Facebook is still the defending champion of social networking sites and the number one platform for friends to connect and share online. Facebook is not just a place for friends to meet, it has become a place for companies to improve themselves through customer interaction and self-promotion.

In this article, we will introduce seven ways to use Facebook for marketing.

Whether you are a large company or a small local business, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool-it is a great place to let customers understand the situation, develop brand image and expand influence.

1. Get the most out of your Facebook Business Page

The Facebook Page is a great free corporate marketing tool. These pages allow companies to identify themselves, not only by listing products and services, but also by sharing links, images and posts on customizable pages to better understand the personality and characteristics of the company.

Your Facebook business page is a good place to develop your brand image and show your human side. Facebook is a place where you can relax a bit, don’t be afraid to be interesting.

Ultimately, you need to consider what your primary audience wants to see. Share anything from social media images, links, videos, etc., as long as it is relevant to your business and looks like your target audience will like it. Use Facebook Insights to see the content that resonates most with your audience.

In addition to funny videos of dogs walking in small shoes, shoe stores may also post an article to teach you how to accurately measure the size of your feet, what kind of insoles are suitable for different foot pain problems, and so on. The perfect combination of humor, educational resources, and posts about store updates is an ideal choice.

2. Facebook Ads – Classic Ads

Facebook offers its own forms of advertising through Facebook Ads, which appear in the sidebar of the Facebook website. These classic announcements are more specifically called market announcements. They include copied titles, images, and clickable links on Facebook pages, Facebook apps, or external websites.

Implementing Facebook Ads in your Facebook Marketing Strategy is one possible technique to increase likes or clicks on your website.

Facebook advertising features include:
– Demographic targeting based on age, location, education, and interest data of Facebook users.
– The ability to set the advertising budget.
– Ad test, can run multiple ad versions at the same time to compare ad layout and settings.
– Built-in advertising effectiveness measurement tool.
–  flexibility to advertise for your specific area, which is very suitable for local businesses.

Facebook does not publish information on its ad click-through rate, so it is difficult to know how successful Facebook ads are. In our Facebook Ads vs Google Display Ads infographic, we found that the click-through rate of Facebook Ads is usually 0.051%, and the average cost per click is US$0.80; however, based on targeting options and competition, advertising on Facebook for businesses The cost may vary greatly.

Using Facebook ads to increase your likes is very beneficial: once users like your page, they will essentially become followers of your company page, and their posts will appear in your news feed from Facebook.

This will cause more users to interact with you and your brand, forming a relationship that may eventually translate into future conversions.

3. Organizing Facebook contests

Holding Facebook contests, sweepstakes, or promotional activities is another marketing strategy of Facebook that can increase fans and brand awareness.

When running a Facebook contest, please note that the contest cannot be run through Facebook itself (this means you cannot request likes as an item, allow people to write responses in the comments, etc.) Businesses must use third-party applications to create their Facebook Contests, then direct users from your Facebook page to the application.

Presently, there are many paid tools to help you do this and some free tools. Shortstack provides many free competition templates, as long as your page has less than 2000 likes. Pagemodo also has a free option. Many third-party Facebook contest apps offer free versions, but your options for them are limited.

4. Promotional posts on Facebook

Promotional posts on Facebook allows Facebook page owners to pay a fixed fee for their personal Facebook posts to reach a certain number of users, thereby increasing the coverage and impression of a particular publication.

A company asked: Why do I have to pay to ensure that users who follow me can see my posts? If users like my page, they should always see my post in their news feed, right? The answer to this question is no, because it assumes that the user spends every moment of his life on the Facebook news feed. For the health and safety of your Facebook fans, we hope this is not true!

If your fans are viewing their news feed when you publish a story, they will most likely see it, but even so, there is no guarantee that their news feed will be overwhelmed by other posts. This is where the recommended post comes in-it increases your chances of being seen in the user’s news feed. Promoted Facebook posts will be shown to existing fans, and there is an additional option to contact fans’ friends.

Recommended posts are easy to set up-just click the button below any post on the page.
Although the flat rate simplifies the process, promotional posts lack the targeting options provided by other Facebook ads.

5. Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories is a Facebook ad that is used to show user interactions to users’ friends, such as Facebook likes.
Sponsored Stories seeks to use the concept of “word of mouth” marketing. If a user sees that their three friends like a certain page, they are more likely to follow it.

Although actions taken by friends who like the page or claim to offer offers are automatically posted to the user’s news feed, these posts can easily be ignored. Sponsored stories get preferred rankings and can appear in news sources and the right sidebar. Sponsor stories are also the only ad format available on mobile devices.

Sponsored Stories are not only for likes or offers; they can be used with any Facebook Open Graph application. If a friend has just installed Scramble With Friends on Facebook, Sponsored Stories can show the user that their friend has just played Scramble and invite them to “challenge”, “play together” or any similar variation.

Facebook claims that the click-through rate of sponsored stories is 46% higher than that of regular Facebook ads and the cost per click is 20% lower, which makes it a very important strategy for Facebook marketing.

You can easily create Facebook sponsor stories through the Facebook ad creation process. Open Graph sponsored stories with custom call-to-action phrases require advertisers to use a third-party provider.

6. Facebook Open Graph

Facebook Open Graph allows companies to use their applications to mark user actions. Billions of interactions are posted every day through the Facebook Open Graph.

Companies can create third-party applications that connect to users and post notifications on Facebook when users use the application to perform specific operations. Facebook’s Open Graph enables creative engagement options beyond the standard “likes” and “comments”. Posts can suggest users to “listen”, “try” and “read”, depending on whether the company is creative.

Almost every time a website or application asks a user to log into Facebook, it is related to the user’s connection to the Facebook Open Graph.
Spotify is a great example of how Facebook Open Graph can be a powerful Facebook marketing tool.

It all started with the Facebook login message which was followed by a permission request, which many users clicked on without thinking. In fact, I found that I have granted permission to 130 applications, 95% of which I don’t remember the reason behind.

After obtaining permission, Spotify can play the song that the user is listening to in the news of friends.
Please note that users have multiple options: they can like the song their friend is listening to, listen to the song themselves, or add it as a favorite on Spotify.

such open chart stocks are unique enough to stand out from the chaotic boom of user news.
Many Facebook games often use Facebook’s open chart operation to post notifications when users complete a level or obtain an achievement.

The behavior of Open Graph is classified as a new type of consumer story, leveraging the phenomenon of word-of-mouth. Open chart posts are more meaningful to users because they are generated by family and friends, not just a brand, which makes them the newest and best Facebook marketing tool.

7. Facebook Exchange (FBX)

Facebook Exchange enables advertisers to take advantage of ad redirects on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target audiences based on historical web data: When a user visits a product page on the retailer’s website but does not make a purchase, the retailer can use FBX to display ads for the same product on Facebook.

Although Facebook redirect ads have only been downgraded to the sidebar, these ads have recently been allowed to appear in news feeds. This is Facebook’s most valuable real estate. This is great news for FBX advertisers, because the response rate of feed ads is 10 to 50 times higher than the ad placement in the right column.

So how does Facebook swap ads work? The click-through rate of Facebook Exchange ads is 40% lower than other network redirect ads (such as those provided by the Google Display Network). Other retargeting ads are also cheaper, and the price per individual click is 80% lower than that of Facebook retargeting ads.

Nonetheless, FBX advertising is much cheaper in terms of cost per impression and cost per click, so the monetary gain depends on your business needs. As FBX announcements begin to appear in the news more frequently, these numbers may also change.