In the first installment of our Social Media Marketing series, Brent Haeseker and our social media specialist, Veronica Buhl, address the best methods of marketing through Facebook. Some of the topics covered include boosted posts, contests, and Facebook Live.
Full Transcription:
Brent Haeseker: Hi this is Brent Haeseker, I’m a Web site consultant here at NetSource Technologies. I wanted to give you a quick introduction to this video and let you know that some of the material that was in the video got censored out, we think by Facebook because we were just talking about some things that were happening in the news with Facebook and how it was impacting some of our customers who have third party tie ins to Facebook. For example a customer that their calendar ties into Facebook and pulls Facebook information off their Facebook Calendar into their website. Suddenly wasn’t working and we think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Facebook’s under a lot of scrutiny right now because when this video was recorded which is April 12th 2018. This is a week that Facebook is under a lot of scrutiny. And Mark Zuckerberg is getting hammered by Congress this week so we think because they’re under so much scrutiny. They’re kind of restricting their data even for simple things like calendar apps and whatnot. They’re really restricting their data. So we wanted to make sure customers were aware of why some of these things were happening and also letting our customers know that hey we’re telling you some great information on marketing on Facebook. But some of this stuff might be subject to change because Facebook is under so much scrutiny they might change some of their rules. So we just wanted to let our customers know that and us pointing that out was actual information in the video that got cut out of the video when we listened back to it after we did the live recording. We’re like “Well that’s kind of weird. It looks like Facebook censored us. So I guess they didn’t want us talking about that. But this is the video that we’re putting on YouTube. So we just wanted to explain why there’s that awkward cut about a minute or so into the video when me and Veronica are talking about Facebook but all the information the video is great. Veronica shared a lot of excellent information. So let’s go ahead and start watching it.
Brent Haeseker: Hi I’m Brent Haeseker with NetSource technologies and I’m here today with Veronica Buhl who is our social media specialist here at NetSource and we’re beginning a weekly series that we’re going to do for a few weeks. Basically we’re going to go through all the different social media services that are out here. So each week we’ll focus on a different social media platform so we can give you information about it, demographics on it. How you can use the market your business. So today we’re going to start off with Facebook which is obviously the biggest one out there. It seems like the obvious choice to start off with and it’s I mean there’s billions of people using Facebook. Everybody knows what it is. We won’t give you an overview of what Facebook is I’m sure you already know it. And since we’re also recording video on Facebook live so if you’re watching this video on Facebook Live and obviously you know Facebook is because you’re using it right now. If you’re watching me on YouTube then you probably still know what FaceBook is. So we won’t give you that general overview, we’ll just get right to the meat and potatoes. Real quick though, before we do. We all know that Facebook as the time this video is being filmed. Facebook is under a lot of scrutiny right now. So they’re getting actually Mark Zuckerberg is getting hammered in Congress right now.
Veronica Buhl: It’s one of those platforms that if you’re going to do social media at all and you’re only going to do one thing, definitely Facebook is the way to go. A couple of exceptions to that rule of course. There’s always some exceptions to the rules. But for the most part generally everybody.
Brent Haeseker: Well tell us a little bit about the demographic breakdown of Facebook. Who’s using it Obviously we know just about everyone’s using it. But how does those demographics really break down so somebody who’s a marketer and they’re trying to target particular people. What is some of that demographic data that they can use in determining how they use Facebook.
Veronica Buhl: It’s pretty interesting. The demographics generally stand as about 83 percent of women use Facebook and 75 percent of men. So you’ve got you know women are on there more than men. 88 percent of the people who use Facebook are within that age range of 18 to 29 and 84 percent are between 30 and 49. The interesting thing is that the demographic of people 65 and up it’s only sixty two percent of the population that uses Facebook. That is in that age range. But what’s interesting to note is that this is the social platform that age range uses the most.
Veronica Buhl: Okay so 62 percent of people over the age of 65 are using Facebook. Yes. They don’t use the other platforms nearly as much. Just to give you a comparison of that demographic of 65 and over. Only 8 percent of them use Instagram. Only 10 percent of them use Twitter. Twenty percent use LinkedIn and 16 percent use Pinterest. So it’s quite obvious that if you want to reach that demographic in your business if that’s who you’re after that Facebook is the place that you want to be.
Brent Haeseker: So I mean out of all those I think you said it was LinkedIn was 20 percent. That was I think the highest one. Yes. So 20 percent versus 62. That’s quite a difference obviously. If you want to reach that 65 and older crowd Facebook is the best way to do it. OK. Not Twitter because that 10 percent, of course that’s still millions of people, but compared to 62, that’s the way to go.
Veronica Buhl: So if you want to get the most bang for your buck it’s definitely Facebook to get that.
Brent Haeseker: I actually would have thought the Pinterest number would have been a little bit higher than that.
Veronica Buhl: I would have too, but no, statistics don’t show that.
Brent Haeseker: Any other good demographics we should know about.
Veronica Buhl: Yes. Eighty five percent of users that use Facebook are actually outside of the United States. So if your business is trying to get international exposure or something it’s a good place to start as well. So generally knowing these facts kind of helps you know where to go when you’re trying to advertise. And then the other important thing to know is thirty two percent of people on Facebook interact with brands on Facebook on a regular basis meaning daily they like the businesses that they’re following.
Brent Haeseker: They’re more regularly going back to the platform?
Veronica Buhl: Even though it was built for friends and family. A good majority of people go on there to follow brands that they like and interact with them. So it’s definitely the place to reach.
Brent Haeseker: I see some stats here that every minute on Facebook. There’s 400 new users that sign up so that’s pretty impressive. Three hundred and seventeen thousand status updates every minute and 54000 shared links so it’s definitely a great platform to get the word out and to get people interacting with with your brand. Tell us a little bit about what all this means when we take all this data and we add it all up. What does it mean to the average person out there who’s trying to market their business?
Veronica Buhl: What it all comes down to is that on Facebook you can reach a wide variety of the population. So it’s definitely a good place to begin when you’re marketing your brand. I always tell people if you only get to pick one social media platform to advertise on or to try to reach your demographic and your brand’s followers. Facebook is the greatest place to start. There’s more interaction there than any other place and the other social media platforms have their demographics too that they go to So there’s exceptions to that rule obviously. One of the exceptions is if you’re a recruiter or a corporation trying to find talent then you may be more apt to LinkedIn which we’ll talk about in another video right. But overall Facebook it reaches a vast variety of people and brands. And I think it’s a great place to start for everybody.
Brent Haeseker: The most diversity is on Facebook. And what about some of the marketing tools that Facebook provides marketers to be able to reach all these people because obviously you’re not just going to go on Facebook and just post stuff on your page. What are some of the additional tools that you can use that Facebook offers to people that reach customers?
Veronica Buhl: First of all, you have the ability to make a page for your business.
Brent Haeseker: Okay I kind of got ahead of you, I’m sorry.
Veronica Buhl: People get confused about, especially new businesses they get confused between the personal profile and a business page.
Brent Haeseker: And I do see that a lot. I’ll talk to potential customers and talk to them about their Facebook marketing and I’ll see that they’re using their personal profile and they’ll have that set up as a business name under a personal profile and I tell them hey that’s not a good thing to do. Tell us a little bit about why that’s such a bad idea.
Veronica Buhl: Well there’s many reasons. First of all Facebook does not like when you use your personal profile to push your brand or your business. If they see you doing that they can shut your page down. I’ve not seen that happen but I know it can happen. There’s other reasons not to use your personal profile as your business page as well. One is that you have a limit of five thousand friends that you can have on your personal page. Once you reach that limit, if you use your page as a business profile once you reach that limit one you cannot attract any more people following you. And 2 if you wanted to continue your business you’re going to have to switch over to a business page and you will lose all of those followers because trying to get those people to come over and like all of those people who come over and like your new page is virtually impossible.
Brent Haeseker: People just aren’t going to do that. They’re going to be like “Yea, whatever OK moving on moving on, next.”.
Veronica Buhl: The other thing is that when you get a like on a page on a business page it’s somebody saying I like you and then they just click and You’ve got them. In order to get somebody to like your personal page you have to actually have a relationship with them already. So they have to know who you are ask to like the page. You have to reciprocate. It’s a different process. So it’s always best to keep personal and business separate So we always recommend that if you want to have a business page, Facebook allows you to have as many business pages as you possibly want. There’s no limitation to how many you can have. So once you have a personal page you can just go in and set up a page for your business.
Brent Haeseker: Now you can set up as many pages as you want with Facebook. Is there some value to having more than one Facebook page for a business? Is there a time when somebody might actually have multiple pages for business.
Veronica Buhl: Yes. A good way a good thing for doing that is that sometimes businesses have several brands. They appeal to different industries. They may have a section of their business that is you know headed towards that direction and another section that’s headed towards this direction and in that case you might want to have two brand pages two business pages so that you could market directly to the correct customer. And you can have as many of those as you want it may be you have a bunch of products and each product needs it’s own page. So there’s no limit to how many you can have. I would say you know don’t off the cuff go crazy and have a billion pages because they’re hard to upkeep and they can water down your efforts and stuff.
Brent Haeseker: We could probably list pros and cons on a case by case basis for each particular customer. Or for whatever you’re trying to do from a branding standpoint obviously the more pages though that you’re setting up the more you have to manage and push those pages and get followers and everything else. So you’re multiplying your effort but in some cases it might make sense again based on your particular business model.
Veronica Buhl: If you have enough content also you don’t want to set up a page and never post anything to it because it won’t go anywhere. But definitely if you have distinct products or distinct demographics you’re going after you may want to have more than one.
Brent Haeseker: OK. OK. And yeah it’s interesting you mention the 5000 friend limit when you have a personal profile which that’s a heck of a lot of friends.
Veronica Buhl: But I’ve known a few that have reached that!
Brent Haeseker: I would like to have 5000 friends, I’m not quite there. But that might sound like a large number but really from a business standpoint that’s a cap and then you’re limiting how many people that you can actually market to through your page. So 5000 just puts that cap on there. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to limit yourself in that way. So in addition to all the other reasons you mentioned. Getting to where you’re not capped is a good reason for having a page. So now I think the question I was getting to a little earlier or actually we’ll hold off on that question. Let’s go. Well actually let’s get to that question. What other tools that Facebook gives you other than just posting to a page that you can use to market to potential customers.
Veronica Buhl: Well there’s Facebook Live, congratulations you’ve all made it. Facebook Live is a great way to market your business. You can use it many different ways you can use it to promote a product or to announce some big event or sale. Another great way to use it is sort of the way we’re using it right now to give tips and tricks and any information to your followers. It’s a really good way to have a one on one with your followers as well because you are live people can ask questions and they can be answered in real time. And it gives you that direct connection to your audience.
Brent Haeseker: Yesterday, me and Justin, another coworker here at NetSource a video on micro moments. And so again, one of the things about micro moments is, I could refer you back to that particular video, but it’s talking about having those educational chunks of information that are easily available to people online and how video plays into that, and “how-to” videos play into that. So a lot of what we’re doing here is that sort of “how-to,” like a “how-to” instructional video for people hey how do I market on Facebook. They might find this particular video so that’s an example of those micro moments and how all this stuff all ties in together so maybe I’ll post a link to that video as well in the description here on the Facebook video after we get finished here because a lot of these things that we talk about they all they all tie together. And then what are some of the other ways that you can utilize Facebook Live or or how can be useful to to a business?
Veronica Buhl: Like I said you can use it to announce a contest which is really nice you can announce the contest tell the rules how to join you know give all the details, dates, and all that stuff and then you could do another Facebook Live you know along the way to keep reminding people and you know showing them what they’ll win and stuff. And then at the end you can do announcing the winner live which is really exciting. Any time you have any kind of news about your company any exciting new things going on. It’s great to do a live video to announce those things. Behind the scenes things are great. You can do a tour of your business and you know catch your employees off guard.
Brent Haeseker: Be careful on the behind the scenes because it’s live. You want to make sure everyone knows in advance that you’re doing a behind the scenes Facebook live so just be on your best behavior.
Veronica Buhl: Exactly, but it’s a great way to show your followers what goes on in your business and it gives a personal touch. People when they get to see the people behind your business and how it’s run it gives them confidence because they now know who you are as opposed to just a brand or a logo that they see all the time.
Brent Haeseker: You’re not just you’re not just a logo. Right. You’re now actual people with real lives and you know smiling faces, hopefully. So you want to make sure that your employees are smiling on those days when you do those behind the scenes. But that really humanizes your company and allows people to really personally connect with you.
Veronica Buhl: And it’s also great to do Facebook live videos to ask your followers what they want, what they need from you. Because when it comes down to it, your business is not really doing it for you. You’re doing it for the people who need what you have. So you need to ask them, ask your audience in the videos. What can we do for you? What is the pain point that we’re not touching. Through these videos you can get real time information from them and they can type in their comments and ask questions and tell you what they want and you can either address them right then or you know come back with follow up videos or information to get them what they want. That makes everybody realize that they’re being heard which is very important.
Brent Haeseker: Anything else on videos or should we move to some of the other tools that Facebook offers?
Veronica Buhl: I think We covered videos pretty well.
Brent Haeseker: Well tell us a little bit then about paid ads. I don’t think a lot of people realize that you know in addition to being able to post on Facebook you can actually also advertise.
Veronica Buhl: Yes. Any post you put out there can be what we call boosted or that’s one way of doing it. And it’s just you pay for it you choose an audience that you want to appeal to. The same goes for just like a regular ad you can do an ad for anything, it can be a product, it could be for an event. It could just be for your business. You know Hey come see us here and the thing about doing paid ads and boosting posts. Is that it helps you reach people outside of your followers. Your followers still see it. But based on the type of people and the demographics that your business reaches. Facebook can reach out to other like minded people and it helps to expand your audience and get more coverage and more followers and hopefully more sales.
Brent Haeseker: That might be something that kind of gets a little bit impacted by what’s going on in Congress right now with Facebook. That’s one area where we might see some tweaking on what data demographics are available when you’re advertising. But Facebook gives you fantastic information to be able to go in and say I want to target this particular group of people, this age range that have this particular occupation or whatever. And you can drill down and say OK based on this budget Facebook will say we estimate you’ll reach this many people. And you can then adjust your budget accordingly and it gives you all kinds of feedback on how well that app performs. And like you said you also do boosted posts so those don’t just go out to the people that like your page they go out to everybody that fits those demographics.
Veronica Buhl: Yeah whatever demographics you choose, it will go to those type of people. So you can pick age ranges, you can pick areas around the United States or the world basically. So you can really pinpoint who’s seeing those ads to get the most effective results.
Brent Haeseker: And about a month or so ago we did a Facebook Live video on the algorithm change that FaceBook did back in January. We talked about how to kind of get past that and still be able to have content that gets posted that can reach people. But Facebook’s always making that more and more challenging. And so doing some paid ads is usually something that you’re going to have to do in order to be able to reach a lot of people on Facebook as they continue to make it harder and harder organically for your post to reach people. And a lot of people go,”Why are people not seeing my post if they’re following me and they like me?” That’s just because they like so many things, Facebook goes I can’t fit everything into that stream so we’ve got to curate it to some extent and just put in the stream the stuff that we think that person’s going to want to see at that particular point in time. Especially if they don’t go on Facebook that often they’ve got more and more stuff that gets backlogged that Facebook has to find spots in the stream for. But if you pay Facebook they’ll go “Ah, top of the list there!” So that’s how the facebook ads are really useful in being able to access and hit those demographics you’re trying to hit on FaceBook. Anything else on the Facebook ads and the boosted posts? Again just to clarify the difference between the ads and the boosted post. I know you explained it but just one more time kind of give a quick overview of the differences between those two things.
Veronica Buhl: Boosted Posts are basically stuff that you’re posting on a daily basis. It can be a product that you said “hey look at this, go to the Web site.” Those are your regular posts that you do. Facebook ads are usually more general. Usually it’s an ad about a sale you may be having or an event that’s going on. Or it could just be a brand post, or a brand awareness thing where you just announce who you are and where you are and come check us out and it can be a long running ad that you always have running just to get more and more followers.
Brent Haeseker: So the post is an actual post that you posted on your page that you want more people to see. The ad is something that’s just a separate animal all together that you’re posting for people to find out more about you learn about you or to trigger some type of reaction or conversion of some sort. And how about Facebook Messenger. If you’re using Facebook you probably have gotten a message from a friend or sent a message to a friend through their messenger service. But how would you actually use that in a business context? What does that look like?
Veronica Buhl: Well messenger started out just being you could message your friends and everybody that’s on Facebook. Now brands are able to reach out using Facebook messenger when people like your page, you now have the ability to actually directly message them by just going up to their page and you’ll see a little messenger button and you can click on it and you can send them messages and hey we’ve got a great sale going on for our followers right now 50 percent off today or tomorrow. It’s a great tool also if you notice that you get a comment from somebody that’s having an issue with something in your business. This gives you direct access to them where you can message them right away and say I’m sorry to hear that, how can I help you. How can we resolve this? It’s a great customer service tool. Statistics show that people will interact with a brand more if they can text them rather than call them. People are starting now to want to call and actually talk to people on the phone which I am not sure that’s a good thing. But it is the way it’s going so being able to text people directly from your business is a great thing. And I’ve also seen recently messages from companies, I get them sometimes I’ll interact with a page and then a few minutes later I’ll get a message that says can we how can we help you further. Is there something you are looking for that you couldn’t find? So it’s a great tool for really having that one on one direct access to the people that are following you.
Brent Haeseker: You have a stat here that says 56 percent of people who’d rather message somebody versus calling customer service. Now that’s roughly 50 percent a little over 50 percent, it’s 56. Still that’s the majority, and that number is probably going to continue to skew upwards over time too.
Veronica Buhl: Because it’s only fairly recently that brands have been able to use messaging in this way. So I think the more brands start using it, I think that statistic is going to go way up.
Brent Haeseker: And they’re also more likely to shop with companies they can message directly. You have a stat of 53 percent. So that number is probably going to continue to go up as well. How about contests?
Veronica Buhl: Contests are great. Contests are a great way to get new followers and collect information. You have the ability on Facebook to create a contest. We call them gated posts.That’s what they’re called sometimes. And basically you have a contest, And in order for the people to be entered into that contest, they have to give you some information and you choose what that information is. Generally it’s their name, their email, or maybe a phone number. You also can put it in there, you can ask them questions, what do you think about our brand or what would you like to see us do next. So you can gather some great information to improve your product and your services just by having a contest. It’s also a great way to get leads because as they’re joining this contest and gathering information online and can give them a call or e-mail them. So yeah contests are a wonderful way to get more engagement and a lot of lead generation. So I’d definitely recommend those.
Brent Haeseker: I think some of the takeaways I’ve gotten from us speaking today: Facebook’s a great social media platform to use to reach just about anyone because it’s the most diverse platform. Particularly good we found out that people over age 65, it’s the best social media platform to target those people. You can set up multiple business pages and you don’t have to just use one page but you definitely don’t want to use a profile page for your business. You can set up multiple business pages if that works for your particular company if you’re trying to segment out your marketing. Maybe you’ve got different products that you want to have separate pages for. You’ve got tools like Facebook Live to do videos to market directly to people. What were some of the other things here? Paid ads, I think because it’s getting so difficult to organically reach people, Facebook has that ability to be able to get to the top of the list so to speak in somebody’s feed or to have one of those ads on the side. And they have great demographics so that you can just target that ad to whoever in particular that you’re trying to reach. So some really great information. Thank you for joining me today and sharing all of that. So if you need any assistance with Facebook marketing or any other kind of online marketing any other social media service, feel free to give us a call the number to reach us is 1 800 7 0 9 3 2 4 0. Again I’m Brent Haeseker and this is Veronica Buhl. Thank you so much. And again thank you for watching and I hope you have a great day. Thank you. Bye.