Effective Facebook marketing can difficult to define; the product itself is ever-changing. Since the IPO, Facebook grew to one billion active monthly users, purchased WhatsApp and Oculus VR, and even began protecting advertisements from ad-blocking software.Today, the social platform hosts over 1 billion daily users, facilitates 2 billion searches per day, and helps send over 60 billion messages per day. And those stats have drawn advertisers to the social media giant, leading to soaring profits from advertising revenue.
So What’s Changing for Facebook in 2017?
Well, it’s going to be difficult for Facebook to keep growing. The market is massive, and close to 58% of all internet users ages 12+ have a profile. It’s hard to get much bigger. But we expect to see the following trends rise to prominence in 2017.
- Video Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Expanding Platforms
- Ecommerce options
- User-Created Content
How Can Your Business Adapt?
Social Media marketing, especially Facebook marketing, can be tricky. Some ideas sound great during the meeting but turn out to be (hopefully just) duds. Here are 3 solid tips for approaching the new year.
1. Assess Your Marketing Efforts
First and foremost, make sure to run a quick audit on your marketing efforts. If you outsource your marketing, make sure that you evaluate their performance, as well. If your engagement metrics don’t match expectations, you may want to consider if social advertising is right for your business (we have an article on that, too).
2. Quality, Not Quantity
If your company wants to continue a social media campaign, make sure to focus on quality, not quantity. Various studies show the need for long-tail keywords, and the same principle applies across digital marketing in general. Customers are more likely to look for specific items online – “super-cogged deluxe red widgets” – than they are to look for common items, like “widget”. Make sure that your message aims for quality, interested leads.
3. Encourage User-Created Content
User-created content has a huge upside, and Hubspot has a great tutorial on running one of these campaigns. It creates highly visible content that users can share with each other on their own Facebook pages. It takes the content creation away from the company and allows customers to take part in marketing efforts (talk about effective outsourcing). It’s also a way to get around Facebook’s declining organic outreach for businesses.
In the end, a strong Facebook page will capitalize on its user outreach. Use your company page to offer true value to your fans, and the fans will respond. Consistent quality content – be it blogs, videos, or infographics – is always the best option. If you would like more information on marketing with Facebook, please download our free ebook!
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