Facebook Marketing For Your Service Business: 5 Simple Steps To Getting Maximum ROI

If social media were human, it would be the greatest scammer of all time.

It would have been tagged, “Most Wanted” with a ransom of a million dollars, which is probably equal to what an some businesses lose to it annually….just saying.

And do you want to know the best (or worst) part of it all?

Many businesses are gullible to its tricks and still waste time and effort in the name of social media marketing.

Now I’m not saying, don’t sell on social media (this post headline practically affirms that). What I’m saying is, get smarter.

There are business that consistently get maximum ROI from their efforts, even when social media dearest literally steals money from others.

What do you think is the difference between the two? One business has learned the tricks of the trade (and uses it) while the other has no idea of what to do.

Facebook is the largest social network, with over 1.23 billion monthly active users and over 30 million businesses.

For the newbie professional who is just starting out and needs a head start on how to not fall prey to social media, here are 5 steps to not only selling your services on Facebook, but to getting maximum ROI.

1. Open a Facebook Page

Errr…this point shouldn’t be here because it’s a no brainer. But as I said, this post is for newbies. How else do you want to market your services and build your brand on Facebook without a page?

While I’m of the opinion that Facebook may not give you the leads you want (this study by CallidusCloud Marketing Automation proves this), some extra social proof won’t hurt.

Using Facebook to market your services is an added advantage to your business. Here’s what a Facebook page would do for you

If, as a service professional who does serious stuff, you can engage Facebook users effectively, then you’ll have no problem with the other social networks. I’m saying this because sometimes, I just don’t ‘get’ that social network.

Opening a Facebook page is pretty simple. If you don’t have one yet, here’s a guide to help you on that: 10 Steps To Create a Facebook Page That Gets “Likes”.

 

2. Create A Social Media Calendar

Image source: brightpod.com

According to a study by Content Marketing Institute, only 35% of businesses have a documented content marketing strategy.

What this means is that only that number of businesses have it written on paper their plan to build their brands online with content marketing. Having a social media calendar is part of that process of writing your plans on paper because it puts you on track to getting that maximum ROI you want.

That’s it. Except you run social media contests, these are the two types of content you need. It is then up to you to diversify. For example, you could post content from 5 different relevant sites on your Facebook page at different times and then add to the mix pictures from events you hold, posts from your blog and then company quotes you know your audience would relate with. That already amounts to 8 posts daily.

That wasn’t so hard :).

If you’re looking for a credible way to build a social media calendar, here’s a post by CoSchedule to help you out.

 

3. Use A Social Media Management App

Except you’re superman and want to manually publish posts on all your social networks, it’s in your best interest to automate the process, at least to an extent.

Automating your social media efforts allows you to focus on other important things in the business, like actually doing the client work. With such apps, you can easily load your content for the whole day (or week) into the apps and schedule them to go live at specific times. That’s practically the only manual work you do, the app does the rest.

There are a wide range of such apps, but Hootsuite tops the list. Here’s a list of social media management apps you can choose from: Top 10 Tools For Managing Your Social Media Accounts

I personally use Hootsuite and dlvr.it. I use Hootsuite to schedule my original posts and other social networks, while I use dlvr.it (free version) for my curated content from relevant sites I read. Getting results is not just financial alone, you also have to get maximum ROI on your efforts as well.

 

4. Share To Get More Likes

Image source: boostlikes.com

Most people like to put this point before content, but I actually don’t see any sense in it. Why send someone to like an empty Facebook page with no content? At the same time, you don’t need to have over 100 posts before you let other people know that your business is on Facebook. Just don’t wait too long before sharing your page.

You can share your Facebook page in two different ways:

1. Invite your Facebook friends to like your page.
2. Boost your posts to reach more people.

Whichever one you choose, you’re bound to get more likes with content on your page than if you shared it at the initial stage. At that stage, most of your friends actually just like the page in the name of friendship, but after that, they forget about it until they start to see your posts on their timelines.

On the other hand, if you already have some content that you know they may be interested it, they’ll be more eager to like your business page and might linger a bit on it. If you’ve done a good job with your content, you’ll probably get a few instant shares and they’ll ensure that they’re back for more.

 

5. Use Facebook Insights To Refine Your Strategy

Testing, tracking, monitoring… those are the words that actually multiply results. Notice I didn’t say they bring results because with 1 to 4, you should have started getting some results, no matter how small.

But by studying those little results and refining them, you’ll multiply them, while still putting in the same effort. So, you’ll be getting maximum ROI on both your efforts and even cash invested. To go to your Facebook insights, you simply got to your Facebook page >> Insights.

What do you look out for in insights?

1. Post times. This helps you know when your audience is most active online. This way, you can change the times you post on the page. You can get this from your Facebook page >> Insights >> Posts.
2. Post reach. This helps you know what types of posts reached the most people. Is it your text posts, link posts or image posts? Whichever one it is, ensure you do more of it. To get this stat, go to your Facebook page >> Insights >> Post >> Post types.
3. Number of page likes, shares and comments on each post. Some posts may not have reached a lot of people, but may have converted a lot of them to fans through the engagement numbers. You need to point out these posts and increase their frequency. Just find a balance between post reach and number of likes gotten from each post for your content.

For starters, just focus on these three.

 

That’s it! Five simple steps to getting maximum ROI in your service business through Facebook marketing.

What do you think? Are you doing any of these? What other steps do you think should be included here? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

Original image credit: diaryofanelearner.com