How To Expand Reach on Facebook
For better or worse, Facebook has become an intrinsic part of millions of lives worldwide. Many people spend hours upon hours scrolling, sharing, and messaging on their phones, tablets and computers.
Thanks to this captive audience, Facebook has become one of the best tools businesses have to get their name out there. The right Facebook post in the right position can get your business more local customers than a thousand ads in the local paper.
With this in mind, it’s understandable that you may want to use Facebook to promote your own business. If you’re not sure how to reach more customers on Facebook, this is the blog for you. We’ll be exploring a number of different ways you can use Facebook to the advantage of your business.
What is Facebook?
Facebook is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world with over 2 billion active users [1]. It was founded by a university student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 as a university-exclusive website, Facebook soon opened up its platform to anyone over 13 with a valid email address in 2006.
In October 2021, Facebook’s parent company Facebook, Inc changed its name to Meta Platforms. While Facebook may be considered the jewel in the centre of Meta’s crown, it also owns the social media photo-sharing platform Instagram and the popular messaging app WhatsApp.
“Reach” on Facebook may seem like a nebulous, unknowable concept but it’s actually very simple. It refers to the number of people your content gets put in front of. This essentially means that “reach” is defined by the number of eyes on your business.
Ways to increase your reach
There are a near-infinite number of ways to improve your online presence but Facebook is a different animal altogether. There are several tried and tested methods that we’ll use to explain how to attract customers on Facebook.
Finetune your content
Reaching your target audience on social media isn’t just a case of writing relevant copy and taking nice pictures. A big mistake many small business owners make is using the same caption and picture for all their socials. There is a certain unspoken rhythm and format to Facebook posts that doesn’t work on other social media platforms.
When you’re creating your content, be sure to remember the following guidelines:
- Write unique captions - Think about what you want to get across and the personality of your business.
- Use external links sparingly - Facebook favours posts that make users stay on the site as long as possible. Try to create content that keeps users engaged such as short videos or informative images.
- Add a call to action to posts - Call to action (CTA) encourage users to engage with content and share your posts. A page with a lot of comments and shares will have more reach than one without.
These guidelines will not only improve your organic reach on Facebook, but will also help to improve the overall quality of your content and retain customer attention.
Schedule for success
How often do you post on your page? If you’re only posting once every couple of days, you may be missing out on opportunities to get more local customers. Successful Facebook pages tend to post daily and while this may seem intimidating, it can be quite easy with the right preparation.
At the beginning of the week, take some time to sit down and work out a daily schedule for your content. Make you mention any promotions, events, or sales you may be having. You can use the Facebook Creator Studio [2] to quickly schedule content.
Keeping a schedule can drastically increase engagement with your business. Consistent quality content will keep your customers engaged and let the Facebook algorithm know that your is active which serves to help your posts reach more people.
Embrace video and Facebook Live
Facebook, as a rule, is very interested in video content. Videos encourage active participation on the part of consumers and keeps them on Facebook longer than images and text. No wonder the algorithm usually opts to push video content to the top of the Newsfeed.
Nowadays everyone with a smartphone can produce near-professional video content. Watch a few YouTube videos on the basics of shooting and editing videos and experiment with the content. If you don’t have time and you have the money, it can be worth it to hire a local video production company to shoot some promo for you.
Live video is also very popular at the moment and your business can take advantage of this. If you’re launching a new product or service, why not explain them to your audience over Facebook Live? If there’s an event happening at your business, ask one of your employees to cover it over Facebook Live.
The advent of ads
Facebooks ads are perhaps your greatest tool in the fight for the public’s attention. In the question of how to reach more customers online, a well-placed ad is incredibly important. These ads can act as great pieces of local marketing and reach beyond your immediate area.
Facebook marketing ads can be tuned to reach the exact audience you’re aiming for so it’s important you get them right. Spend some time thinking about what appeals to your target market and ensure that the copy and image/video attached is absolutely perfect. Try your best to impress potential customers.
An unbeatable POS solution
Now that you’ve extended your reach on Facebook, it is important to make sure your business has a POS that can handle all the new customers you’ll have to coming through. The Epos Now Complete Solution offers incredible benefits to your business including:
- Insightful sales reports
- Simple product management and stock checks
- Integrations with leading retail and hospitality apps
- Expert support available 24/7
If you’re interested in seeing how Epos Now could help your business, get in touch below.