naturally, Facebook favors native uploads over embedded videos from YouTube or any other third party. A business owner should not be intimidated by this media marketing strategy.
This SEJ study was performed for two weeks on three Facebook pages – Search Engine Journal, Stunning and Interesting Facts, and Did You Know.
Here is a detailed breakdown of the numbers.
Native videos also offer a better user experience and are usually cheaper to promote.
You can use native videos for Q&As, product launches, and co-creating with other targeted users.
8. Test Your Posting Frequency
How often should you post on Facebook? Well, it depends.
Massive websites like Huffington Post, Telegraph, and The New York Times publish a huge amount of content every day. They also push their content aggressively on Facebook.
For the average brand, this isn’t realistic.
Don’t be tempted to post 20 times a day.
Engagement actually decreases when you post too often.
The rule of thumb is to keep it between 1-3 posts/day, depending on your following.
Here are a few takeaways on the frequency of posting for social media marketing on Facebook:
Avoid posting more than the recommended one to three times a day. It can overwhelm your audience.
You can post more often at widely different times if you’ve got an international audience. That’ll help you reach out to different segments of your audience (who live in a different time zone or log in to Facebook occasionally).
Always post high-quality content. Engage your audience with humor, inspirational, and educational content.
You can be successful, even with a higher posting frequency, by providing great content variety. Mix your posting schedule and post types.
Test your page frequency. Only your data can reveal your audience’s exact response.
9. Partner with Other Facebook Pages in Your Niche
A while ago, I shared a case study on how I used Instagram to earn $332,640 in 3 months. I struck deals with Instagram influencers (having a huge following) to post links to my landing pages.
You can use a similar strategy on Facebook.
I reached out to Facebook Pages having less than 30,000 likes for my Nutrition Secrets project. I offered a shoutout for shoutout deal to Facebook pages in my niche (about 1 in 10 pages accept such requests).
This helped me to increase the number of likes on the Nutrition Secrets Facebook Page. Any business owner will appreciate the simplicity of this media marketing strategy.
Similarly, have a look at the Facebook pages of media websites like Huffington Post and Elite Daily. They both have millions of Facebook fans and a similar audience (for certain types of content that they publish).
They share each other’s blog posts on Facebook regularly. This boosts post views for both parties while providing good content they didn’t need to create. This is simply smart media marketing.
Here is an example of a Huffington Post blog post shared by Elite Daily’s Facebook page.
And, here’s an Elite Daily blog post shared by Huffington Post.
Wired and Refinery29 also seem to have a similar partnership.
To achieve good results from this strategy, you’ll need to strike deals with pages that have tens of thousands of likes.
This means you need to have a solid influencer outreach strategy.
Here’s what you need to consider:
Is your target influencer the right fit, contextually? Your brand needs to resonate with its audience. Promoting your brand to a misaligned audience won’t have an impact.
How much reach do they have? Your influencer doesn’t need millions of followers. They just need a solid enough reach to make a difference.
How much authority do they have? It’s critical that your influencer has enough influence to inspire action among their audience.
What’s your leverage? If you’re targeting someone with a massive following and authority, you need to have something just as valuable to offer.
10. Use Word-of-Mouth Marketing to Grow Your Brand
There’s no better way to generate buzz for your brand than to turn your customers, employees, and fans into advocates.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the practice of leveraging devout fans to spread the word about your business.
Think about brands like Apple, Microsoft, and Nike.
They are known for their die-hard fans who constantly promote their products and content.
Reach out to the right people. Engaging your employees is one of the most effective ways of cultivating a culture of advocacy. Give them a reason to rave about your business!
Offer rewards and loyalty points to customers.
Give referral bonuses for recruiting more people into the network.
Create special brand content that your advocates can share with their networks in real-time.
Always measure the effectiveness of your advocacy program. You can track sales from referral links, engagement on branded content, and the overall performance of your advocates.
11. Put Your Email List to Work
Do you ever wonder how I receive hundreds of shares and comments on every blog post I write?
It’s triggered by my email subscribers.
I simply email them, informing them about my new post. They kick off the interaction and sharing on every post.
Jay Baer shows us the similarities between an email list and Facebook fans.
So, how can you inspire social actions from email?
Simple social media marketing suggests starting by adding Facebook share buttons to your email newsletters. Some email platforms, like Mailchimp, make this easy.
Otherwise, you will need to create an HTML version of your email and create custom code for the share buttons.
Here’s how:
Convince and Convert further recommends sending out your popular and interesting status updates to your email list on the same day.
This increases reactions and comments on the post and drives engagement on your Facebook page.
You can also combine this email list with the Facebook group strategy.
Ask your subscribers to join exciting conversations on your exclusive Facebook group.
Killer Strategy to Increase Facebook Shares
Say you already have a few hundred social media shares on your post. How would you like to increase the number of shares to a thousand?
You need to plan a strategic email outreach campaign to influencers, transitioning from just a good content strategy to boosting post views.
Identify the overlap in social media trends to your email campaigns for opportunities.
Combining the content messaging just makes sense.
The relationship between the two builds your brand engagement showing they can successfully go hand-in-hand.
12. Run Contests to Drive Facebook Organic Reach
Facebook contests are a simple way to increase your presence quickly.
But it’s a little more than just luring fans with a free gift.
Here’s what it entails:
Step #1: Set a Goal For Your Contest
Do you want to increase engagement? Grow your fan base? Generate more leads?
Whatever you decide, ensure that it is specific and measurable.
Step #2: Select What Type of Contest You’ll Run
If your goal is to generate leads, then your entry method should include a mechanism to capture those leads, for example, an email grab.
If your goal is to grow your Facebook fan base, you can require participants to follow and like your page to enter the contest.
Do you see how your method of entry should be tailored to your goal?
Step #3: Determine the Rules of Entry
Before you do so, be sure to check out Facebook’s guidelines for running contests and challenges.
You’ll still be required to set your own rules for the contest.
Simply write up a brief letting participants know how the winner will be chosen, who’s eligible to enter, and the details of the prize.
Step #4: Decide How to Select Winners
With most contests, the winner is usually chosen randomly.
If your promotion is a challenge, then you will need someone or a group of people to judge the entries. Alternatively, you can have a voting system to pick a winner.
Step #5: Choose a Prize and Develop a Promotion Strategy
This is where most brands fail miserably.
If you don’t pick your prize carefully and promote your contest, there’s a good chance it will flop.
Always pick a prize that is relevant to your business so you avoid attracting people who are in it just for the freebie.
Here are some ideas for promoting your contest:
13. Share Posts From Your Facebook Page on Your Facebook Profile
This strategy is for avid Facebook users. You should have at least 1,000+ friends on your personal Facebook profile to drive significant results.
You have the content. Now, let’s boost post views.
You first share a post on your Facebook page. Then, you share it from the page on your personal Facebook profile.
WPChronicles increased its reach from 5 people to 134, by using this strategy.
Keep in mind, this strategy isn’t scalable and you might annoy your friends if you do it to much.
However, you can use it occasionally for posts that add value to your Facebook friends.
Pro Tip: If you just started your Facebook page, you can quickly build your first 100 fans and get social proof. Just use the “Invite Friends” feature.
This feature can also be used to grow your Facebook page from your email list. It isn’t available to all Facebook pages, though.
Using it is simple. Upload your contacts from MailChimp, Constant Contact, or any other email services. Facebook will find them and ‘suggest’ that they like your page.
14. Drive Organic Facebook Traffic With Hashtags (Used Carefully)
BuzzSumo analyzed more than 1 billion Facebook posts from over 30 million pages.
Their study seems to agree with the general consensus that Facebook users are prone to hashtag fatigue.
Posts with hashtags performed worse than those without.
Does that mean that marketers shouldn’t use hashtags on Facebook at all? Not exactly.
There’s a lot of utility in Facebook hashtags.
It’s a matter of experimenting with relevant ones to see what works in your industry and for your audience.
They should also be used in moderation — one to two hashtags maximum.
Why so little?
Post Planner reported interactions are highest when one to two hashtags are used.
While the consensus is that you shouldn’t hashtag everything, Facebook is still built to accommodate their use.
This means that you can get quite a bit of functionality out of them without adding hashtags to all your posts.
Here’s how.
Create Your Own Hashtags
There’s no special protocol for creating hashtags.
Anyone can do it.
I recommend making your hashtags unique to your brand, so it doesn’t get confused with anyone else’s. It’s also smart to use the same branding style hashtags on all social media platforms, so there’s familiarity across channels.
Pro tip: Use your branded hashtags as a metric to track your brand equity on Facebook. Their popularity will give you a good indication of how many people are buzzing about your business at a given time.
You can also point your audience to the URLs of specific hashtags so they can participate in the relevant conversations.
Use Hashtags to Make Your Facebook Group Easier to Navigate
Facebook creates a unique URL for each hashtag used. This means that you can use them to search for content.
This is particularly useful in groups when you don’t want evergreen content to be buried. Simply hashtag them so users can continue to refer to these content pieces by conducting a quick hashtag search.
For example: If you create content themes like I’ve recommended, your users can find all published content for each theme by searching for the unique URL.
Take Advantage of Facebook Trending Topics
Ever heard of newsjacking?
It’s when someone piggybacks on a trend to gain exposure for their brand.
We’ve seen it is best to use hashtags sparingly.
But if there’s ever a prime time to use them, it’s when they link to a trending topic. This way, you tap into the traffic and increase your exposure.
A big piece of the organic reach puzzle is competition.
You have to fight for the attention of your audience.
Want to know the best way to always be ahead of your competitors?
Find your differentiating factor and flaunt it.
Both your visual and written content should stand out.
Some pro tips for your visual content:
Avoid blues and grays at all costs. These colors are dominant in Facebook’s theme which means you’ll morph into a user’s news feed. You want to use colors that will stop someone in their tracks. Red, yellow, and orange are great options.
Create multiple visuals per post and A/B test to see which one performs better. After you’ve conducted several tests for your posts, you’ll begin to see a pattern emerge. Your audience likely responds to a few designs better than the rest.
Add call-to-action buttons on the actual image. This is because you want as many visual cues as possible to let users know that they should “Click Here.”
Don’t use stock photos. Transparency and authenticity matter on Facebook. Create your own images to humanize your brand and share visuals your audience can connect with.
Capture and keep attention with short captions on your visuals. Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement.
Ask questions. Posts with a question have higher engagement than those without.
16. Take Advantage of New Facebook Features
Facebook’s constant app updates are no secret.
The changes come fast and frequently.
But here’s the thing:
They may fly under your radar if you don’t make it a priority to stay informed. That’s because new features are almost always released in different segments of the platform at different times.
You can take advantage of these updates.
When you get in on them early, you get the early mover’s advantage. This means that you can master it faster than anyone else and tap into the new capabilities for the benefit of your business.
Some recent updates that provide golden opportunities:
Feeds: Facebook has added a new dedicated Feeds tab, making it easier for users to keep track of posts from friends, family, and the different Groups they are a part of.
Multiple Profiles: Facebook is currently testing a feature that would let users have different profiles on the same account, potentially having distinct profiles for different people they want to interact with.
Facebook Reels: Facebook is now giving users the ability to create Reels from their existing videos using Creator Studio, and is also introducing API access for third-party developers.
Marketing Messenger New Features: A new option was recently announced that will allow users to send promotional messages to any customers that opt into the feature.
Political, social, and electoral ad transparency: In the wake of recent controversy around the platform, Facebook has rolled out a set of transparency tools. These can show targeting details like demographics and ad budget dedicated to said demographics.
17. Create an Effective Facebook Paid Marketing Strategy
You must be wondering, “I thought this was about organic traffic?”
Here’s the thing:
Paid reach can funnel into your organic reach and extend the lifecycle of your posts.
This means it will be shown to more people and users will be able to interact with your content for a longer period of time.
How is this possible?
It’s simple.
People can still see your post even though they weren’t targeted through paid distribution.
The audience that you pay for may decide to share and engage with the post. In that case, it will gain an organic reach when their audience also engages.
Now let’s get into how to run effective paid promotions for your posts.
Step #1: Install the Facebook Tracking Pixel on Your Site
The Facebook pixel allows you to track the specific actions taken on your website and other landing pages.
Better yet, it allows you to build custom audiences so you can retarget people who’ve visited your website.
If you haven’t installed it yet, go to your “Ads Manager” or “Power Editor.”
You’ll be prompted to create a Pixel if you don’t have an active one.
After you’ve created your Pixel, you’ll receive a tracking code that you have to copy and paste into the header of your website.
To easily place the Pixel on your website, you can do one of two things:
Use Google Tag Manager to place the code in your title tags without messing around with your website’s HTML files.
Use a WordPress plugin called PixelYourSite. After it’s installed, get your Pixel ID from your Ads Manager and simply copy it into the settings of the plugin. There’ll be no need to play with codes and title tags.
And that’s it!
Do this once, and you’re good.
Step #2: Gain Traction Organically Before Paying
We’ve seen how organic and paid reach work hand in hand.
This is an effective way to ensure that your ads reach more people at a cheaper cost.
Some tips for organic promotion:
Share your post multiple times on Facebook. Make sure you vary the format as well as the time that you publish.
Reach out to influencers to share your content with their networks.
Post to other Facebook pages and groups where you’re allowed to.
Step #3: Create Your Ad or Boost Your Post
You can either run an official Facebook ad or a boosted post campaign.
At first glance, they appear the same.
So what’s the difference?
A few things.
Ads are created using your Ad Manager while boosted posts can be run directly from your business page.
You must first publish a post on your page to boost it whereas an ad does not need to be on your page.
This means the strategy of promoting posts organically first, is best suited to boosted posts.
Let’s get into the details.
How to Boost a Post on Facebook
First, find the “Boost Post” button under your post.
Select a goal:
Narrow down your audience.
You can opt for:
People who like your page
People who like your page and their friends
People who you choose through targeting
Set your budget and duration of your campaign.
Finally, ensure that your Tracking Pixel is turned on.
So that’s it for boosted posts.
What about actual Facebook ads? The concept is not much different.
Create a custom audience: To reach people who’ve already engaged with your business. For example, you can import your email list to form a custom audience.
Create a lookalike audience: To reach new people who are similar to an audience you already have elsewhere.
Use a saved audience: If you’ve run ads in the past, you can use the same audience.
Select your ad placement.
Set your budget and schedule.
Format your ad, write a click-worthy caption, and add an eye-catching image.
After you’ve finalized the creative elements, you can place your ad order, and you’re set to go.
As you see, this is brilliant for recapturing lost leads.
The whole premise is that it’s easier to convert someone who’s already engaged with your business rather than a total stranger.
Now:
Your retargeting ads are set up with the same steps that I detailed above for a normal ad campaign.
Your targeting is the only variant.
Something to keep in mind: Retargeting campaigns take some time to gain traction. Set a goal, decide on a time frame, and commit to running your ads for the duration of that time frame.
Step #7: Determine the ROI of your Facebook Ads
Let’s talk about results.
Facebook campaigns aren’t difficult to set in motion.
Yet, many marketers don’t see the results that they hoped for.
But here’s the brutal truth:
Unless you track your ads, how much they cost, and the return you’re getting, there’s no way you can keep optimizing your performance.
So which metrics should you be tracking?
Conversion rates
Number of times an ad has been served to a user
Return on dollar investment
Click Through Rate (CTR)
Cost per Click (CPC)
These are all available in your Power Editor with Facebook’s Ad reporting function.
Analyze your results and work towards improving them.
18. Harness the Power of Facebook “Dark Posts”
Facebook “dark posts” have been around for a while.
Yet, they’re one of the most underutilized marketing tools.
Is the concept as sinister and shadowy as the name sounds? A bit.
“Dark posts,” otherwise called unpublished posts, are news feed style ads that don’t get published to your news feed. This means that they won’t be found on your timeline or in your fans’ feed.
So what’s the point?
You can:
Create as many ads as you want without turning off your audience
Split test several elements of your ads to select the highest-performing variations
Decide to expose only the high-impact ads to your organic audience and be confident that they’ll perform
Stay in Facebook’s good graces. Your page will be less promotional which is what Facebook’s algorithm favors
Personalize your ad copy for different segments of your audience
Now that you know the benefits, here’s how you can put unpublished “dark posts” to work for your business.
You need to test different aspects of the creative. This includes split testing your copywriting and visual elements to find the highest performing combinations.
It will serve you well for both paid promotions and your organic reach.
We’ve already been through the visual elements.
So let’s talk about copy.
The purpose of persuasive copy is to:
1. Improve Your Click Through Rate (CTR)
CTR refers to the number of people who click through to your website after they’ve been served your ad.
If it’s low, that’s a pretty good indication that your ad copy and visuals need work.
CTR is not a metric that will make or break your media marketing performance, but you also don’t want to get it wrong.
That would mean leaving a better result on the table.
2. Lower your Cost per Action (CPA)
An action will depend on what your conversion goal is.
It could be:
Video views
App installs
E-commerce store visits
Page visits
Shares, comments, and likes
Any action that you want users to take when served your content comes into play here.
The less it costs you to drive these actions, the higher your conversion rates.
So, what does persuasive copy have to do with CPA?
Well, users will only move on a solid call to action (CTA).
In turn, the strength of your CTAs depend on your copy.
How to Craft Compelling Facebook Call-Actions That Convert
Always tailor your CTA to your conversion goal. Generic, one-size-fits-all copy won’t cut it.
Use exclusivity to amp up perceived value. This goes hand in hand with urgency. In fact, words used to convey exclusivity can also be used to drive urgency.
Create urgency to give users an extra push. Think of relevant words and phrases that evoke a sense of now. The fear of missing out (FOMO) will kick in, and users will have a greater chance of taking action.
Eliminate weak verbs like download, save, learn, and find out. These lack the energy and punch to get people excited. If you must use them, add urgency words to modify. For example, CTAs with “Now” at the end always convert better than those without.
Don’t get caught up in the rules. Yes, the tips above have been proven time and time again to generate results. But your audience and what they respond to is what matters. The other elements in your content also factor in, so don’t look at calls to actions in isolation.
20. Focus on Value and Don’t Worry About Reach
As a marketer, everything comes down to conversions and ROI, right?
The organic reach of your posts on Facebook is like a secondary metric.
Jon Loomer puts it perfectly.
If you go after reach rather than valuable content, you’ll be trying to game Facebook’s algorithm.
Deja vu?
Remember Google cracking down on black hat SEOs trying to game their search results?
Every platform wants to improve the experience of its users and increase engagement.
So, don’t go around chasing Facebook’s organic reach.
Instead, share every post with an objective.
With links, you want to get clicks and drive traffic to your website.
Status updates should be focused on engaging with your audience and getting comments.
Share graphics to inspire your audience and get engagement.
Share videos to primarily get video views. The CTA in the video can be used to drive traffic to your website.
The organic reach of your page is not the best performance indicator.
So while you may want to amp up your game, you need to consider how much reach is enough to justify the time and effort it takes to build your Facebook assets.
Write down the goals you want to achieve through your Facebook page.
Consider :
The size of your business
The scale of your operations
Your objectives
Your audience
The ROI of increasing Facebook reach
Only then should you devise a Facebook marketing strategy around these goals.
Choose the metrics you’ll use to measure your results.
Don’t let algorithmic changes dictate your marketing strategy.
FAQs
What does organic reach on Facebook mean?
The number of people who see your content without paying for it is referred to as organic reach. People who see your posts in their own feeds or because their friends have interacted with you are included.
What is a good organic reach?
Since reach is based on unique views of your content, it can be assessed across your entire page or from post to post. Organic, non-sponsored reach is the hardest to gain, but viral reach and ad reach are also options when targeting your audience.
Is Facebook organic reach dead?
Organic reach on Facebook may be down, but it’s not dead. If your reach is close to 3%, you’re at a scalable target. You can also use a paid strategy to boost your numbers if you need to.
Conclusion
Facebook is a brilliant marketing tool.
There’s no doubt about that.
The number of businesses that actively use the platform continues to increase by millions, year over year.
