5 Smart Facebook Marketing Ploys You May Not Have Tried

Smart Facebook Marketing Ploys

For many entrepreneurs and freelancers, Facebook marketing begins with establishing a simple Page, and possibly buying a few ads or “sponsored stories.” Facebook, however, is continually rolling out new products for its business users, and keeping your brand at the cutting edge means that you should pay attention to these as they emerge.

1. Use hashtags

Recently introduced to Facebook, hashtags create a clickable link that will allow your business page to show up in a search for that key word, even outside your network. This simple indexing functionality has been largely responsible for making Twitter as powerful and popular as it is, and now Facebook users who make use of them have the same fresh opportunity for discovering what you have to offer. New worlds in creative job placement are suddenly possible through the strategic use of hashtags.

2. Integrate Facebook Wi-Fi Check-ins for your brick-and-mortar business

In recent years, Facebook has been experimenting with various methods of integrating geographic locations into its Pages. Its newest approach involves a partnership with Cisco systems, in which physical business outlets which provide free Wi-Fi for their customers now ask those customers to “check in” to the business via their Facebook profiles. The incentive is that it avoids the need for a customer to wait in line to learn a long Wi-Fi password, since the Facebook check-in makes that unnecessary.

3. Use Social Shopping

With an app like Easy Social Shop, you can import your entire storefront, including every product, from eBay, Etsy, or Amazon. Your customers can click on the products they want to buy, and then be automatically transferred back to your actual storefront to transact the sale. (They don’t give any financial information at your Facebook page.) They can, however, share what they’re buying with their entire Facebook Friends network, and you can use Facebook’s powerful functionality to let other users see what people are buying on your site. This blend of social media and shopping allows your potential customers to click on a product image and ask their network of friends to help them choose which color, style, etc. would suit them best. Furthermore, Easy Social Shop allows you to promote specific products on your Facebook Page’s Timeline.

4. Give users a way to do good in the world

The warm feelings that result from helping others will become associated with your brand. There are a couple ways to use “altruism marketing.” One is to set aside some of your marketing budget, and simply make an offer to donate a set amount to a charity if a user Likes your page. You have to be careful not to create any type of offer that makes it appear that you are paying for Likes (which will rapidly get you penalized by Facebook), but you won’t run this risk if you’re making donations to a third party. Another way to involve your users is to auction off one of your products, with the winning bidder’s contribution going to a charitable cause. You can even run a vote ahead of the auction to let your users choose the charity they want to support!

5. Take advantage of Facebook’s new partnership with Shutterstock.

Now businesses can choose from millions of professional, visually compelling Shutterstock photos to use in their Facebook ads at no extra charge. The images all come with free commercial licensing, and they are fully accessible and searchable from within Facebook’s ad creation tool. Facebook has also rolled out a new way to create multiple ads at once, using different images and analytic feedback for each ad, so a creative art director can conduct tests to see which image is the most effective.

Artisan Talent has a pool of web design and marketing professionals who can answer your questions and integrate the freshest facebook marketing practices into your online presence. Contact us today to learn more.