How to Attract Customers with Facebook (2024)

Every brand on Facebookis on Facebook for onereason – to (eventually) getmore business. Getting morebusiness from Facebookmeans different things todifferent types ofbusinesses, though, whichmeans different brands will have differentobjectives, such as:

• Driving in-store sales;
• Increasing online sales;
• Launching a newproduct;
• Building awareness; or
• Promoting a mobileapp.

This guide will primarily behelpful for businesses thatwant to generate leads oronline sales. Even with theseobjectives in mind, thereare a few stepping stonesthat precede turning fansinto customers. If you wantcustomers you have to first:

1. Build an audience;
2. Drive inbound traffic toyour website;
3. Turn that traffic intoqualified leads; andthen
4. Nurture those leadsinto customers.

This guide will give you aplaybook for doing justthat. First we’ll talk abouthow to build an audience,and then we’ll dive intohow you get that audience tohead on over to your websitewhere they can actually dobusiness with you.

To grow your Facebook fanbase, you need to makeyour Page and your posts asdiscoverable as possible bothonline and off. No one canconnect with you onFacebook if they don’t knowyou exist, so let’s talk about5 ways to get noticed.

After you’ve created your Facebook page, make sure the Aboutsection of your Page includes:

• An overview of what your business has to offer;
• A link to your website; and
• Any other information that will help prospects understand yourbusiness better.

Chances are you already have existing customers, friends, andfamily who would be more than willing to connect with your businesson Facebook if you simply asked them to. Whether in person, via email,or via Facebook, try asking for Likes (fans) and positive reviews.Within the Page Manager section of your page under the “BuildAudience” menu, you have the option to invite your personalFacebook friends to like the page, share your page with your Facebook friendsthrough the News Feed, orupload a list of email contactsto encourage existingcontacts to connect. Useone or more of the threeoptions as long as you’recautious about overpromotingto uninterestedconnections.

Making your Facebook Page as discoverable as possible includespromoting your Facebook presence using what online and offlinemarketing channels you already have, and removing any barriers forexisting contacts to like your Page. If you have a physical storefront,place stickers in your front windows promoting your Page andinclude your Facebook URL on your receipts. If you have a website, blog, or emailnewsletter, utilizeFacebook’s varioussocial plugins – especiallythe Like Button or Like Box– to get people to like yourPage on the spot andwithout having to headover to Facebook.com.

Creating value really comes into play with the content you create andshare with your fans and how you interact with them (more on thatlater). If you’re in tune with your buyer personas, you’ll have a goodidea what types of content to publish. If not, or if you just need someinspiration, consider spending a week taking note of anything inyour own News Feed that compels you click, comment, or share.What inspired you? Use your observations to inform future posts.

One of the ad types that Facebook offers is a “Page Like Ad” thatcontains a call-to-action to “Like Page,” and can appear in the NewsFeed as a page post or as a display ad on the right hand column ofthe News Feed. If you’ve exhausted your existing contacts and wantto reach people who don’t know about your Page yet, you can useFacebook’s granular targeting capabilities to reach your ideal buyerpersona(s) and spur audience growth.

To give you an idea ofwhat a “Page Like Ad”looks like in the NewsFeed, here’s an examplefrom Twix. (We’ll also talkmore about how to bolsteryour organic Facebookefforts with ads later).

We’re a B2B all-in-one marketing software company that – withoutmagic – has amassed nearly 700,000 Facebook fans and generatednearly 200,000 leads from Facebook. We thrive on creating contentthat makes the jobs of marketers easier, so when it comes toFacebook, we focus first on creating useful content (like blog posts,presentations, templates, and ebooks) that our audience of marketerswill find valuable.

All this content creation arms our social media manager with alibrary of resources to promote in unique ways on Facebook.

For example, she createsPage posts that hone in ona specific point from a longerpiece of content, or givesour audience an idea ofwhat they’ll learn from it.

Most times this meanscreating custom images inPowerPoint or Photoshopso we can catch aprospect’s eye whenthey’re perusing theirNews Feed.

You see, our Facebook posts are the digital breadcrumbs that drawour audience down a trail toward a much more substantial piece ofcontent they can download after filling out a form.

We use Facebook to drivetraffic to landing pageswhere we can convertvisitors into leads.

Without creating content aimed at solving problems for marketers,we'd simply have nothing interesting to post or advertise onFacebook, and we sure as heck wouldn't generate any leads!

To attract customers, youcan’t only post sales-drivencontent.It’s true. Here’s why.

The key to generating leads on Facebook is topost a variety of content that aligns with goalsother than generating leads or driving sales.

Aiming for “fluffier” goals likereach, awareness, buzz,customer satisfaction, andengagement (comments,likes, shares) are just asimportant as rigid lead gen orsales goals. They’re thestepping stones to what youreally want: more business.

In fact, it’s vital to aim first toget your audience to interactwith your posts. That’s why abalance of direct and indirectlead gen content is soimportant. Without eyeballs,you can’t get clicks, whichmeans you can’t get traffic,leads, or customers!

• Provides members of our audiencewith a value proposition
• Has a clear call-to-action:“download”
• Contains a short URL linking to alanding page with a form

• Does not have a clear call-to-action
• Does not contain a short URLlinking to a landing page with aform

If we only published postsabout registering for asoftware demo, signing upfor a trial, or getting aninbound marketingassessment (our 3 mostdesired conversion actions),we’d totally bore our fan base.

When we post product-focused content with sales-focusedcalls-to-action, we may generate qualified leads, but we onlygenerate a handful. When we post educational or entertainingcontent about inbound marketing as a whole, we generate tonsof leads, because we reach more people, and give ourselvesthe opportunity to warm them up to the idea of doing businesswith us without shoving our software down their throats.”

- Brittany Leaning,Social Media Manager, HubSpot

Although our ultimate goal on Facebook is to generate leads thatbecome customers, we have immediate engagement goals for eachpost we publish, and those goals vary. Sometimes we really wantto encourage comments because we want feedback. Other times,we may strive to for a high volume of shares because we want aparticular message to spread as far and wide as possible.

The point is, by striving for comments, likes, and shares, we garnermore visibility in the Facebook News Feed, which ultimatelyincreases our chances for clickthroughs (traffic) and conversions(generated leads). You need leads to get customers

Believe it or not, some ofour most successfulposts in terms ofinteraction were notdirect lead gen posts.

Let’s examine theapproach behind someof HubSpot’s topperforming Page posts,shall we?

Here’s another little secret: No matter what we’re trying tocommunicate, we try to do it visually. If our social media managerdoesn’t have a pre-made image to work with, she’ll spend the timecreating one.

We may not always besure what we’re postingwill incite the interactionwe desire, but one thingcan be sure of is we’rebetter off by posting aphoto as opposed to alink, video, or plain ol’status update.

In a 30-day experiment, wefound that the clickthroughrate of posts containingphotos is 128% higher thanthe CTR of postscontaining videos or links.

We also know photos onFacebook generate 53%more Likes than theaverage post.

1. A custom-designed 960 x 960 pixel image
2. A brief text caption
3. A short URL to a landing page

Rarely do we ever publish a post without an image. In any given90 days, 77% of all posts we published contain a photo on average.

Unfortunately, there’sno longer such a thing as a freelunch on Facebook.Marketers used to be ableto reach the majority oftheir fans for free (withoutadvertising), but that’schanging.

Facebook is evolving tobecome more of a paidmarketing platform than anorganic one. A brand’s abilityto reach their fan baseorganically has diminishedas more brands and contentcompete to appear in users’News Feeds.

At any given moment, thereare approximately 1,500News Feed storiescompeting against oneanother. Facebook’salgorithm prioritizes only about300 – one fifth – of them. Thebrands that want to getnoticed have to pay to play.

Organic reach wasn’t always so miniscule, but it’s been heading this direction forawhile. In late 2012, the industry found out only about 16% of a Facebook page’sfans would see a post from that page. In October 2013, that number dropped toabout 12%. In February 2014, it was 6%, and as little as 2% for pages having over500,000 fans. Of course, this has upset many marketers who already paid for adsto grow their fan base, thinking they’d be able to broadcast to those fans for free.

The reality is that Facebook is a business just like yours, and the companyencourages marketers to look at their fan bases as a way to make paidadvertising more effective rather than using it as a free broadcast channel.Additionally, Facebook says you should assume organic reach will eventuallyarrive at zero. So, if you really want to reach your target audience on Facebook,you’ll need to supplement your organic efforts with some paid advertising.

The people who like your page already know about you, but that doesn’t meanthey’re ideal future customers. Even though HubSpot is approaching 700,000fans, only a fraction of those people actually have the need and authority to buyour all-in-one software. That’s why we pay to reach marketers who fit our targetand are not yet connected to our page using Facebook Page Post Link Ads.

If you’re trying to drive traffic, leads, and customers, you probably want toadvertise posts that contain a link back to your website, but you can also createdifferent types of ads depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.With Facebook Ads, you can …

• Grow your audiencethrough new ‘Likes;’
• Drive traffic to your site;
• Drive people in-store witha redeemable offer;
• Drive event attendance;
• Create awareness with animage or video; and
• Drive installs of an app.

Did you know Facebook actually lets you create unpublished posts to test yourmessaging? These “dark posts” appear in the News Feed, but not on yourFacebook Page. Since these “dark posts” don’t appear on your Page, you cancreate as many targeted ads as you like to determine which ad copy andcreative resonates best without disturbing your entire fan base. To learn more about all ofFacebook’s various adtypes and the appropriatespecs for each, check outthe latest Facebook AdsProduct Guide.

Remember To:

• Focus on helping people. B2B is still P2P – person to person.
• Create content that makes your target audience’s job easier. Then,create interesting posts to promote that content on Facebook.
• Post a balance of direct and indirect lead gen content.
• Have an engagement goal for each post.
• Tell your audience what to do by including a clear call-to-action in yourposts.
• Experiment. Some of our most engaging posts were unexpected.
• Create tracking URLs so you can measure the clicks and leads yourcontent generates.
• Take the time to create great visuals. It pays off in engagement andclickthrough rates
• Ensure landing pages are optimized with appealing copy, visuals, andclear calls-to-action.
• Keep post copy short and sweet – ideally fewer than 90 characters.
• Utilize Facebook Advertising, including “dark posts” to test and boosteffective lead gen content.