Facebook marketing isn’t about creating a page and inviting your friends to like. Freelancers can do a lot more with Facebook marketing
As a freelancer, whether you sell a product or offer a service or want to build an engaging community on Facebook, the right approach to marketing on Facebook is critical.
As businesses are adding more and more content on Facebook, the organic reach of the content being shared on pages is diminishing day by day. However, it is part and parcel of marketing on Facebook, and so every freelancer should take it that way.
You can take it with a pinch of salt, but there is a new way of looking at it as well. Facebook is making sure, and it populates the user’s timeline with more related content by removing the froth. It is in the game to care about the users (and advertisers). So as a business, you will reach a genuine user who has very little clutter in his or her timeline.
So, as a freelancer, the question is how to use Facebook as a marketing tool to get maximum out of its organic reach and being able to get more clients or get more sales, leads, etc.
In this article, let me share with you my experience of marketing on Facebook for one of my clients, where I am generating much better activities for his business.
1. Start With a Goal in Mind
Every Facebook marketing article will tell you to start with a Facebook page, and it is essential as well. However, before you start using Facebook for marketing, it is vital to have the right frame of mind with marketing on Facebook.
So, in my opinion, the most crucial aspect of marketing is to have a goal for the business.
What is the target for your business, and why are you marketing it on Facebook in the first place?
- Is it to get more likes for the page, or is it to get more sales for what you are offering?
- Will getting more shares for the content help, or is it to get more people to visit your stores?
- Is it to get people to comment on the post, or is it to get more people to get in touch with you for what you offer as a service?
Once you are clear with the goal, it will become much easier to focus on the right way to market your business on Facebook.
Everyone starts with the aim of getting likes to the page, but that is a wrong approach, approach marketing on Facebook with your business at its epicenter. You don’t want to grow your Facebook following, but you want to grow your business and have a goal of using Facebook as a tool.
2. Define an Ideal Client or Customer
I had a client who was selling “ready to cook food products”. He started selling on Amazon and move over to Facebook to generate more sales for his products on Amazon.
Now, everybody loves food, so initially, one may be inclined to think, we have a vast target audience.
But if one observes, the products that the client offers weren’t prevalent among Indian families because they prefer traditionally cooked food over ready to cook food products. So I came up with the following list of potential customers for the product who may not want to spend too much doing the cooking but still want to have good quality home-cooked products:
- People on travel abroad
- Students living in PG / Hostels
- Travel freaks
- Camping enthusiast
- Bachelors (Doing a job)
- Single Parents
- Frequent Hoteliers
So on and so forth. One can also drill down further and provide the exact specification for the target customer.
- Ideal age of a customer
- Will male or female will be more interested in the products. (For my ready to cook food client, males preferred the product over females, but among women, working women ordered products in bulk.)
- What will be the occupation of the customer? I found that IT Professionals in a metro city ordered the products more frequently.
- Will married people prefer the product, or will it be preferred by a bachelor’s, divorced, or single parent?
- What is their education level?
- What language do they speak?
- How health conscious are they? (This applied to my client’s products)
- What is their monthly income?
- Do they live in urban areas or rural areas?
- How regular are they on social media platforms?
- What gadgets do they use in their daily life?
You can go on creating a long list of essential details of your potential audience.
3. Analyze The Competitors
Note we aren’t talking about the competition but the competitors. Even if you are in a very competitive niche, we aren’t concerned about the competition because we don’t yet consider to start advertising as yet. If you are into a competitive business, so be it, and we are using Facebook as a tool to market your business and bring in sales.
So study your competitors as to what they are doing online, especially on Facebook.
- What offers are they coming up for promotions?
- What kind of product combinations do they offer?
- How are they managing their social media presence?
- How active are they on social media?
- Try ordering some items from them and see how they offer the after-sales services?
- Do they have a support team for the orders?
- How fast do they respond to messages on Facebook?
Analyze your competition and be prepared to better what they offer by a significant margin – not necessarily on the price but definitely on the perceived value.
4. Engage the Audience with Variety of Content
The most crucial aspect of any marketing effort is the right content for the right audience. Many types of content work on Facebook:
- Inspirational Quotes.
- News.
- Contest.
- Live Video.
- Fun Stuff.
- Memes.
- Video Content.
The critical aspect is to understand the kind of content that can work with your target audience and provide them with the right mix of content consistently from the full range of content that can make the audience engaging. The idea is to understand one has to create engaging content to make an impact on Facebook. Even non-viral websites can do Facebook marketing, but one has to understand the kind of content it needs to create.
5. Free Stuff & Giveaways
Free stuff and giveaways can help any business to get those initial set of customers that any business needs online. It is one of the best methods to get good reviews selling at Amazon India.
One may be wondering the free giveaways can only be products, but that’s not true. As an example, if you are a freelancer managing the Facebook marketing of local plumbing company announce free repairs for leaking taps to gather some Facebook reviews.
6. Use Power Words
As a freelancer, willing to do Facebook marketing, there is a specific type of content that will help you make a better impact with your audience. Here is an article that shares words that resonate with buyers. They have shared an exclusive list of popular adjectives, phrases, verbs, and words to be used to enhance your content:
- Now
- Free
- Find
- Save
- Search
- Shipping
- Sale
- Shop
- Price
- Get
- Results
- Buy
- Deals
- Today
- Cheap
- New
- Lowest
- Great
- Selection
- Best
- Possible
- Big
- Quick
- Low
Or Use the Following Call to Actions
- Join Us
- Join Now
- Get started
- Yes, am in
- Yes, I want it
- Download for free
- Hurry! x days left
- Limited stock
- Closing soon
- Offer ends soon
- Last chance
- Members-only
- Subscribers only
- Contact us now
Using the right mix of engaging content with power words to make the most of the impact on social media.
7. $1 Per Day Can Take You a Long Way
If you expect you can get your first client from social media overnight, you are wrong. You are still learning the process, and you may not even know what the ideal target audience that you should be targeting is.
Experiment with $1 per day. Drive traffic to your landing page and see how many people use your call to action button.
Don’t try to overoptimize, but if you see very dismal results, it can mean, the landing page isn’t connecting with the audience.
Keep a check on the stats. What is the cost per click you are paying and how much is the price you are paying for leads. How good are the leads, and can you better target your ads to perform better with the leads?
On Facebook, you can also make it such that you only pay for the lead and not for the click. Experiment with $1 per day to help you understand your target audience, which can convert into clients.
Don’t forget the Pareto principle or 80-20 rule, 20% of your marketing expense will bring in 80% of your revenue and the rest of 80% of the efforts will only bring an additional 20% of your revenue.
8. Engage with Potential Clients
Not all the leads landing on your page will need something that you have to offer. Interact with them and understand what they want, and if it is something that you aren’t offering, target your ads better.
Some may need to end up on your landing page, looking for things for free. If you find your leads looking for such free stuff, it is time to reconsider your ad target audience.
Engaging with your leads will help you identify the potential issue with your marketing or landing page issue.
If your leads say,
- They did not understand what you are offering, and your landing page isn’t clear.
- They did not intend to take up any services, and your ads aren’t targeting the right audience.
- If you have a very high bounce rate, your call to action isn’t highlighted well enough.
9. Local Clients Vs. Global Clients
The US is a mature market to target outsourcing clients, but one shouldn’t underestimate the Indian market and local clients either.
The cost to advertise in the US may be very high compared to India, and you can use Indian targeted ads to get the landing page and ad copy correct and work on the conversion to see how things pan out.
If you include an extensive range of audiences, you may end up getting too many leads that aren’t looking for what you are offering.
Once you see things moving, expanding to different GEO may not be very difficult.
10. Ask All Your Friends to Reshare
Everyone knows some friends personally who are very active online and on some social media channels. Ask them to share your product or services on social media. Just sending them an invite to like your page isn’t enough and directly interact with them and ask them to share your website link on their timeline.
Marketing isn’t easy, and you need to ask your friends to tell their friends about what you offer. Interact with each of your buddies and simply ask them to promote your services.
I have started new freelancing business and can you please share my services link to your timeline. It will help me find some new clients and give my freelancing career a boost.
11. Facebook Ads isn’t the Only Option
Yes, it is true. There are many more online marketing options for small businesses. Facebook isn’t the end of the world. Facebook works for most of the company, but if it doesn’t bring in more customers to your business, don’t hesitate to use Twitter, Pinterest, SEO, or even Google+.
Google Ads can help you drive the right kind of audience to your site that is looking for what you may offer at the right moment.
What I mean is if someone is searching for “web designer in XYZ”, he may be interested in hiring a web designer right now. Your landing page and instant contact option can help you convert the lead to the customer faster, whereas, on Facebook, an interest in web design may not mean someone is looking for a web designer right at this moment.
Advertising in Google has a lot more learning curve than on Facebook, but it also means that the traffic from Google can be targeted with a lot more precision than on Facebook. Right keywords with the correct ad copy can mean one can capitalize more on the same marketing budget.
12. Use Facebook Groups the Right Way
When it comes to finding clients as a freelancer, Facebook groups can help if you do it the right way. Join groups where may find potential clients. The trick is not to join hundreds of Facebook groups with few members but join only 2 to 3 best groups in the niche of your expertise.
Once you are a member, do not self-promote your product or services in the first chance. You should never promote your product or services in groups. If a group is full of self-promotions by other members, you have joined the wrong group and look for groups that have members asking for help than self-promotion of products and services by other members.
Start building the relationship with members. Provide plenty of free advice and suggestions. Don’t see each post in the group or every member who has posted in as a potential client. Look at them as an opportunity to build a relationship and show your eagerness to help with your expertise.
Let your actions speak of your expertise and not your self-promoting words.
Make yourself an expert in the group who is ready to help others. Don’t just answer someone’s question in the group. Go beyond Facebook to help them with a personal message or connect with them on Skype, Whatsapp, or any other mode of one on one communications to help them.
Soon people will be more than happy to hire you or will be more than happy to pay you for what you offer.
As you find a few clients, start your own Facebook group. Clients often hire group admins as they are known to be experts.
Once you have your own buzzing Facebook group, you can even advertise it with an ad campaign. Freelancers don’t use Facebook ads to promote their services, and this can be a potential gold mine for you to get many clients and customers.
13. Focus on Twitter or LinkedIn
People often focus only on FaceBook or Google and ignore other social media marketing channels, especially LinkedIn and Twitter.
As a freelancer, LinkedIn should be your first choice of marketing and even before Facebook because it is for the professionals, and people act more professionally on LinkedIn. How often you see a person’s profile pic on funky on Facebook and formal on LinkedIn. It is where most of the users interact about their jobs and professional life.
Twitter is one more social media platform where you don’t see too much of memes. Facebook, I never intentionally followed the memes, but it is still part and parcel of my timeline because lots of my friends share them, but it isn’t the case on Twitter. The Twitter audience isn’t online to kill time.
