You have great things to share. Your content offerings are informative, engaging, entertaining, and relevant. Now, all you need are new and exciting ways to get your content out to new audiences.
In order to do that, you may have been busy using the trendier social media platforms. The number of brands using Snapchat and Instagram has certainly skyrocketed over the past 12 months.
Chances are, you've gotten some great results using these platforms. However, it might be time to revisit an old standard.
1. Create Exclusive Facebook Groups
Facebook gives you the option to create groups that are invitation only. At first, doing this might seem counter-intuitive. After all, don't you want your content to be seen by more people? Why limit access?
There are a few reasons to do this. The first is that by creating an exclusive, invitation-only group you meet an important emotional need in those people. Everybody likes to feel as if they are a part of something special and exclusive.
Besides, what a great way to create a bit of a customer focus group. You invite people you have identified as VIP customers to join your group. There, you can gain insights from their thoughts and opinions.
Finally, you can share gated, 'for your eyes only' content through your private Facebook Groups. This can then be used to entice people to subscribe to your marketing emails or follow your blog in exchange for an invitation and access to that content.
2. Take Advantage of Facebook Advertising Opportunities
If you have been paying attention to the ads in your Facebook feed, you've probably noticed a steady shift in the focus of those ads. Many ads, including both sidebar and news feed ads, are becoming more content rich and less promotional.
If you haven't already, you might want to look into using the promoted posts feature. This, allows you to direct your posts to audience members whose profile information specifically matches that of your target personas.
All you have to do is create lots of engaging content to share on Facebook, then pick the post you want for promotion. Facebook provides easy instructions for using promoted posts as part of your content strategy.
3. Use Power Editor To Maximize Your Facebook Ad Campaigns
If you have reached enough growth that you are running multiple ad campaigns at one time, Facebook has created Power Editor specifically for brands in your position. This free editor allows you to manage ad campaigns, and to create and publish multiple ad sets at one time.
In addition to the capabilities already mentioned, this tool provides full campaign management functionality. This includes the ability to set budgets for each campaign and create objectives.
Whether you want to increase conversions, boost your audience, improve branding efforts, or simply to get more engagement this utility will help you to meet your goals.
4. Join Other Relevant Facebook Groups
Ultimately, the point of participating on Facebook is to increase engagement. You can do this by creating and sharing content in your own feed, but don't ignore the opportunity to participate in conversations on other Facebook groups.
You've (hopefully) taken the time to identify your target audience's interests. So, why not identify some Facebook groups that focus on those interests, and where your participation would be organic.
By joining in, you can find new opportunities to engage in conversations with people who are likely to be interested in your message.
5. Reach Your Audience With Live Streaming
Facebook has done quite a bit in the last several months that make content marketing prospects on that platform quite exciting.
The development that has gotten the most attention by far is Facebook Live. This is the ability to stream live videos directly to your audience through Facebook.
Brands are using this to take viewers along as they attend events, to hold question and answer sessions, and to put on product demonstrations. Many are even taking direct sales parties to a new level.
Now, instead of selling cosmetics, jewelry, candles, and other items to people in their homes, direct marketers are using live streaming to reach audience members worldwide.
6. Never Dismiss the Importance of Well-Written Content
There are no new tools that can override the importance of creating and curating well-written content. This is something that simply cannot be replaced.
Great content is highly visual, free-form embarrassing errors, and is written in a way that is most appealing to your audience.
There are several content writing tools that can help ensure that the content you publish meets the highest quality standards. Grammarly and Hemingway, are two excellent writing tools. Then there are tools like Canva that you can use to add visuals to your content.
In the case that you find yourself with a content backlog, you might consider using a professional content writing service for editing and proofreading.
See Also: Tips and Tools To Become An Effective Content Marketing Writer
7. Curate Content With Your Insights
If you are an active user of Facebook's share button, make sure you aren't making two key mistakes.
- First, never share anything without giving your thoughts. Facebook asks if you have anything to say. Take them up on that. After all, why take the time to share something if you aren't going to say something that will create engagement.
- Next, put some thought into what you say. Single word comments such as 'funny' or 'adorable' aren't going to compel people to comment or share.
For a great example of content curation done right, consider following Star Trek actor George Takei. He's created a signature technique of combining what he curates on Facebook with a pun. This gives his followers one more element with which they can engage.
8. Check Out Facebook's Instant Articles
How would you like your blog and other content to feed directly to the RSS feeds of potential customers. You can make this happen by signing up for Instant Articles .
This feature was initially limited to a handful of big name news outlets and brands. Now, anybody can publish articles through Instant Articles.
All it takes is signing up, sending some sample articles for approval, and making any required changes. Then, once you are cleared for taking off, you can start publishing articles that will then be streamed to subscriber's newsfeeds.
See Also: Connecting WordPress RSS Feeds to Social Networks
9. Encourage Your Followers to Share their Thoughts, Images and Stories
Other platforms might be trending right now, but there is no denying that Facebook has cemented itself as a bit of a flagship location for social media activity.
Wherever else your audience might be, you can be sure that the majority of them are participating on Facebook. This makes this a great place to hit your followers up for some great user generated content.
10. Learn Everything You Can From Facebook Insights
Facebook Insights are the platform's own analytics tool. Take advantage of this free resource to learn as much as you can about what is working for you on Facebook and what is not.
You'll learn which content is receiving likes and shares and which has largely been ignored. You can use this information and other data to help drive your Facebook content marketing strategy in the future.
Conclusion
If you've been ignoring Facebook in favor of other, trendier platforms, it might be time to revisit this old classic.
Facebook has done some respectable work in creating new opportunities for brands to get their messages out to audiences both new and old. By taking advantage of these and dusting off some tried and true methods, you might just find that Facebook can add new life to your content marketing efforts.