Facebook Marketing for Small Business
Facebook has not been on the good side of many small business owners and entrepreneurs that were not thrilled with the shift to the “pay-to-play” marketing model. More than 45 million business use Facebook’s Pages feature to market themselves online. For some small business owners it seems that every time they get the hang of digital marketing, the tools and landscape change again. However, the social network has revealed new tools for this demographic that should help generate revenue and make many entrepreneurs happy.
One of the new features revealed by Facebook is the new call-to-action button on the mobile app, directly below the cover photo. There are also now two new sections called “Shop” and “Services” to help people better understand what your business does. Down the line, there will also be “Buy” buttons to allow customers to shop your business directly from the Facebook app thanks to the social network’s partnership with Shopify. Although, Facebook does already have the send and receive money feature, which can be used to accept payment for services. For now, it’s recommended to keep this for only transactions between friends.
These are just the first of many changes to come over the next few weeks. Small business owners will see an updated mobile layout for their Page that will help users easily navigate between the different sections of your Post and see more of your content. Last month, Facebook improved private messaging for business Pages by adding the messaging function to advertisements beside the News Feed.
Right before this, Facebook changed how it counts cost-per-click (CPC) from being only clicking on an ad, liking, commenting, or sharing, in July the definition changed to include visiting another site, click the call-to-action, and more. The name of the game in digital marketing, and all marketing for that matter, is communication and that is what these new features are aiming for. A feature that is being rolled out soon allows businesses to save replies to private messages that you can use again and again. Saved messages for saving time aren’t a new business concept, but it is new for Facebook, where a lot of business communication has shifted for many small business.
These tools are free to users, which is cause to celebrate. Of course, this is still a revenue generating service for Facebook, as it can lead to an increase in ad sales. Small businesses can enjoy the increase in value of marketing on Facebook and investing in their digital marketing plans.
