Ultimate Guide: Social Media Marketing Strategy for Small Business

Last Updated on August 15, 2022 by Arif Chowdhury

Many online marketers think building a perfect social media marketing plan can be painfully hard. However, whether it is hard or not, you will find out soon. In this guide, I will show you how to build a marketing plan for your social media campaign with seven easy steps.

A marketing plan will mirror your future on social media platforms. This plan will reflect everything you hope to achieve from this platform. Remember, social media strategy differs significantly from other online marketing like Google advertisement & other PPC networks.

In any case, a marketing plan must be precise and targeted to focus on a single goal. For example, instead of targeting a broad audience, you should focus on a specific audience; thus, it will be more effective when selling your products or services. However, a broad audience will be more profitable as you can target more people. However, the truth is – it will become impossible to focus and an unattainable objective to overcome the challenge.

Anyway, let’s come to the business. In this guide, I will give you a complete walkthrough. So you can build a perfect social media marketing strategy for small businesses or large organizations without needing any expert to hire.

Chapter 1: Build a perfect social media marketing plan.

Step 1: Define social media marketing goals based on the business objective.

Perhaps defining a set of marketing goals based on your business objective is a crucial one. First, you have to understand your business objectives clearly. It is the very first step in creating a marketing plan. Then it would be best if you focused on defining a set of marketing goals you want to achieve in a given timeframe. Business owners should make sure that these goals must have to align with their business objectives.

To make it clear, let me give you an example. If you want to start a blog to make money, this blog is your online business. And making money is your business objective. Suppose you want to build a marketing plan for your blog. First, you must set marketing goals based on your business objective to make it work.

Here, your marketing goal should be to get 1,000 Facebook likes within 30 days if your business objective is to make money within 60 days. Then your marketing goals will also change along with it. Getting only 1,000 likes within 30 days won’t help you to make money. In this case, you must target paid advertisements on Facebook to acquire paid customers.

Defining a set of goals will also help you to measure ROI (Return on Investment). For example, using Facebook paid advertising to acquire customers for your business. By spending $1,000 per month and making $2,000 in sales, your ROI will be 100%. It is a great way to measure business performance.

Leverage SMART goals to become professional in marketing.

Time for you to get introduced to SMART goals. It is a common principle to define goals smartly to be trackable and manageable. For example, suppose you want to create a perfect social media marketing plan. Then I suggest you learn to adapt to smart goals.

What is the complete form of SMART?

Specific: This explains itself; your goals should be straightforward. Simple and clear to understand. It’s so obvious if you do not have any particular purpose, then how can you even track or achieve it? In a social media marketing campaign, define your goal, like whether you want to build a large follower base or want to start making sales right from the beginning.

Measurable: A goal must have to be measurable. Otherwise, there is no way to track your progress. For example, if your marketing goal is to build a good relationship with your customers. Then it is a good goal, but you cannot measure it unless you define a specific number. For example, you must build a good relationship with 50 customers within 60 days.

Attainable: Your marketing goals should be realistic. It can’t be some child’s wish or daydream that is impossible to attain no matter what you do. For example, if your marketing goal is to beat the Amazon brand within the next three years. Then it is an audacious goal but not attainable within three years.

Relevant: Try to set goals pertinent to your business; otherwise, you will lose track. It is called narrowing down your target market. For example, if you chase all customers in the world, you won’t be able to acquire anyone. Focus on your target market by narrowing it down. For example, if your business is food relevant, do not target the apparel niche because it is irrelevant.

Time-bound: Finally, your goals should be accountable by a specific timeframe. You won’t go anywhere if you do not bound your goals within a particular period. For example, you have to set a goal like getting 50 customers within the first 30 days to make it meaningful. If your plan has no time limitation, it is no point chasing it.

These five factors are SMART goals criteria. If you want to build a perfect marketing plan for your social media channels, then this is where you should start. These five elements are the building blocks of a robust marketing plan for any business.

Let me give an example of a marketing goal by fulfilling all five elements.

Quick Note: We will use our Facebook page to deal with customers through direct messaging. Our target is to reduce the communication gap with customers. We have set a target response time of 120 minutes or 2 hours. And this goal has to achieve within the next two months.

I already said that social media marketing differs from other online marketing like PPC, banner ads, Google ads, etc. Because, in social media, you will have more direct contact with your audience than on any other online marketing platform. Social media is a community forum. However, there are some issues apart from benefits.

As in social media channels, so many fake accounts exist nowadays. And you may get thousands of engagements, i.e., likes, comments, and shares, which may also drive traffic to your site from a paid advertisement. However, these provide no real value at all.

Just think about yourself; whenever you scroll news feed on Facebook, you may have seen many sponsored advertisements & you may have pressed the like button many times. However, you never actually visited that post or page ever. The only thing you ever did was press the like button here & there. Unfortunately, on social media, there are so many audiences like you & they act without any seriousness.

Therefore, you must understand this issue in your social media marketing campaign. Getting thousands of likes and comments is not a big deal. Unless those audiences have severe behavior or buying intentions, we can measure this using CTR (Click Through Rate) & Conversion ratio.

You may also use social media management tools to do a competitive analysis, create a content calendar for a future post, and easily plan in time for various events. In addition, it has a powerful analytics feature to measure your overall marketing performance to refine your strategy.

Recommended Reading: How Social Media Negatively Affects Business? (Practical Guide)

Here are sample business objectives and social media marketing goals for you to try out:

Business Objectives	Social Media Goals	Metrics
Brand Awareness	Engagements	Likes, Comments & Shares
Leads & Sales	CTR & Conversion	Website Clicks & Email Subscription
Passive Advertisement	Mass Awareness	Gossip about your brand by @mention it

Step 2: Know your audience by analyzing marketing data.

It is the most crucial stage. Not only for a social media marketing platform but also in every other business, whether online or offline. You cannot sustain much longer unless you know your audience. You have to understand their needs and act according to that. Only then can you hope to grow your business.

For example, whenever a festival arrives like Christmas every big & small brand in the world opens a special gift & discount for their loyal customers. Why do they always do this? Because this is a perfect opportunity to win the hearts of their clients. It is what you are going to do. Another example is, giving a special gift or discount on your customer’s birthday. By doing so, you are making them happy and increasing the customer retention rate significantly.

So what are you supposed to do exactly? It would be best if you utilized social media management tools. I recommended you earlier to get the insights of your audiences like age, gender, location, interest, etc. Focus heavily on serious customers by judging their behavior & interest. Hence you can narrow down your target audience from a large customer base. From there, you should learn about their interest in customizing your offers; therefore, your CTR and conversion rate will increase by many folds.

Every social media has a powerful passive marketing feature that you may never be able to use in any other online or offline advertising platform. For example, whenever an audience likes or shares your post, it becomes viral, and every other Facebook user who is connected with them can also see and interact with your post. It is called leveraging social sharing features to your advantage.

Though, not every post on your business page will become viral. However, suppose you can gather enough insights about your target audience & create an excellent goal framework. In that case, there is a good chance that you will be able to make most of your posts interesting enough to go viral among your audience. And through this free social media strategy, your business page may be able to reach millions of new audiences & build a robust network. 

Step 3: Know your competitors before they learn about you.

It is a competitive era, with every brand, from big to small, racing towards social media channels to control the battlefield. Social media is a gold mine for every business nowadays. It’s so obvious. The more competitive it gets, the harder it becomes. However, this is why you planned to build a perfect social media marketing strategy to outlast them all, don’t you?

So, your target should be to find the flaws in your competitor’s strategy. For that purpose, you need to learn about them & create a goal framework first. But, don’t think that they are sitting there & doing nothing. Most probably, they have plans for you as well.

Therefore, in the 3rd step, your mission statement should be to learn your competitors’ marketing strategies by utilizing social listening. You should know about your fields very well, do a social media audit & make a list of competitors in your area and find their social media presence. By doing so, you may find a flaw in their marketing strategy.

Let me give you some examples; let’s say one of your competitors has a strong presence on Facebook & their page has over 5 million followers, and their audience is also active. How can you be sure about that? Check their every post by scrolling down; if every post has at least 20-30K likes and 5-7K comments (comparing to 5 million audiences), then they have an active & engaging community.

Now, in that case, if your Facebook page has only 5-10K followers, then it will be tough to compete with them. But, if their community is not engaging that much, which means only 500-1,000 likes & few comments. So, in that scenario, you can assure yourself that they may have huge followers yet do not have an engaging community. Therefore, if you can build a strong Facebook presence with an active community, you may be able to beat them.

There could be another scenario. Your competitor might have a lengthy response rate of 1-2 days. In this case, your marketing strategy targets their weak spot – prolonged customer support. Become active on your Facebook page, respond to your audience as quickly as possible, and reduce your response rate to at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Congratulations, as your customer support is much better than your competitor. You have a great chance of beating them.

There could be other scenarios, as some competitors may not create a social account on other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, etc. Maybe they have a strong presence on Facebook; however, they do not even tap the market of Twitter or Instagram. It is their social media marketing weakness, and you just spotted it. Take advantage and build a strong presence before they even enter there & you will become superior to your competitors on other social platforms.

Listening to the whisper of your competitors.

Leverage the power of social media management tools to listen to your competitor’s whisper; this is called social listening. These tools are excellent for monitoring the marketing movement of your competitors on social media channels.

• Which relevant keywords are they targeting? 
• How is their audience reacting to their posts?
• What kind of social media content are they publishing?
• How many people are mentioning their brands in social media conversations?

By utilizing these Intel, you can increase your chance to find their weak spot in social media marketing and take advantage as soon as you find out.

Step 4: Identify the strengths & weaknesses of social media channels.

Not every social media channel works the same. Therefore, you have to find its strength & weakness by auditing. For example, the Facebook platform is different from the Twitter platform. Both have huge audiences; however, they work differently.

Take a look at Instagram; it’s mainly an image & video sharing platform. If you use the same strategy on every platform, then a winning strategy in one social platform can devastate others.

Not only is the platform different, but the audience’s segments can also be very different from each other. So, for example, let’s say you have a business of furniture products, and you sell directly to retailers instead of customers.

In this case, marketing on Facebook won’t benefit you unless you start selling directly to consumers. Because on Facebook, more than 95% of businesses sell their products directly to end-users, not retailers. Of course, you can leverage Alibaba’s online platform to find suitable retailers for your furniture business, but it won’t work on social media like Facebook.

While in other cases, the Instagram social media platform is far better than Facebook for displaying your furniture products. Many significant to small brands are already doing it and growing their audience size.

It is just an example to make you understand the difference between social media platforms. Before doing anything, you must first understand your audience’s nature.

Recommended Reading: How Often Should You Conduct a Social Media Audit? (Definitive Guide)

Ask yourself the below questions:

• Which products do you usually see a lot on your favorite social media platform?
• How many engagements have you seen per post? (likes, comments, shares)
• Look at the comments to judge the audience’s behavior.
• Ask your friends & family to collect their opinion.

If you have done these correctly, you should have the answer by now. Which social media platform would be suitable for your business?

Warning before you start: Especially on Facebook, there are thousands of fake accounts. We do not have any idea about these, maybe for personal purposes or maybe for business purposes. If fake accounts are created for private purposes, they won’t affect you much. However, there are fake accounts that your competitors could make.

What is the issue here? Those accounts will probably become your followers and then start commenting on a fake issue regarding your products to create wrong impressions among your existing audiences. They may even submit bad reviews about your business. It can be a challenging issue to overcome. The best thing you can do is block those fake accounts so they won’t be able to impact further.

Pro tip: Verify your social media accounts & pages to get the upper hand by increasing trust & reputation among your audiences.

Step 5: Setup a business account on the social media platform.

After researching which platform to use, it is time to set up a business account. However, before you decide, there is a sample for you to evaluate.

When you look at this survey data, you realize that Facebook is a dedicated and favorable social media platform for communicating with customers. Because of its easy-to-use interface and mass awareness among people.

Facebook is heavily populated with mass audiences and not favorable for displaying your products. You may use Instagram for that purpose. Communicating with your customers can quickly be done through a Facebook business page & product displaying can be done with Instagram. Recently Facebook and Instagram both united. Therefore, it will be easy for you to manage both accounts.

For your human resource management & recruiting purpose, LinkedIn can be your best-suited social media platform where you can also advertise your company among dedicated employees & other businesses.

How should you set up a business profile?

Though it depends on the social platforms, you are going to use. However, general rules are all the same.

• Fill in all necessary information fields along with address & contact.
• Setup a custom auto-responder that represents your brand.
• Include your focused keywords in your description so the audience can find you.
• Use proper hashtags in your post.
• Use custom-made branded images and photos.
• Connect with other businesses to build a strong profile (LinkedIn).

Quick Note: It’s better to become a master in one platform than a jack. If focusing on several social media platforms is getting complex & overwhelming, then you should focus on 1-2 venues to make it more effective & manageable.

Step 6: Inspired by big brother’s success stories.

There is nothing much more important than inspiration. Of course, you started this business because someone must have inspired you. I started this blog because I was inspired by other bloggers who have become successful. Their success stories inspired me to start this blog several times after failing. No one can become successful unless they try first & it is scarce to become successful for the first time.

I recommend you follow the big & small brands that become successful on the social media platform to get inspired by them. And you may learn something useful as well.

Step 7: Consistent, engaging content is the trump card.

Finally, this is the last step to creating a perfect social media marketing plan. More importantly, this step will continue forever. You may have done your homework and did all the steps from 1-6; however, if you do it wrong in the final stage, you just devastated all your previous efforts.

Remember, social media is like a continuous stream. It is not a static platform. If you publish highly engaging content in one week and forget to post another in the next week, whatever you achieve in the first week will probably fade away. That’s right, and this is why you need to craft a social media content calendar & plan your strategy based on audience response. This way, you will be able to maintain consistency for the long term.

I know it’s confusing, but let me clarify this for you. You may have seen many Facebook pages with 5-10 million followers; however, if you take a closer look, you will see that their post is not getting as many engagements as they are supposed to. Judging their vast followers, they should have at least 20-30K or even more likes per post. But why are there only 500-1,000 likes per post or even less?

The answer is consistency. Maybe they have done an extraordinary performance at the beginning, and that’s why they were able to get millions of followers; however, those all are past performances & they weren’t able to keep consistency afterward. And that’s why almost all of their audiences are gone. So now, having millions of followers means nothing.

Why did this happen? Where did all their audience go?

Well, it is Facebook & all other social media algorithms. If a page does not post regularly and its audience does not engage in its post frequently, that page will slowly fade away from its audience’s news feed.

Therefore, if you want to get the full benefit, then consistency is a must. Otherwise, all your efforts will go in vain, just like them.

What should you do to keep consistency?

• Understand your audience to learn which types of content they like & dislike.
• Provide quality and engaging content based on their interest.
• Use social media analytics to measure your page performance.
• Find the peak hour when most of your audience stays online to maximize your reach.
• Create a content schedule to maintain consistency.

I recommend using social media insights tools as it has an automation feature that can save you a lot of time. Finding the best time to post content on your Facebook page is complex and challenging. Instead, use these tools to find the optimal time.

Regarding scheduling content, you can also utilize social media insights tools. All you have to do is select the topics, which will curate relevant content from all over the internet to fill up your schedule. You can also upload several contents in advance; these tools will automatically upload those at the peak hour when your audience stays active.

Chapter 2: Facebook marketing strategies tips & tricks.

Until now, I talked about social media marketing in general. In this chapter, we will discuss Facebook’s marketing strategy.

Facebook is a social media that has already surpassed all of its competitors. Almost all business organizations & big brands around the world have a Facebook business page. It’s a gold mine for marketing their product & service. Roughly 2.9 billion people around the world have a Facebook account.

Do you know how many people currently live on earth? Roughly 7.97 billion. Thus, 35.9% of people on earth are now using Facebook.

With this massive audience, Facebook has a golden opportunity for all types of businesses worldwide. However, this is an equally challenging task unless you don’t have a defined marketing plan.

So, in this chapter, I will show you how to build a Facebook marketing strategy using a few easy steps.

How to set up a Facebook page for your business?

If you already have a Facebook account, setting up a Facebook business page is just 1-2-3. It’s simple, free & easy. You don’t have to use paid ads unless you want to.

After creating a business page, you can publish content for your audience, chat with them using messenger, answer their questions, engage them anytime you want, and get likes. Comments on your content, gain followers for your business page, sell products & services, and link to your website to drive traffic. All can be done entirely free without spending a single coin.

I will show you how to create a Facebook business page from scratch.

Recommended Reading: How to use Hashtags to boost your organic reach on Social Media?

Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account & create a button.

Before you begin, you must first log into your existing Facebook account. Don’t worry; your personal account information won’t show on your business page. So, it doesn’t matter from which Facebook account you create a business page.

Click on the + icon called the “create” button. You can create a Facebook page, group, post, event, Facebook ads, marketplace listing, publish a story, etc.

Click on the “Page” button to begin.

Step 2: Provide page information.

In the next step, you must provide your business page name, category & description. First, you can write your brand name. It doesn’t have to be unique. You can use up to 3 types. Then, write a brief description.

After you are done, click on the “create page” button.

By the way, you can preview your page on both desktop & mobile versions. Click on the mobile icon to see what it looks like on a smartphone screen.

Step 3: Upload your business logo & cover image.

Now upload your business logo & cover photo. Remember, choose an informative & attractive cover image for your business page. Because whenever your audience visits your page, they will see it first.

Take caution when choosing a cover image. Make sure to use proper image size; otherwise, some of your essential text & logo may not appear.

Upload your original business logo on your page, as it will represent your brand to your audience. Most of the time, your loyal customer will notice you just by seeing your Facebook page logo.

Step 4: Choose an attractive, easy-to-remember vanity URL.

Congratulations, this is your newly created Facebook business page. I didn’t add any logo, as it is only for illustration purposes, but if you don’t add any logo, then the Facebook page will show the first letter of your page name. As my page name is “Company X,” that’s why it is showing the C character in the logo.

Anyway, let’s get to the business. First, take a closer look at your business page URL. It is something like “facebook.com/Company-X-106424”. If you want, you can change it based on your brand name or page name.

To do that, click on the “Create @username” button. Here choose an attractive & easy to remember vanity URL for your brand, just like you select a username for a Gmail account.

Congratulations, you have done it. Now, this URL is tiny & easy to remember. You also receive an even smaller URL for your business page “fb.me/comx0”. A short branded URL for your page. You also received another short URL, “m.me/comx0” this is your business page messenger URL. Share it with your customers, so they can chat or call you directly using this URL.

You can see your new Facebook page URL from here.

Step 5: Add business information to your Facebook page.

After you have changed your URL, I want you to scroll down a bit & you will see the “About” section of your business page.

Here, provide your business location, enter your official website address, phone number, and email address, add a business hour, privacy policy, product/service details, etc.

Step 6: Add an action button for your customers.

Next, you should add an action button on your new Facebook business page. To do that, click on the “Add a button” option.

Here you can see a list of actions for you to choose from.

• Follow: if your business objective is to get as many followers as possible, choose this option.
• View gift cards: if you want to showcase your product gift cards to your audience, choose this one.
• Start order: if you have a restaurant business, choose this one.
• Book now: if you have a consultancy business, this action button is best for you.
• Get a quote: this action button would be great if you have a B2B organization.
• Call now: if you want your audience to call you, choose this.

I guess you understand how it works. Just choose which one is best suited to your needs.

For example, I have chosen the “call now” button. After clicking next, Facebook took me to the next option; here, I had to select a suggested question & an automated answer for my audience.

Thus even if I am on vacation, my page will automatically answer their questions. It’s a very effective method to increase my response rate.

After you are done here, click save & your new action button is ready for action.

What type of Facebook content can you publish?

Just like you usually publish content on your company website or blog, here on your Facebook page, you are about to post content to engage your audience. You can publish various types of content to your page, though the best practice is to use a content mix for higher engagement.

Facebook text post (general content).

It is usually known as a status post among Facebook users. You will not use photos, videos, or links in this post. It is best for publishing personal information or short announcements/news.

For example, “We are on vacation from January 5 to 10. If you have any inquiries, please leave us a message.”

You don’t need to use any image, video, or link in this type of post. However, you should remember one thing – this type of post does not get much organic reach in the audience’s news feed, mainly because it is not engaging enough.

So, if you need to promote your content, then do not use this content.

Facebook photo & text post (content mix).

It is probably the most common type of content you always see here & there in your Facebook news feed.

As you can see in this post, they have used text, a link & an image to create this content. It could be an example of great content. However, it entirely depends on your target audience.

You have to use Facebook built-in analytics to check your audience insights to understand their behavior & interest. It is a vital element in measuring your success in the long term. I will talk about this later in this chapter.

Facebook video post with text & link.

This one is also common nowadays. We frequently see video content from different pages when we scroll through our news feed on Facebook. Regarding interactive content, video is far more effective than any image & text.

Do you know why? Because we humans always love to watch rather than read. No one wants to read a 2,000-word article, but almost everyone will love to watch a 10 min short video. Isn’t it correct?

Besides, your text & image post will only appear in the audience’s news feed. However, your video content will appear in the news feed and Facebook Watch. Thus, as you can see, your video content has more organic reach opportunities than your text & image post.

Facebook-live video post.

Live video content is getting popular every day. Not only on YouTube but also on Facebook, live video is a powerful element to increase your engagement rate.

Almost all gaming channels are now using this live video feature to stream their video content. Instead of pre-recorded video, live video is highly interactive as you can directly communicate with your audience—best for answering questions & encourage your audience to take action immediately.

This live video content is helpful for any business.

Facebook linked post (content mix).

This type of post is also common. However, it primarily focuses on the link rather than text & image.

Let me give you an example. This post has included three links, some text & an image. This post isn’t focused on the link; for instance, if you click on the image, it will enlarge, but it won’t take you to their website. You have to click on the link to visit their site.

However, take a look at this post. Do you see any visible links here? No, because this post focused on the link. It is not an image; if you click here, it will take you to their website. The picture you see is embedded directly from the link source.

This linked post can be handy if you want to drive traffic to your company website.

Facebook stories.

It is one of the most potent content types based on the highest organic reach. Even if you have 1 million followers, it doesn’t mean that your post organic reach will be 1 million. Instead, you will be lucky to get 400K at best. Your post won’t reach the rest of 600K followers.

However, the good news is – there is no such thing as Facebook stories. It has a 100% organic reach; if you have 1 million followers, your organic reach will be the same because Facebook stories are listed at the top of the news feed. If you want to catch the eye of your audience, then it is an excellent option for you.

In general, stories will live for 24 hours. It has an autoplay feature, and Images appear for 5 seconds while a video is maxed 20 seconds long.

Facebook pinned post.

It is not a new content type but pinned to a regular Facebook post at the top of your page.

It is a very effective way to showcase a significant update, news, or announcement related to your business. Other regular posts will be locked away in history, but this pinned post will stay at the top regardless of time.

You can pin any Facebook post you want. But, it is best suited for announcements or news-related posts.

Facebook watch party.

It is the same as a video post. However, your video will start streaming at a specific time, just like a live video. Your audience can watch this video together & can interact with each other through comments.

Watch parties are best for pre-recorded classes, tutorials, live shows, etc. If your audience misses a live video, you can show your pre-recorded live video through a watch party. You can interact with your audience in real-time, just like a live video.

However, the sad news is – the Facebook watch party is about to shut down from April 16, 2021. We don’t know whether Facebook will launch something alternative to watch parties.

Facebook other post types.

There are other post types you can use on Facebook. One recent update is the “COVID-19 update” you can use this post to highlight recent news of the pandemic.

Apart from it, you can use gift card posts, WhatsApp posts, host a Q&A, encourage others to call you through messenger, etc., based on your industry needs.

Which type of Facebook post should you publish?

It is a critical question. It entirely depends on your audience’s interest. You should pay attention & listen to the audience whisper, then figure out what your audience wants from you.

For example, if your page is for an online class or tutorial, then a live video, watch party & Q&A post will be best.

In other cases, if you have a B2B business page, then “Get WhatsApp message” and “Get message” will be perfect.

If you want to set up customer support on your Facebook business page, then utilizing messenger could be your best bet.

You can also take advantage of the Facebook contest to increase engagement rates within your existing & new audiences. It’s a perfect way to generate more leads to get potential customers.

As you can see, first, you have to analyze your target audience and learn what they are interested in. Then plan a content calendar & offer something valuable within it. This way, your audience engagements will significantly increase.

How to build a Facebook marketing strategy? (Beginner guide)

Now you will learn how to create an excellent Facebook marketing strategy that works. It’s a step-by-step beginner guide. Thus you don’t need prior experience to understand it.

First, I will discuss setting business objectives for your Facebook marketing campaign. Then pinpoint your target customers using analytics data, set a reasonable budget for the whole marketing campaign, plan a content calendar to engage your audience, and create equally engaging ads with an excellent landing page to increase your conversion rate. Next, utilize the A/B testing feature to measure the success rate & finally, repeat the whole process.

Okay, so let’s get started.

Step 1: Define an achievable goal for your Facebook marketing campaign.

Before you do anything, you must first define your business goals. Without a specific, attainable goal, no plan or strategy will work.

So, ask yourself, what is your business goal? For example, do you want to increase your revenue by making more sales? Or, do you want to improve your brand loyalty by doing mass marketing? Or do you want more active followers for your business page & blog?

Whatever you want, you have to define it & build a plan based on it. And, of course, it has to be an achievable goal. For example, you cannot make millions of sales within the first month of marketing just by boosting posts; you may have to wait years to get it.

Quick Note: Always target active Facebook users. Do you know why? Because it doesn’t matter how many followers you have, how many likes you get. If you do not have an active user base, then you cannot make any profit. Active users mean serious followers, those actively looking for your products.

Here is some example of marketing goal for you to get an idea of:

Build brand awareness: by doing mass digital marketing on Facebook. Your goal is to get as many followers as possible.

Increase revenue: by making more sales from the Facebook page. You have to showcase your products on a Facebook page & have to craft eye-catching posts & ads to attract an audience, along with a killer landing page to convert them.

Increase website traffic: by creating beautiful & attractive posts & ads on Facebook to increase the click-through rate (CTR).

Get more leads: by creating attractive posts & ads. But make sure to provide enough information to convert your raw visitors.

To get started, visit your Facebook page & click on the promote button. It will take you to the promote page. Here, you can select a predesigned goal template to get started.

Quick Note: You do not need to visit the Facebook ads manager. You can create all types of ads on your Facebook page. However, if you are an agency running multiple Facebook ads from various pages, in that case, you should use Facebook ads manager as it provides a robust control panel to manage all from a single platform.

If you are unsure which type of goal best suits your business, I suggest you use “Automated ads.” It will help you to identify your business goal by asking you a few simple questions.

Click on the get started button. It will automatically analyze your six different ads to identify which one is performing best.

The first question is – about your business location. If you have a physical brick & mortar business, then choose yes. If you do not have any physical office yet, then click no. And if you have a blog, it doesn’t apply to you.

The second question is – do you have a website? You do not necessarily have to have a website to market your products on Facebook. In that case, select no option. Or, if you have a website, then select yes.

The third question is – do you sell products on your site? In my case, I have a blog & I do not sell products on my site. So, in this case, I would select no option. But, if you have an eCommerce site, you should choose the yes option.

The fourth question is – do you take appointments on your site? You should select the yes option if you have a consultancy business.

The fifth question is – do you get leads on your site? Well, if you do not have any subscription option on your site, then do not select yes.

The sixth question is – do you want people to contact you? If you have a consultancy-type business where you want people to make a call, in this case, you should select yes.

The seventh question is – if you select yes on the previous question, then this question will ask you how you want your audience to call you. For example, your audience may leave their contact information in messenger & you will call them later. Or, they may call you on an official phone number or via WhatsApp or Facebook messenger.

The eighth question is – here, Facebook is asking you to select your audience’s interest. So, you can narrow down & pinpoint them.

The ninth question is – to select six posts you want to promote. Again, Facebook automation ad systems will analyze these six ads’ performance to identify which one is best.

Congratulations, you have done it. Facebook is now presenting you with a suggested ad package. They have chosen the “Get more message on messenger” goal based on your answers. In addition, they have selected a target audience based on your responses & your estimated reach is 124 to 358.

They have chosen a daily budget for you, duration of ads, particular ad category, audience & placements.

These options are not permanent; you can change them anytime you want.

Recommended Reading: Benefits of Digital Marketing for Your Business in the Post Pandemic World

Step 2: Identify & pinpoint your target audience.

It is an essential part of a Facebook marketing campaign. You have to keep in mind that Facebook has a vast customer base. It has 2.8 billion monthly active users. If you do not pinpoint & narrow down your target audience, you are about to waste a huge chunk of dollars & possibly, in return, will get very little to nothing.

So what to do? Simple, first identify your target audience, then set a budget based on your business objectives. For example, let’s say you have used “Automated ads” settings. Now we will customize our target audience to narrow it down & pinpoint it as much as possible to improve overall targeting.

To do that, scroll down a bit & click on the “Audience” option to begin. You may notice that the Audience section shows “Smart audience.” It means automated ad systems have taken care of it. They have selected an audience for you based on your answers.

Anyway, we will customize it in our way.

Here you can see several options to choose from.

People you choose through targeting: you will target a specific group of audiences based on your choice.

People who like your page: you will target only those audiences who like your page. It is called re-targeting. You are targeting only your fans.

People who like your page & their friends: you will target the audience who liked your page & their friends. It is also re-targeting. You are targeting your fans & their friends.

People in your local area: if you have a local business, then you should select this option to target an audience from your local area.

To customize the audience click on the “Audience details” option.

Here you can choose the following options to customize.

Gender: Choose all gender, men only or female only. If your products or service is gender-specific, then choose according to it.

Age: chose age range from 13 to 65+. Again if your service or product is age-related, choose according to it. For example, if you are selling fitness products & it’s only for those aged 20-35, select this range.

Location: choose a specific place to target your audience. I have chosen Canada here in this example, but you can select any local area you want. You can even use a “drop pin” in the global map to choose a location.

Take a closer look at “Potential reach: 1.4 million people”. Once you customize your gender, age, and location, the Facebook ad system will automatically show you a potential reach based on that.

Until now, we only customized gender, age & location. Now we will narrow our audience by using audience interest, behavior, demographics, etc.

To give you an example, I have chosen interest: advertising & concerts. It means now my target audience will be from Canada, all gender & age ranging from 18 to 65+ & those who like advertising & shows.

Then I chose “High school graduation” & also those who use Facebook using the operating system Windows 10.

As you can see, my potential reach is now reduced to only 1,000 people. From 1.4 million people, I reduced it to only 1,000 because I heavily filtered my audience.

Quick Note: Targeting a particular audience on Facebook will maximize your conversion rate. However, your potential reach will reduce.

Step 3: Set a reasonable budget based on the marketing goal.

After you have narrowed down your target audience, it’s time to define a daily budget for your marketing campaign.

The Facebook auto ad system default sets a $3 daily budget for your campaign. Within this budget, your daily reach is 124-358.

Increase your budget to $10 per day & see how it reacts. Your daily reach now increased to 362-1,000.

So as you can see, your budget directly impacts how many audiences you can reach. So if you want to get more audiences, you must increase your budget.

Therefore, it is entirely on you to decide. For example, how much do you want to spend based on business funding capabilities?

I suggest you start with a low budget & see how it works for you. Then increase it if you are satisfied with the performance.

Step 4: Plan a content calendar to maintain consistency.

The next step is to publish engaging content regularly on your Facebook page. Just like as you periodically publish blog posts on your company website. Do not just focus on Facebook ads. If you can leverage the power of Facebook’s organic reach, you may reduce your digital marketing cost by thousands of dollars.

So, to make it happen, you need to post highly engaging content regularly, just like you do in your blog. I suggest you plan a content calendar for effective Facebook marketing to maintain consistency.

A content calendar can help you to track content deadlines, manage a content-making team, and maintain the most complex schedule.

How many posts should I publish every day, week, or month? Well, it entirely depends on your audience type. So you must test all post frequencies to get an idea of which works best.

To get you started, here is the HubSpot content calendar template.

Quick Note: The best practice is – whenever you publish a new blog post, do not forget to publish a Facebook post. For example, if your site publishes ten blog posts per month, you will be able to publish 10 Facebook posts as well; it will help you maintain consistency on both platforms. You may also use social media management tools for marketing automation. You have to specify & it will publish content automatically in optimal time.

Step 5: Craft highly engaging Facebook ads to attract the audience.

After you set up a content schedule for your Facebook page, it is time to start your marketing campaign with Facebook paid ads.

Remember one thing before you create your ads. Many Facebook marketers waste a massive amount of ad budget just because they cannot create an engaging ad. If your content is interesting enough, it will get more likes, comments & shares, thus improving your overall inbound marketing performance.

I want you to remember the below tips before you create an ad.

• First, narrow down your target audience, as I showed you before. Then, do not be afraid to create a specific group of audiences for different types of ads.
• Create different types of ads for different kinds of audiences. Do not think that your same ad will impact the same way to everyone. So, customize it as much as possible based on your audience type.
• Make sure you create your ads with a visual image. Do not just use text, as it indeed will reduce your overall campaign performance.
• Place a call-to-action button (CTA) properly. For example, if you have customer service & want your audience to call you, place a “Call now” CTA. If you want them to download the subscription form, use a “Download now” CTA.
• Keep your ad short. Remember, the audience does not like to read a wall of text.
• Keep your readability score within 60-70. So, almost all of your audience can easily read your ad copy.

Quick Note: No matter how engaging your content is, if you cannot offer values & build trust among your audience, everything else is meaningless. Try to be honest, show transparency within your content, do not present any misleading information, and do not hide anything. Become honest with your customers and build a long-lasting relationship.

Step 6: Select a perfect place to show your ads.

You can place your ad in different places on Facebook.

First, the most commonplace ad is in the Facebook news feed. You should see this type of ad whenever you scroll through your news feed on Facebook. It’s like a standard Facebook post. The only difference is that it has a unique “Sponsored” tag, so general users can quickly identify which post is organic & which post is an advertisement.

Apart from it, on the top corner of the right side column, you can see traditional type advertisements.

Now, what is the difference between these two types of ad placement?

If you use ad placement in a news feed, you must create an engaging post with images, a link & and a call-to-action (CTA) button. The most beneficial thing is – your ad can receive engagements from the audience, i.e., likes, comments, shares, etc.

Do you know why it’s beneficial? Because by getting likes, comments & shares, you may receive extra exposure to your ad, which is free. For example, if you pay $100 for 20,000 impressions, you may receive an additional 2,000 free impressions for these engagements.

However, you do not need to create a post for the right-side column ad. With just an image, short text & link is fine. And of course, as it is not a post, you won’t get any social engagements except link clicks.

You can also place your ad on Facebook messenger. See the above example. It is best for inquiry-related ads where you want your audience to call or text you.

The next place is the Facebook marketplace. If you want to sell products, then it is the best place. The good thing is – there is no extra cost for listing. You can easily list your eCommerce products in the marketplace to boost your sale.

Step 7: Build an equally engaging landing page to convert visitors.

If you do not have an attractive landing page, all your inbound marketing efforts will fail.

Do you know why? Because, after clicking on your ad, your audience will first arrive here. And if this landing page is not informative, trustworthy & attractive, they will leave. So everything you have done until now in marketing is just gone.

Yes, this is why you need to be careful when building a landing page for your ad.

Step 8: Utilize A/B testing to optimize your marketing campaign.

In a Facebook ad, you can use A/B testing or split testing to identify the best-performing ad for your marketing campaign.

So what is precisely A/B testing? First, you will try different variations in your Facebook ad copy to test which is more appealing to your audience.

Take a look here. In the first stage, you have chosen three different images for your ad. And in the second stage, you have chosen three other titles for every three images. This way, you can create nine different ad variations.

Finally, you have chosen various types of audience interest to add even more variations to your ads.

Now you will launch all these ads simultaneously to find the best-performing ads. If your monthly ad budget is $500, do not spend it on one ad variation; instead, split this fund among all these variations.

Let’s say you have created ten different ad variations; now allocate $50 for each ad. This way, you can spend $500 on ten ad variations. And after one month, you will find out which ad is performing best.

Quick Note: Do not expect to get results in the first month of the A/B test. It is a continuous process. For some organizations, it takes years to find out. So, be patient & keep doing it. It will increase your Facebook marketing performance over time.

Step 9: Monitor using analytics & Facebook pixel to maximize your effort.

For your regular Facebook post, you can use built-in analytics to measure the marketing performance based on several valuation metrics.

Check your audience insights to understand how your post is performing. How many likes, comments, and shares are you getting? How many people are talking about your brand using hashtags? How many inquiries are you getting through Facebook messenger every week?

These audience insights will help you measure your page’s overall performance.

Also, for your news feed ad, you can use this analytics feature; however, if you want to measure how your ad performs in the final stage, that is, on the landing page. You should use Facebook pixel.

You have to insert a piece of HTML code into your site; that’s it. After that, the Facebook pixel will track every visitor who has clicked on your ad & visited your landing page.

It is a very effective way to measure Facebook ad performance. For example, if your site receives 30,000 visitors to the landing page, you cannot tell which audience purchased your products. Is it your site’s regular audience or visitors from Facebook ads?

Though you can use Google Analytics to track your website visitors from other sources, the Facebook pixel is best for monitoring visitors from Facebook ads.

How to measure the performance using Facebook analytics?

Now we will talk about Facebook analytics. It is an essential part of your marketing campaign—monitor which part of your marketing strategy is working & which is not. Then tweak your strategy & test again. It is how every marketer in the world builds their marketing plan & gradually becomes successful.

It’s a lengthy trial & error process, do not expect to get the result on day 1.

Definition: Facebook analytics.

What is Facebook Analytics? Well, it is a dashboard full of metrics, i.e., likes, comments, shares, organic reach, paid reach, etc. By utilizing these data, you can get an idea of whether you are moving in the right direction to achieve your business goal or not.

For example, what type of engagements are you getting on your Facebook posts? Is it likes, comments, or shares? How many new followers is your page receiving daily, week, or month? How many clicks are you getting on your linked post?

Ultimately, how many sales do you make every day, week, or month along with the expenditure for your paid ads? This way, you can calculate your Facebook marketing ROI to understand whether you are in profit or loss.

Definition: Page insights & audience insights.

Page insights & audience insights are a part of Facebook Analytics.

Like your primary business website & blog, where you use Google Analytics to measure the performance, your Facebook business page already has a built-in analytics system to gauge the performance.

So, by using page insights, you can get an idea of how well your page performs.

For example, usually, you would check how many visitors your website is getting every month. However, in Facebook page insights, you will check how many followers your page receives monthly.

And what about audience insights?

You have seen the audience tab in Google Analytics, didn’t you? You use that audience data to understand various demographic information & interest, i.e., audience country, specific location, age, gender, etc. This information is priceless as it helps you to identify & craft more customized content for your audience.

Yes, Facebook analytics also provides you with information about the audience.

How to use Facebook analytics from your page?

First, visit your business page; then, on the left side column, you will see the “Insights” option. Click on it to get access to Facebook analytics.

You will see valuable metrics from here, just like Google analytics.

Let me give you a summary of these sections:

The first section is “Overview,” here; you will get a summary of your page performance.

Actions on page: how many activities are done by your audience within a specific period? Actions mean how many call-to-action buttons (CTA) & contact information, i.e., email, website URL, etc. clicked. Here, we set 7 days; you can change it.

Page views: just like your website receive traffic; here, page view means how many visitors have seen your page.

Page previews: whenever you hover your mouse on a Facebook page name, it shows a preview. Yes, this metric tells you how many previews your page got.

Page likes: how many likes have you received within this specific period? You can also see trend information, whether you received more likes than in the last period or not.

Reach: how many Facebook users have seen your post in their timelines? It is an important metric, just like website traffic.

Recommendation: how many Facebook users recommend your page to others? It’s like having a review from your audience.

Post engagements: how many total engagements you have received within this period? Here engagements mean, i.e., likes, comments, shares, link clicks, etc.

Message: how many inquiries have you received through messenger? It is a helpful metric, especially if you have a service-related business & your primary revenue comes through customer inquiry.

Page followers: how many new followers did your page get within this period?

The above information is just a summary of your overall page performance. You can download these data using “export data” from the top right corner.

If you want to learn more in-depth, I suggest you click on the left column. These tabs will break down the data & give you complete insights.

For example, if you click the “Likes” option on the left, you will see detailed information about your page likes.

This information helps you understand how well your page is performing.

For example, if you look at the “Net likes” tab, you can see how many new likes your page is getting and how many existing audiences dislike it. If you launched a Facebook ad campaign, then you will see paid likes & organic likes as well.

Thus, it will help you to identify how many likes you are getting naturally & how many through paid ads. Also, how many people dislike your page? Combining these metrics will show you the net likes you received within this period.

In the same way, if you click on the “reach” tab, you will see detailed information on your page reach for both paid & organic.

Engagement details are beneficial to realizing how your page content is performing. Just think for a minute, what is the point of getting hundreds of page likes every day if only a few people engage with your content?

You cannot make any profit unless your audience clicks on your link & visits your site to purchase your products.

It is your audience’s demographic information. Use this information to get an idea of country of origin, city, language, age & gender.

Recommended Reading: How Do I Create a Social Media Content Calendar? (Free Templates)

Why are audience insights vital for your marketing success?

For example, take a close look; most of the audience is from Canada. Thus, if you promote a service outside of Canada, then it won’t work. As most of your followers are from Canada, you must provide service based on that country.

The same goes for your audience’s age. Most of them are from 18-34; hence if you sell products that are not within this age range, your conversion will be minimal.

Also, gender plays a vital role; around 81% of your audiences are women; therefore, selling men’s products will reduce your performance drastically.

Check other tabs to learn more in-depth about your audience. For example, which devices are they using to access Facebook, whether desktop or mobile?

Check the events tab to see how many Facebook users joined. For example, if you plan for a seminar, use this events tab to get an idea of how many audiences you get from your Facebook page.

Do you see why Facebook analytics is critical to getting the most out of your marketing campaign?

First, you have to identify your target audience and then craft informative & attractive content & ads to drive traffic to your website. And also, do not forget to create an equally informative & engaging landing page; otherwise, everything you have done until now will fail.

Facebook group marketing: how to build a loyal community for your business?

Creating a Facebook group is more accessible than creating a page & do you know it is a very effective method to market your business? If you want a private & controlled community, then a Facebook group is better than a Facebook page.

Let me show you how you can do social media marketing using a Facebook group for entirely free.

Why is Facebook group a good choice for marketing your business?

Okay, this is a good question. Before I begin, I want you to know that the Facebook group is the updated version of its predecessor, “forum.” If Facebook is your first social media platform, you probably don’t know anything about Forum.

Once upon a time (before Facebook became popular), our grandfathers used to spend their time in the Forum just like we do on social media. Don’t think that, Forum is extinct from the earth. No, it still exists today, but social media, i.e., Facebook and Twitter, triumph over it.

Anyway, let’s make it short so that I can give you the answer quickly.

As you already know, opening a Facebook group is completely free. But, you may ask, opening a Facebook page is also free, so what is so special about it?

Well, there is a problem with the Facebook page’s “organic reach.” Do you know, even if you have 100K followers, your organic reach will be 20-30K at best? Yap, it’s correct. So, you will have no choice but to use Facebook paid ads to reach the rest of your followers.

However, the good news is – there is no such thing in the Facebook group. So if you have over 500K group members, your post will reach all of them. Besides, you can send them messages personally or within a group.

How to create a Facebook group on a business page?

I will show you how to create a Facebook group under your business page. You can do this either two way.

• Create a group from your profile & link later with your business page.
• Create a group directly from your business page.

Don’t worry; both are the same; it’s just one way or another.

If you want to create a group from your Facebook page, then visit your page first, then click on the “More” button, then on the “Group.”

It will open a new tab. Click on the “Link Group” button.

Now select a group you must create before linking with your business page. That’s it; you are done.

If you haven’t created a group before, read further, and I will show you how to do it.

To create a group from your profile, click on the “Create” + button, then click on the group option to begin.

It is the same as creating a Facebook page. On the left side, type a name for your group. Choose privacy to either public or private. Then invite some of your colleagues or friends. Then click on the create button. You can preview your group by clicking on the icon on the right side.

Congratulations, you have created a Facebook group. It is as easy as 1-2-3.

Though you have created a group, your work is not finished. There are so many things to do. First, take a look at the left side control panel. It’s an admin tool to manage your group.

Pending posts: whenever one of your group members submits a post, it will show here as an awaiting post for approval. You can approve it or reject it by reviewing the post. It is a great way to prevent spamming in the group. Use it when your group becomes large & you are not closely related with most of the group members.

Post topics: if you or group members create a post topic, it will showcase here.

Scheduled posts: if you scheduled any post for a later date, it would show here.

Activity log: your group activity log will show here. If you approve a group member, publish a new post, accept a pending post, change your group rules, etc.

Group rules: this is where you will create your group rules. It’s like a “Terms & Conditions” page. The system will show these rules whenever someone wants to join your group. They have to accept it to submit a request to join.

Member-reported content: your group members can report to the admin. For example, if someone posted any hateful, spam, illegal, drag, etc., related content, then any group member can report it. This report will show up here.

Moderation alerts: you can create a “keyword” based alert system. For example, if you do not want to see adult-related content in your group, you can set an alert for keywords closely related to pornography. Then, once someone publishes a post or makes comments with those keywords, the system will give you signals.

Group quality: if your group does any Facebook group violation, it will show here.

Settings: click here to set up your group from scratch.

If you scroll down a bit, you will see a 4-step suggestion. Invite members, add a cover photo, add a description & publish a post. If you haven’t done this, you should do it now.

If you scroll down a little bit more, you will see more information about your group.

Membership: it’s a great way to control your group members. For instance, anyone can join your group without prior approval; however, if they want to publish a post, they will need your permission. This way, you don’t have to spend time approving member joining requests. Instead, let them join but control their post on the group.

Visitors: Like comments on your blog, anyone can publish a post on your Facebook group. However, you can control it by letting the admin approve those posts.

New tools: more options for you to control your group activities. Click on it to see for yourself.

Now, let’s go to settings to set up your group.

From here, you can set up your group if you haven’t already.

Name & description: change your group name & description from here.

Privacy: you can change it to public or private. A public group means anyone outside of Facebook (from search engines) can find this group & see all of its posts. Just like a website, blog, or Facebook page, all of your group posts & activities (likes, comments) can be seen by third parties. This option is great if you want more exposure.

A private group means only members can see all posts & activities. An outsider can only see the group name & descriptions. This option is great if you want more private discussions with your group members.

Hide group: this option will hide your entire group from the outside world. Only members can access this group while the outside world won’t know that this group even exists. This option is best if you want 100% secrecy.

Location: add your group location.

By using this option, you can customize your group.

Web address: change your group URL just like you did on your Facebook page. However, when you reach 5,000 members, you can no longer change your URL. So, keep this in mind.

Group color: change your group color.

Badges: you can choose several badges for your group members. Badges will show alongside the group members’ names.

• Admin: this badge is for group admin. They have complete control over the group.
• Moderator: this member has the authority to verify post & membership approval.
• New member: this badge is for a new member & it will show for two weeks.
• Rising star: This badge is for members whose posts received many engagements (likes, comments) from other group members.
• Visual storyteller: same as the rising start, but this one is for video & image posts.
• Conversation starter: same as before, but this time if someone’s post receives massive comments.
• Founding members: those members who helped this group right from the beginning by sharing posts, commenting, publishing, inviting members, etc.

Group affiliation: if you want to show an organization or member actively working on this group, use this feature.

Next, you will see more options to customize your group even more.

Group type: choose a category for your Facebook group.

Anonymous posting: if you choose this option, your group members can post without showing their names.

Mentorship: you can choose mentorship status for your group. If your group objective is to teach other members, then select this option.

Guide: you can set up a complete guide for your members.

Host Q&A: you can set up a Q&A for your group members.

Next, you should do – set up group rules.

Here you can create group rules for your members. Then, whenever someone wants to join, they have to read & accept these rules, just like a website’s Terms & Conditions.

Is it possible for Facebook group admins to make money?

I have heard this question from several of my clients. Well, the direct answer is no. But, in other cases, the answer will be yes.

If you ask me, “Can I use the Facebook group to make money?” the answer is yes. But, if you ask me, “Do Facebook groups pay admins?” the answer is no.

Now, let me clear this up for you. If you open a Facebook group & sell your products to your members, you can make money. However, there is no “buy” option in the Facebook group.

Thus, you can use this platform to showcase your products & negotiate with buyers. And if they agree with your terms, then both of you can arrange a 3rd party payment processor, i.e., PayPal, Skrill, debit/credit card, etc.

What is considered a large Facebook group?

There is no such thing in the first place. I have seen Facebook groups with millions of members. But, in the end, it doesn’t matter how many group members you have; instead, you should focus on how many active group members you have in your Facebook group.

Though 50-100 members in a group are small, having over 5,000 members should be considered a large group.

Facebook Ad & live auctions: Estimate advertisement expenditure by yourself.

Until now, we have talked about Facebook’s marketing strategy, how to build a business page, what type of Facebook post we can use, how to make a strategy that works, and how to build a robust & loyal community by utilizing Facebook group, etc.

Yet, we still do not know the expenditure for this advertisement. Therefore, before you start your marketing campaign, it’s always a good idea to estimate your marketing cost. Only then can you build a robust marketing plan.

So, in this section, I will talk about Facebook’s marketing costs.

How to calculate Facebook ad cost?

It is probably the most common question among social media marketers. We all know how to place an ad on Facebook. However, we do not know the exact price.

The problem is – there is no exact price for a Facebook ad. Because it entirely depends on several significant factors.

• Audience
• Location
• Age
• Ad placement
• Ad Quality
• Industry

I can give you an average price set I have tested over the years. Here it is; take a look:

• Cost-per-click (CPC): ranging from $0.90 to $1.00
• Cost-per-impression (CPM): ranging from $6.50 to $8.00
• Cost-per-like (CPL): ranging from $0.95 to $1.15
• Cost-per-download (CPD): ranging from $5.00 to $6.00

Though you can decrease your ad budget, the overall cost will always be the same. I have tried to reduce my overall ad cost, but I spend roughly the same amount in the long run. Therefore, if you truly want to decrease your overall Facebook ad cost, you have to change your industry (niche), as it is one of the most significant factors that directly impact the price.

Highest CPC based on industry:

• Finance & Insurance: $3.77
• Consumer service: $3.08
• Home improvement: $2.93

Lowest CPC based on industry:

• Apparel: $0.45
• Travel & Hospitality: $0.63
• Retail: $0.70

Though average conversion rate is not directly related to cost. Here are some examples for you.

Highest conversion rate based on industry:

• Fitness: 14.29%
• Education: 13.58%
• Employment & job training: 11.73%

Lowest conversion rate based on industry:

• Industrial service: 0.71%
• Technology: 2.31%
• Travel & Hospitality: 2.82%

How does a Facebook ad auction work?

It could be the most surprising question for newbies & general people. Does Facebook have an auction for advertisement? Most Facebook marketers don’t even know that. But, honestly speaking, I didn’t even know for two years straight.

So, what is this Facebook ad auction? In simple terms, it is a built-in system regulating Facebook ads. And it has three main pillars.

• Bid
• Estimated action rate
• Quality & relevance

Let me clear this up for you with a nice example.

Instance 1: The first ad is about selling an item of furniture. The CPC bid for this ad is around $0.50. The ad quality is excellent & the Facebook algorithm estimated that the engagements (likes, comments, clicks, shares, etc.) would be decent.

Instance 2: The second ad is under the same category; however, its CPC bid is around $1 & ad quality is below the first one. The Facebook algorithm detects that the engagements will be below average.

Do you know what will happen now? Facebook will show the first ad more frequently than the first one. Why is that? Because even the 2nd ad bid highest, its ad quality is below that of the first one, which is vital to win an ad auction.

So, your ad quality is more important than your CPC bid. Even with a low budget, ads can quickly receive more exposure than big-budget ads. Because Facebook always cares about its audience & that’s why your ad quality & relevancy is vital than any other factors.

If you do not know yet, Google ad also works this way. Even with a low CPC, you can get more clicks if your ad quality is better than mine. Simple & clear.

Executive Summary

It is the ultimate guide for your social media marketing. Consider this is a live eBook. I will continuously update it and add more information. So, hopefully, every time, you will get up information.

However, social media marketing is a broad subject. Your task is enormous. Don’t ever think that your work is done & you beat your competitors. Try to keep improving by analyzing your audience’s every move. Keep them engaging as much as possible otherwise. You may become a victim of cruel social media algorithms.

Therefore, even after getting millions of followers, if you cannot maintain consistency & engagement with your followers. After a while, your business page may become a barren wasteland.

Every social media channel has their strength & weakness. Read this guide to learn & become a master of it.