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Facebook Business Model

The Facebook business model is a multisided platform . Although other brands have called themselves “social networks” before, such as MySpace or Orkut, it’s fair to say that the first to turn this digital environment into a successful business model is, no doubt, Facebook. With over 15 years in the market, Facebook now has more than 2 billion users all over the world, and it keeps active and growing.

Also, due to the acquisitions that the company has been taking on brands — and competitors as well —, like Instagram and WhatsApp. In spite of all the speculation about selling users’ data, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, states that this has never been — and never will — the network’s revenue stream. Even because it wouldn’t be financially healthy for its own business. But, if that’s true, then what’s Facebook’s Business Model ? How does Facebook make money? Let’s take a closer look.

More than a social network

According to Zuckerberg , as he was developing Facebook, he wouldn’t have the ambition to build a worldwide enterprise. Unlike that, he would only realize that one “could find almost anything on the internet — music, books, information — except the thing that matters most: people”. Nowadays, Facebook has several other companies under its “umbrella”. Among them, there are Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus (virtual reality tech), Moves (step counter app), and more.

A brief history of Facebook

Facebook’s history goes back to 2003, when the founders Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes were studying at Harvard University. It began as an online service where students would judge each other’s appearance, called Facemash — but it was shit down on only two days, for violating some policies. In January of the next year, the four of them developed thefacebok.com, a social network for Harvard students to post photos and personal information.

As its popularity grew, thefacebook.com was open for students from other institutions to join. By the end of 2004, over one million people had registered and, in the same year, companies such as MasterCard offered to pay for advertising on the website.

In 2005, the social network removed the “the” and became only Facebook, and high-schoolers and students from outside the United States were allowed to join. That enabled the website to jump to six million users.

The next year, anyone above 13 years of age would be welcome. In 2008, Facebook surpassed MySpace and, four years later, it became a public company, with its initial IPO raising $16 billion, which lead its valuation to $102.4 billion.

Who Owns Facebook

Facebook is owned since its foundation by Mark Zuckerberg , through its holding group, Facebook Inc. After acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, Zuckerberg decided it was better to rename the holding group to separate the Facebook social network from the group. So, in October 2021, Facebook Inc. was relabeled to Meta Inc., with Zuckerberg as its CEO and owner of all the companies of the group.

Facebook’s Mission Statement

Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.

How Facebook makes money

The great revenue stream of Facebook is the targeted advertisement, due to the benefit that the platform offers, of allowing the advertisers to reach their target audience, through information the network collects from its users. And, according to Zuckerberg, that’s precisely why it wouldn’t make any sense for Facebook to sell its users’ data. It would be cutting its own throat, as the platform would be handing over its greatest differential.

Soon, the advertisers wouldn’t need Facebook anymore. Facebook’s trump card is exactly to permit its advertisers to invest money in the right audience. Within more than 2 billion profiles, the businesses are able to have their products/services viewed only by American 25-30-year-old females, who have a degree and are interested in marriage, for example.

That’s the way advertisement became accounting for 97% to 99% of Facebook’s revenue. The other 3% or less is made up of payments received by games played and products sold on the platform, private social network services to businesses, and other products offered by each of the brands under its umbrella, such as Oculus, a Virtual Reality device.

Facebook’s Business Model Canvas

Let’s see what the Facebook’s business model canvas looks like:

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Facebook’s Customer Segments

• Users: They are the biggest customer segment of Facebook, and stand for one-third of the world’s population! They are all the people who have their profiles in the network and use them to interact and communicate with friends and other people with similar interests around the globe. They don’t pay Facebook anything and, thus, they are not directly responsible for the business revenue. However, they are the basis that makes Facebook interesting for the ones who do pay;
• Businesses and advertisers: This is the segment involved in Facebook’s revenue. It encompasses all the brands and businesses that advertise on the social network. They pay to have ads for their products and services on the platform, which, from its side, offers a more qualified audience. Due to the information that Facebook collects from its users, the company is able to target advertisements on its platform, allowing brands and businesses to have their ads viewed by its target audience. Anyway, although these are the revenue providers, they will only keep their interest as long as the non-paying user base is wide and qualified;
• Developers : It’s the smallest customer segment, and it includes the ones who develop apps and games through Facebook’s platform.

Facebook’s Value Propositions

As Facebook has three diverse customer segments, each segment will perceive the brand’s value differently. That said, let’s divide the value proposition by segment:

• For users : The greatest benefit is to keep in touch with family and friends, via text and picture posting, and by interactions through comments and direct messages. This is especially relevant for the ones who travel a lot or live far from their loved ones. Another advantage is the availability of entertainment and information. Facebook is useful both for those who want to get entertained by the lives of their acquaintances and for people who use it as a source of news and current affairs;
• For advertisers: The possibility of targeted campaigns, focused on their particular target audience, has been of great value for brands. By achieving greater penetration in its main audience, companies also get greater engagement in their customer segment of interest. Another relevant point, especially for small businesses or young companies is that the tools to advertise on Facebook are quite simple, in the best “do it yourself” style, which reduces the need to hire someone to develop their own advertising content;
• For developers: Facebook is an amazing platform for developing apps and games, and it offers a wide range of views and disclosure. Besides, there is a great network of providers for advertisement services.

Facebook’s Channels

It’s quite clear that the main distribution channels of Facebook are its own website and app, because that’s where users find each other, and advertisers access their audience. Inside that, the channels can be divided into feed, notifications, direct messages, and stories. Other channels include the app stores, other products of the company, e.g. Instagram and WhatsApp, and, of course, word of mouth power.

Facebook’s Customer Relationships

Facebook’s customer relationship is based on its own platform, which is very user-friendly, as it allows users to specify their profile configurations and use them with no hard time. In addition, Facebook has an international sales organization, that works alongside marketing and advertising agencies, to attract advertisers.

Facebook’s Revenue Streams

• Payment revenues (percentage fees)
• Ad revenues (CPM and CPV)

Facebook’s Key Resources

Within Facebook’s key resources , the only tangible one (but essentially digital) is its platform, which demands technological infrastructure. Aside from that, the other key resources are the network users and their content production, and the Facebook brand. The active users are the company’s biggest asset. Because, if there aren’t users, there is no audience to view the ads. And to make them engaged, there must be relevant content, to avoid churn. As for the brand, it’s a very powerful name, still the great synonym for “social network”, indeed.

Facebook’s Key Activities

Above all key activities , it is the platform development and maintenance, in order to ensure a positive experience and avoid negative effects on the social network. Then, besides all the infrastructure that the website demands, to keep it working properly and optimized 24/7, Facebook also needs to invest in good practices and control bad behavior within the network. Furthermore, the company focuses on user acquisition and engagement, data and information storage and security, talent hiring and retaining, and sales and marketing.

Facebook’s Key Partners

• Content developers, e.g. videos, games, texts, etc.
• Developers for compatible operating systems, browsers, and hardware
• Digital influencers
• Businesses and brands that advertise or directly sell on the platform
• Marketing agencies

Facebook’s Cost Structure

The biggest share of Facebook’s cost structure revolves around platform maintenance and its billions of users’ data storage. Besides, there is user CAC (cost of acquisition) by delivering tools that foster user engagement, research and development investment, marketing and advertising, customer support, and all the regular general and administrative expenses of a worldwide company.

Facebook’s Competitors

• Snap : Photo and video sharing app released in 2011, with 280 million active daily users. It is very popular among kids under 16 because the content disappears in seconds;
• LinkedIn : This professional network was launched in 2003. It aims at linking recruiters, employers, and potential applicants. The site is free to use, but it has some premium features, for its over 600 million registered users;
• Twitter : Free microblogging service founded in 2006. Its 180 million members can post short texts called tweets;
• YouTube : The video-sharing platform allows users to upload, view, and share videos. It was founded in 2005 and accounts for 2 billion regular users, who watch more than one billion hours of videos each day;
• Pinterest : This social networking site is for saving and discovering creative ideas. It was created in 2009, and it has around 480 million active users nowadays;
• TikTok : It is a social media app for creating and sharing videos or for live broadcasting. Founded in 2012, it is the newest one and has more than one billion active users currently.

Facebook’s SWOT Analysis

Below, there is a detailed  swot analysis  of Facebook:

Facebook’s Strengths

• Brand : Yes, Facebook has already been in the top 5 most valuable brands in the world. Now it is the 13 th one, but that still represents a very strong name, valued at over $35 billion;
• Portfolio : Diversification and acquisitions allow Facebook to protect its financial assets, as it does not put all its investments in only one sector. WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Oculus, Workplace, Portal, and Calibra stand as major strengths for the business;
• Market dominance : Despite its declining user number, Facebook still remains the leader in the social network industry, with more than 2 billion users. And the 3 rd , 4 th , and 6 th places are occupied by WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, respectively, which are part of the company;
• Loyal customer base : Around 30% of the world’s population uses Facebook and its family products (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) putting the company in a very comfortable position;
• Good employer : HR policies put Facebook as one of the best employers in the world, thus attracting and retaining top talent;
• Leader : Mark Zuckerberg is a brand itself nowadays. His visionary leadership provides innovation, stability, and sustainability for the business;
• R&D : Facebook is one of the leaders worldwide in Research and Development investments, focusing almost 20% of its total revenue on innovation;
• Marketing strategy : Facebook is a very powerful marketing tool, as it reaches 2 billion people but enables target advertisement. That is why 97% to t99% of its revenue comes from ads.

Facebook’s Weaknesses

• Privacy: Facebook faces some decline in popularity and a bad reputation due to its lack of protection regarding users’ privacy and data;
• Overdependence on advertising : The business revenue is totally dependent on social media (the other brands of the family are in the same industry) and, as mentioned above, advertisement is basically the source of revenue for the business, leaving no place for other revenue streams;
• Fake news: Facebook has been under huge critics as a result of its incapacity for controlling misleading information.

Facebook’s Opportunities

• Portfolio : Facebook has the potential and resources to diversify its portfolio in order to avoid overdependence on social media and advertising;
• Integration with other applications : Facebook can be open to integration with many types of applications, such as e-commerce, podcasts, games, etc.;
• Different audience : With new features, Facebook can attract other target segments, besides tech-savvy youngsters;
• Acquisitions : Facebook has the potential to keep acquiring other companies, even from different industries.

Facebook’s Threats

• Competition: Facebook’s user number is declining, and much as a result of competition with old platforms as well as new entrants;
• Regulations : There are many new regulations regarding the Internet that can harm Facebook’s business model, such as ones concerning data safety, user privacy, intellectual property, etc.;
• Data breach : Data breaches can affect millions of users, by exposing personal information to the dark web;
• Digital taxation : This new tax is being adopted in the UK and European Union. If this kind of tax is implemented in other countries, it can jeopardize Facebook’s profits;
• Reputation : Data breaches, fake news, hacked and/or false accounts, and other scandals have tainted Facebook’s reputation, thus reducing usage.

-> Read More About Facebook’s SWOT Analysis

Despite all the accusations and controversies, Facebook is still booming. Although many people believe this social network is going to end soon, Facebook’s brand and business are going to certainly remain, investing in new approaches and brand names, as you may have noticed.

Who is Daniel Pereira ?

I love understanding strategy and innovation using the business model canvas tool so much that I decided to share my analysis by creating a website focused on this topic.

More About Me

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Facebook Marketing

Facebook marketing: The complete guide for your brand’s strategy

Explore our comprehensive guide on maximizing your Facebook marketing strategy. Leverage our robust advice to enhance brand visibility, engagement and ROI on Facebook.

Reading time  19 minutes

Published on  June 24, 2024

Table of Contents

• Facebook remains a crucial platform for brand presence with over 3 billion monthly active users, especially favored by those between the ages of 25-34.
• Facebook marketing involves promoting a business via a Facebook business Page and utilizing its ad platform for organic and paid promotions across various post types (photos, videos, carousels, etc).
• Benefits of Facebook marketing include improving conversion rate by an average of 9.21%, incorporating ecommerce directly on the platform and utilizing Facebook analytics for precise audience targeting.

Social media platforms come and go, but Facebook remains crucial for building a brand. With ~3 billion monthly active users, Facebook is by far the most popular social network in terms of activity.

Our 2023 Q4 Pulse Survey data also revealed that Facebook remains the top platform where most consumers intend to post and share content, followed by Instagram and TikTok. This makes Facebook marketing one of the most compelling ways to enhance your brand identity and share of voice.

Our in-depth guide will help you use Facebook to its full potential and navigate the platform with the tools available. Watch the video below to hear why you shouldn’t sleep on incorporating Facebook into your social media marketing strategy .

What is Facebook marketing?

Facebook marketing is the act of promoting a business or brand and its products/services via a Facebook business Page. By fully optimizing these business Pages, brands create a second website of sorts, where you can advertise and sell products and services directly to your target audience. Facebook’s ad platform enables you to go beyond organic promotion, creating paid posts in various post types (i.e., photos, carousels, videos, links) to maximize engagement.

Thus, with a well-planned strategy, you can use Facebook to support the full customer experience from awareness to purchase and loyalty.

Benefits of Facebook marketing for your business

There are several reasons to include Facebook in your social media marketing strategy. This includes enhancing brand awareness, increasing customer engagement and reaching new audiences. Facebook has the potential for significant brand amplification and return on your investment with over 62% of U.S. social commerce buyers using it regularly.

Not convinced? Here's a breakdown of our top five picks for why Facebook marketing must be on your radar when planning your marketing strategy.

Improve your brand’s visibility

While 72% of Facebook users are primarily on the site to keep up with friends and family, a sizable number visit it for customer service, entertainment and to follow brands. This means you can present your brand to visitors whose motivations range from idle curiosity to active engagement, which includes purchases. The average conversion rate on Facebook for sales is 8.25% across industries.

Create more engaging content

Facebook offers ongoing opportunities to engage your target audience. What’s considered “engaging” depends largely on your industry and the type of business you run.

For example, retailers can use Carousels or Stories to show off a new product line or UGC. B2B brands and service providers might publish video testimonials. A food brand might poll followers about a new flavor.

From images and interactive content to videos and beyond, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for how to market on Facebook with content.

Beyond organic posts, Facebook supports ad content in four formats : images, video, carousel and collections. This gives you four ways to use captivating visuals to engage prospective customers.

Appeal to your target audience

Facebook analytics provides a wealth of data about your performance and audience preferences. Use this to tailor your content to meet your audience's needs and wants, increasing your engagement and improving your brand experience. Facebook ads also contain sophisticated tools for market segmentation, including:

• Geographic : Choose a specific region or define it by population density.
• Demographic : Select age, gender, marital status, family status and occupation.
• Behavioral : Define groups by brand loyalty or user status (from non-users to regular users).
• Income : Select from lower, middle or upper class.
• Lifestyle : Segment by interests, according to keywords used in searches.
• Interests : Choose interests that intersect with the common pursuits of your chosen group

Selecting your target audience using these parameters when creating an ad campaign ensures you get the best return on ad spend (ROAS).

Incorporate ecommerce directly

Create online stores directly within the platform and make them visible on Instagram to reach more audiences.

You’ll need business accounts on both sites to do so but the set-up process is relatively straightforward.

Once you’ve created your accounts, refine your online catalog to target new and returning customers like State Bicycle Company , with over 400,000 followers, does when promoting its wide range of single-speed city bikes.

The community vibe associated with Facebook means the brand can create a Page that effectively blends news, articles, offers and competitions.

Easily measure your results

Facebook provides one of the best suites of social media analytics. We’ve produced a comprehensive guide to Facebook analytics , so here we’ll outline just the basics.

Facebook offers metrics on likes, comments, shares, Page views and other key performance indicators (KPIs). Track each customer’s journey to your Page to learn what strategies are proving most effective. Use Facebook’s analytics suite to further understand:

• Reach : See the number of people who saw and engaged with your posts, including negative interactions, such as hiding or reporting posts for offensive content.
• Engagement : Engaged users are those who clicked anywhere in your post and those who created a Story about your Page post. Monitoring your Facebook engagement keeps a pulse on your Page’s growth.
• Likes : The number of likes tells you if your content resonates with your audience. Check what’s consistent about the posts that get the highest/lowest likes and you’ll likely find a pattern.
• Video stats : Check out how users interact with your video content, including how long your content was viewed.
• E-commerce : Facebook provides insights and analytics through its Meta Page Insights tool and Meta Ads Manager for metrics on post engagements and reach . You can also view metrics on ad click-through rates and conversion rates. For more detailed e-commerce data like sales performance metrics, product views and customer demographics, you may need additional tools.

If you’re using Facebook to drive off-platform performance, Facebook Pixel lets you track user interactions and conversions beyond the platform and onto your website.

How to use Facebook marketing

To put your Facebook marketing into action, you’ll need a business Page and a Facebook ad account.

The first gives you a public-facing location, forming the focus of all your activities. Here’s ours:

A Facebook Ad Account via Meta Ads Manager allows you to create and position campaigns to raise awareness of your brand and convert prospects to customers across Facebook and Instagram.

Let’s take the process step-by-step.

Create a Facebook Business Page

To reap the benefits of your Facebook marketing efforts, you’ll need a fully fleshed out Facebook Business Page . Your Page represents your brand and first impressions can go a long way, especially in a digital terrain where everyone’s vying for your target audience’s attention. More importantly, your Facebook Page is also a medium to provide your customers with important information and address their queries. So let’s get into the details of how you can develop an efficient Facebook Page for maximum impact.

Step 1: Create a new, dedicated Page

On your main Facebook profile, click on “ Pages ” and “ Create New Page ” to generate your business Page. Give it a name and category, indicating the sector relevant to your brand. The name should match your brand or business name.

Step 2: Add biographical information

The optional “bio” section is where you’ll describe your business, what it offers and what makes it unique. When you’re finished, click “ Create Page .”

Step 3: Provide business details

You want customers to be able to contact you, so here’s where you provide that information.

Step 4: Design your Page’s look

Here’s where you make your Page truly eye-catching. There are two main visuals to consider: the cover image that runs across the top of your Page and the circular profile image that sits on top.

Ensure your image choice aligns with your brand style book and visual strategy. Some brands lead with a founder or CEO photo for their profile picture, while others opt for their logo. Use whatever fits best with your brand’s visual identity.

Optional extras include action buttons like “Book now” or “View shop,” and various other options for direct messaging (including Facebook messages , WhatsApp messages and email.)

Create a Facebook Ad Account

Once your Facebook Page is up and running, you’ll need to create an ad account. You do this from your Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager) dashboard. If you don't have a Business Manager account, don’t worry, we’ve created a comprehensive guide to Facebook Business Manager too.

Note that you can only complete the following steps if you are a page administrator, or have been assigned an admin, editor or advertiser Page role by an existing Page administrator.

From your Meta Business Suite dashboard, here are the steps to set up an ad account:

Step 1: Link your new Page

Under “ Pages ” click on “ Add page ” and your Page will be visible from the Business Manager.

Step 2: Create a new ad account

Under “ Ad accounts ” click on “ Create Ad Account ” (or “ Add Ad Account ” if you already have at least one account you’re using).

There's a limit set by Facebook on the number of ad accounts a business may hold, which increases with advertising spend. You can check your ad account limit in Business Manager .

Step 3: Name the new account

Give your new ad account a name and complete the time zone, currency and payment method details. Select the Business Page you added earlier to link it to the new ad account.

Types of Facebook posts to use in your strategy

Create a dynamic feed with engaging content with a mix of content formats that engage your audience in various ways.

There are several different post formats you can use, including:

Text-based content that doesn’t have dynamic elements. These posts can be simple as announcements or even questions posed to your target audience.

Conventional wisdom says that text-based content without links will earn more engagement on Facebook as it keeps people on the platform.

Static images that showcase your brand. These posts might include customer photos and UGC, pictures of your latest product launch, behind-the-scenes images of your day-to-day life and everything in between.

Videos can vary in length and are used to showcase interesting content such as interviews, product demonstrations, seasonal content, helpful hints and animations. These videos are typically horizontal and longer-form versus Facebook Reels which resemble vertical video content on Instagram and TikTok.

Stories are short and temporary content such as photos or videos that disappear after 24 hours and can be viewed on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.  These posts can be either static photos or videos and appear in your followers’ Stories feed on Facebook .

Stories can be used to supplement new posts and announcements, essentially serving as a way to stay top of mind among your followers without being restricted by the algorithm.

These short-form videos are akin to those found on Instagram or TikTok with highly-entertaining clips designed to capture viewer attention quickly. Many businesses and brands will use creative captions and descriptions to keep viewers based on the videos’ thumbnails and opening frames.

How to create a Facebook marketing strategy

There are numerous factors to consider while developing your Facebook marketing strategy. If you’re building your Facebook strategy from scratch, here are tips that serve as building blocks needed for Facebook marketing strategy.

Set goals for your Facebook marketing

Facebook is used for several different purposes so take a systematic approach and think carefully about your goals. Is it to raise brand awareness, build customer loyalty or increase conversions? Here are some goals to consider for your strategy:

• Add more value to the brand: Per The Sprout Social Index ™ , 68% of consumers follow brands on social media to find out about new products or services. Make Facebook your go-to source for brand awareness, leveraging the global platform to introduce your brand to new audiences while also keeping it top-of-mind for existing customers.

• Connect with customers: Our Index also found that 51% of consumers think the most memorable brands on social respond to customers. This is your chance to use the platform not only to reach new audiences but also to nurture customer loyalty.
• Improve sales: Improving the quality of sales starts with better targeting. Reach your target audience more efficiently through a well-planned Facebook marketing strategy. Test various targeting options and content types to see which generates the most conversions and quality leads, improving your ad spend and social selling.
• Recruit efficiently: Facebook can also support your recruiting efforts, like reaching top talent faster. Use the platform to showcase your brand values and culture to promote your employer branding.

Define your Facebook target audience

One of the major advantages of marketing on Facebook is the ability to target a highly specific slice of those 3 billion monthly users. You can do this by using Facebook’s Audience Insights tool.

This provides information about Facebook users in general and the specific subset of users who have interacted with your Page, by following, commenting, liking, sharing, etc.

The Insights dashboard will reveal where your followers are located, their age and gender, and useful information about content preferences. It also informs you which devices people use to access your Page. Use insights you draw from the tool to build out the organic side of your strategy and create highly targeted advertising.

Some of the ways you can use the dashboard are:

• New audiences: Select your target locations, demographics, behaviors and interests.
• Custom audiences: See existing audiences you’d like to contact with new products, services or offers.
• Lookalike audiences: Discover audiences similar to people who have liked or otherwise engaged with your Page.
• Saved audiences: Save and view targeting parameters you saved for future use. For instance, you might have a US-based demographic aged 25–40 saved, but also a global 18–25 audience.

By being highly specific about who you are targeting with your Facebook marketing efforts, you’ll ensure a better ROAS and conversion rate and see an increase in your organic growth.

Establish an engaging content publishing calendar

Content is crucial when it comes to Facebook marketing for business purposes.

Coming up with a social media content strategy requires a combination of brainstorming, audience research and a bit of creativity. Coupled with the various types of Facebook posts we talked about earlier, you can start to plan the big picture of your content calendar to continuously engage followers without scrambling for new ideas.

Here are some tips and best practices to help kickstart your calendar:

• Embrace content variety. Sticking to a single type of post or format leaves little room for experimentation and likewise could bore your followers. To satisfy your customers and the algorithm, consider testing different types of content including a combination of photos, videos, Reels and Stories.
• Come up with content themes. For example, you might decide to post a weekly question or discussion every Thursday or a group selfie with your team on Saturdays. Themes not only help with publishing consistency but also make coming up with new posts less daunting.
• Feature your customers in your content when possible. This can be done by asking questions or publishing UGC from your followers. This takes the burden of content creation and driving engagement off your business. For example, a clothing brand might ask followers who picked up their latest drop to post a photo in the comments section showing it off. Polls are also great for driving engagement this way.’

When in doubt, take a peek at what your favorite Facebook Pages and competitors are posting. Doing this can also give you a better idea of how often to post for the sake of consistency and feeding the Facebook algorithm.

Boost posts or leverage Facebook ads to generate leads

Incorporating a paid marketing plan with your larger Facebook strategy will give you a comprehensive strategy that engages and converts your audience. Your paid strategy should include boosting organic posts and traditional Facebook ads.

Boosted posts enable you to focus on Page engagements, clicks and promotions. They appear in the feed like organic posts and are a great way to quickly reach new audiences with a successful organic post. Facebook ads created in the Ads Manager are aimed more at drawing new customers, are more targeted and appear in feeds as an ad.

You must determine your monthly ad budget so you’re able to efficiently manage ads to increase reach, generate more sales and build brand awareness while using spend wisely. Targeting a broad audience isn’t a bad thing, especially at first, so you can see what works best to build awareness. Then as you see a pattern, build out custom audiences based on user behavior and interests to fine-tune your Facebook advertising strategy over time.

If it’s a retargeting measure, make sure the content provides something recognizable but also something new.

Your ad design should focus on:

• Identity : Does it relate to your brand and effectively showcase your product/service? Are your logo and business colors correctly displayed?
• Reward : What do viewers get out of it? Is it a deal, promotion, offer code, whitepaper or industry guide?
• Tone : Does your content maintain the same tone across your entire Facebook Page or business in general?
• Action : Your content must drive an action, which goes back to your Facebook goals. A clear and precise call to action is best.

Use product photos, branded graphics or videos to help capture your audience's attention. Make sure your ad copy entices the viewer to take action.

Post when your followers are most active

Facebook marketing only works when your chosen audience is paying attention. Ensure your content posting schedule is optimized to reach the largest audience by posting at times they’re most active on the network.

Sprout identifies the Optimal Send Times for your brand by using algorithmic analysis of the Facebook platform and your posting history to identify when your audience engages most. These times are continually updated and revised to help you post when it counts most.

Check out our article on the best times to post on social media for details like posting based on your industry and more.

Use Facebook bots and other interactive tools

Chatbots and interactive tools are automated solutions to engage with your audience. Bots can be programmed to answer a large volume of common queries, freeing up your social teams for more complex tasks while ensuring your customer gets support 24/7. Interactive tools help enhance audience engagement and can be used to promote quizzes, polls, surveys, contests and other interactive content.

Take advantage of Facebook chatbots for customer service to answer predictable queries and respond to compliments and criticisms. These bots can also be used to recommend new products to individuals likely to engage or respond with targeted marketing content in response to search queries. For instance, when a Page visitor searches for “winter footwear,” your bot might throw up advertisements for your shoe brand, or for related items such as scarves or hats.

With chatbots becoming more intuitive and popular, it’s easier to give customers the information they need faster and keep them happy. As the Index data showed, 23% of customers expect a brand to respond to their query within two hours.

Use a content calendar to post and schedule fresh content

Content creation and curation are important components of any social media strategy. Creating a content calendar ensures you’re engaging with audiences regularly and have a steady flow of relevant and fresh content. This is especially useful during the holidays.

But if you're posting everything in real time, you'll only have time for your Facebook content production and not much else. This is why scheduling your content out in batches is key.

For scheduling Facebook content , you have both free and paid options available to you. Facebook’s Page controls allow you to schedule your posts right from your Page. Sprout enables you to schedule Facebook posts and post across your social platforms, as well as pick the best times for you based on your highest expected audience engagement.

Scheduling and planning your calendar makes it easier for you to see where gaps are in your social content strategy. Using a tool like Sprout not only helps visualize this, but also collaborate with other team members to create, review and approve content.

Engage proactively with your audience

Like most social media channels, Facebook is built as a network to converse, discuss and share content. That means conversation and engagement should never be put on the back burner. Incorporate a plan to build a community with your audience. Use Facebook to hold industry chats or discussions, whether it’s with subject matter experts or your customers. Engage existing customers with interesting content, build customer care relationships and attract prospects with what differentiates you from the crowd.

Work to create content that solicits engagement from your audience—but also don't be afraid to ask for engagement as well. Have your audience react to your posts to vote on something. Ask questions. Share polls. The possibilities are endless to start building up your Facebook engagement .

Track and analyze your results

Keep an eye on the metrics you identified earlier in goal setting and analyze the results to understand your Facebook marketing strategy’s performance and determine your ROI . Sprout’s Facebook analytics enables you to see if you need to change the types of content, ads and engagement strategies you're employing or if what you're doing is working.

Monitor to see if your Facebook performance is increasing or decreasing month-over-month, so you can make any necessary changes to continually drive growth and performance in your Facebook marketing strategy.

4 successful Facebook marketing examples to inspire your brand

Below, we’ve selected four brands who, in different ways, have excelled with their Facebook marketing campaigns.

BMW has over 20 million followers on Facebook thanks to its image-driven content which highlights their innovations and style. The brand showcases its technology and automotive aesthetics using both brand imagery as well as user-generated content. Its posts also reflect special events and holidays.

Note their use of hashtags and emojis to add personality to what could easily otherwise seem a bit corporate. The “Learn More” button on the top of their Page leads to their main consumer site. There’s also a “mentions” tab at the top of their profile which takes the visitor to all their latest model reviews and customer comments.

Takeaways: Stunning imagery doesn’t have to be expensive. Leverage your user-generated content where you can to highlight your positive reviews and showcase your offerings. Plus, make sure you give your audiences access to more information so they can explore your brand even further.

Makeup retailer Sephora uses its Facebook to regularly engage with its audiences and keep them invested in the brand. They focus on striking visuals and dynamic content formats, including high-quality images and videos to promote the various brands under their umbrella.

They also use the page to promote quizzes, polls and makeup tutorials and to showcase influencer content that entertains and educates their audience. The brand’s Facebook Page is also a major tool for prompt customer service. They encourage customers to DM them for more information so they can address concerns through private messages and comments.

Takeaways: Combine your creative content with prompt and personalized responses for more dedicated customer care. Last but not least, promote your other customer care channels for maximum engagement and impact.

Wendy’s is known for their social content. On Facebook, they use a mix of video and static content, including user-generated content, to build and sustain momentum around their different menu items and special offers. Plus, they respond to almost all post comments.

They also publish posts simply to engage in conversations with their followers—a strategy that's paid off. Audiences know the brand engages with them and this has built trust and customer loyalty.

Takeaways: Choose a brand persona for your Facebook presence that matches your brand values and amplify it in your content and responses. Keep your audiences engaged by responding to them promptly and ensure steady customer care to boost customer delight.

Pizza Hut’s strategy is straightforward. They use the platform to share mouthwatering posts and videos of their dishes. They also use the platform to showcase community engagement and announce promotions and specials such as discounts, limited-time deals and new or limited-time menu items. They also run contests and polls where audiences share their favorite menu item or pizza toppings.

Takeaways: Your product is your unique selling proposition (USP) and your customers and followers are your strength. Don’t hesitate to leverage them for creating engaging content and enhancing your share of voice. Encourage your followers to submit creative content related to your brand and share their experiences. This increases community engagement and also gives your teams plenty of content to build on.

4 Facebook marketing tools to optimize your strategy

Facebook has many native and third-party tools to help you manage your Facebook marketing strategies. We’ll finish by highlighting just four of them. For a longer rundown, read about 12 Facebook marketing tools that can help your business scale on the platform.

Sprout Social

Use our suite of social media tools to optimize your Facebook marketing across content scheduling and audience analytics.

Manage and schedule your social media assets and receive detailed analytics on campaign performance and audience interaction through intuitive dashboards. Analyze everything from individual post reach to audience growth and ROAS from a single source of truth while managing all your other social channels.

Use Sprout’s Listening tools to understand your audiences and discover trends and topics your target audience is interested in. Find out what kind of content is resonating the most, how your audience growth is shaping and how your competitors are doing in the same space. Understanding what’s working and what’s not can help you put these Facebook marketing tips into action.

Creator Studio for Facebook

Facebook’s Creator Studio helps users schedule posts, track social assets and monitor posting performance for actionable insights. It integrates with Instagram, and with Meta’s several ad features. It’s available for download on iOS and Android devices so you can manage your Facebook Page content and connect with your audience anytime, anywhere.

Using just this tool, you should be able to track trends and create an approval workflow. It’s important to note though, that it’s limited to managing only Facebook networks.

Facebook Commerce Manager

For direct selling on Facebook and Instagram, this tool helps you establish a shopfront presence on both platforms. With Facebook Commerce Manager , you can create catalogs and customizable collections to help your buyers find exactly what they need, and push products they may want.

Customer service can be managed from the tool too, as well as returns and inventory management.

Facebook ads library

If you need a little inspiration, Facebook’s ads library is a great resource for finding out what worked, who partnered with whom and what your competition is up to.

It’s a searchable database of everything that’s running or has run across Meta’s platforms.

For each brand searched, you will see when their page was created, what ads are running and even ad spend (for political or social ads only). Using this tool before you craft your campaign may help you stand out from the competition.

Manage your Facebook Pages and Messenger conversations more effectively

Facebook marketing can be a complex process involving audience targeting, content creation, performance analysis and competitive intelligence. However, using Facebook’s various resources and integrating the advice above will enable you to optimize your Facebook presence.

Growing that presence from the ground up can be daunting, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Consider going beyond the platform’s native tools Sprout’s Facebook marketing template to structure your strategy and maximize your time spent marketing on Facebook.

As you build your community, use Sprout’s Facebook management tools to simplify your workflows, get deeper audience insights and manage your Pages all in one place.

Facebook Marketing FAQs

Yes! Users can find free courses on Facebook marketing on Meta Blueprint for those who want to strengthen their marketing skills across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.

It’s easy to create a Facebook business page ! Head to Facebook.com and click the menu icon (nine dots) in the top navigation bar. Click  Page under the  Create menu to get started. From here, Facebook will walk you through all of the information you need to fill out in order to completely optimize your business page.

Facebook has a variety of uses as a marketing channel. This includes being a place to run ads, build communities, provide customer service and promote new products. Some small businesses use Facebook as an alternative to their website. Meanwhile, many big brands use Facebook primarily as a service channel or ad platform.

Running Facebook ads is one of the fastest and most straightforward ways to advertise both your Page and build brand awareness on Facebook. Other common ways for businesses to drive engagement include interacting with groups and communities in addition to consistently publishing content.

Additional resources for Facebook Marketing

• Social Media Engagement

How to get verified on Facebook: Your step-by-step guide

A Facebook Marketing Template to Refresh Your Strategy and Increase Your Reach

• Social Media Publishing

12 Facebook publishing tools for your brand in 2024

• Social Media Content

The picture-perfect Facebook cover photo size

Facebook Event photo size & dimensions guide

• Social Listening

Facebook automation: The ultimate guide for your brand

Creator Studio for Facebook and Instagram: A guide for marketers

• Social Media Advertising

How to build a Facebook business Page that attracts customers

• Social Media Strategy

12 Facebook marketing tools to help your business scale

• Social Commerce

Facebook Shops: What are they and how to drive more social sales

7 Fundamental Facebook best practices to grow your presence faster

• Community Management

How to build your community with Facebook Groups

A step-by-step guide on how to use Facebook Business Manager

Facebook Lookalike Audiences: How to optimize ads to reach new customers

5 brilliant Facebook campaigns (& why they worked)

15 Facebook post ideas to increase engagement

Top Facebook trends to try in 2024

• Social Media Analytics

How to use Facebook tools to boost your success

12 Ways to use Facebook events for your brand

Expert tips on using Facebook for your small business

The new Facebook features every marketer should know about

Instagram vs Facebook: which is best for your brand’s strategy?

Cover photo

How to Measure Your Facebook ROI

Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing Terms

Build and grow stronger relationships on social

Sprout Social helps you understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.

How to Use Facebook for Business: 25 Facebook Marketing Tips and Tricks

Updated: June 16, 2021

Published: March 17, 2021

Although some of the younger demographics are passing up Facebook in favor of tools like Instagram and Snapchat, Facebook still dominates the market.

With 1.85 billion people logging in daily (a 16% increase year-over-year), it's still the most popular social network around. Not to mention, Facebook owns 60% of all social logins .

We know that learning all the nuances of various social networks can be a tricky and time-consuming feat, especially considering how frequently they add, remove, and modify features.

To help you stay ahead of the curve, we've put together a handy cheat sheet that businesses can use to make the most of Facebook marketing . The list is divided into three main categories depending on your goals for using Facebook:

Tips for Your Facebook Business Page

Tips for news feed visibility.

• Tips for Advertising on Facebook

How to Use Facebook for Business

• Engage with your audience.
• Listen to your audience.
• Develop a contest and giveaway strategy.
• Promote your events.
• Use Facebook Ads.

Even with new social media platforms popping on the scene, Facebook is still the most popular social network. That's why it's important for your business to be on Facebook and use it to connect with your audience. With over a billion people on Facebook every day, your audience is probably on the site daily.

So, how can you use this tool to connect with your audience? Let's dive in below.

The State of Social Media in 2024

Explore the top trends in social media for brands to know and optimize your social strategy.

• AI Content Creation
• Community Building
• Social Media Shopping
• Social Vs. Search Engine

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How to Use Facebook for Marketing

1. engage with your audience..

Social media is best known for its ability to help you connect with your audience. On Facebook, you can enter direct conversations with your target audience through comments, reactions, and even messages. By engaging with your audience, you'll increase brand awareness and help tell your brand story.

2. Listen to your audience.

Now, when you're on social media, it's important that you don't just use the tool to talk at your audience without listening when they respond. To really leverage Facebook for marketing, you should use social media listening tools and track what people are saying. You can track mentions of your company and follow hashtags so you always know what's trending and going on with your customers.

3. Develop a contest and giveaway strategy.

A great way to use Facebook for your marketing purposes is to run contests and giveaways. Now before you dive in, make sure you develop a strategy . What kinds of things will you giveaway? How will your audience participate? It's important to think this through and make sure your decision aligns with what your audience wants from you.

4. Promote your events.

Of course if you're running any online events, it's important to market that. Facebook is a great place to do that because you can create an event and invite your followers. This is a great way to get the word out about your events.

5. Use Facebook Ads.

Facebook actually might be most popular among businesses for its advanced ads tool. If you're running online ads, Facebook is one of the best places to do it.

Now that you know how to use Facebook for business, let's dive into some tips and tricks to help you succeed.

(P.S. Already a HubSpot customer? Click here to integrate your HubSpot account with Meta Ads , and become eligible to win $15K to skyrocket your business ads strategy.)

25 tips and tricks for marketing on facebook, 1. create a business page, not a personal profile..

First thing's first: You need to create a business Page -- not a personal profile -- to represent your brand. Pages look similar to personal profiles, but they include unique tools for businesses, brands, and organizations. Your fans can Like your Page to see updates from you in their News Feeds, which is something they can't do for personal profiles.

Not only will this maximize Facebook's business potential for you, but it's actually against Facebook's Terms of Service to use a personal account to represent something other than that person, like a business. If you've already created a profile for your business, you'll want to convert it into a business Page, which you can learn how to do easily here .

Setting up a page is simple. Just visit this page and follow the step-by-step setup instructions.

2. Claim your Page's vanity URL.

Once you've created your business Page, it'll get a randomly assigned number and URL, like facebook.com/pages/yourbusiness/123456789. To make your Page more shareable and easier to find, you'll want to create a recognizable vanity URL (e.g., http://www.facebook.com/hubspot ).

To create a vanity URL, visit this page , then follow the instructions.

3. Add a great cover photo.

Facebook's page design lets you feature a 820 x 312 pixel cover photo at the top of your business Page. You'll want to optimize that cover photo to capture the attention of new visitors, encourage them to explore and learn more, and provide an effective mobile experience -- all the while ensuring you're following Facebook's Page Guidelines .

Learn all about do's and don'ts for your Facebook cover photo in this blog post .

Here are some more awesome examples of business Page cover photos to get your creative juices flowing. You can also use these free Facebook cover photo templates to create your own. 

4. Add a recognizable profile picture.

Pick a profile picture that will be easy for visitors to recognize -- like your company logo, or a headshot of yourself if you're a solopreneur or consultant. Being recognizable is important for getting found and Liked, especially in Facebook Search. Your profile image is pictured at the top of your Facebook Page and is also the thumbnail image that gets displayed next to all your Facebook Page updates, so choose wisely.

When choosing a photo, keep in mind that Facebook requires your profile picture dimensions to be 170 pixels by 170 pixels.

5. Optimize your "About" section -- especially the preview.

Your "About" section is one of the first places people will look when they arrive on your Page. A preview of it is located on the left-hand side of your page beneath your profile picture, and people can also navigate to the full section by clicking on the "About" tab at the top of your page.

Be sure to optimize the preview section on the left side of your page with brief yet descriptive copy to give visitors a sense of what your Page and your business is about before they decide to Like you. This copy will get pulled from the "Short Description" you provide within your full "About" tab.

Here's an example video marketing software company Wistia :

And another from a restaurant called Tahaza Hummus Kitchen :

To edit your own "About" tab, click on it, hover over the section you'd like to edit, and click the pencil icon.

6. Earn the "Very responsive to messages" badge.

If you respond quickly to most users who send you messages on Facebook, then you can earn what Facebook calls a "Very responsive to messages" badge. You'll earn a "Very responsive to messages" badge below your Page's cover photo if you have a response rate of 90% and a response time of 15 minutes over the last seven days.

If you're responsive to messages but haven't quite earned the badge, Facebook will still show off how responsive you are to visitors. Here's an example from Zappos' Page :

If you're not very responsive to messages, nothing will appear. So, while it's not the end of the world if you don't respond, having that badge lets users know your business is listening and cares about their needs.

By the way, there's a lot you can do with Facebook's "Messenger" tool for businesses . We recommend you explore and make the most out of Facebook as a communication and support tool.

7. Add milestones.

The "Milestones" feature lets you highlight some of your business' biggest accomplishments, like award wins, product releases, major events, or other accolades. Recent milestones will be posted to your Timeline, and users will be able to find them later under your "About" tab.

To add milestones, click on the "Timeline" section of your Page, and click the "Offer, Event +" option in the page update composer near the top of your page.

9. Choose a call-to-action button.

Facebook's option to place a simple call-to-action button at the top of your Facebook Page is another handy feature. You can learn how to add a CTA button to your business' Facebook Page here .

You can choose from seven pre-made button options ("Sign Up," "Shop Now," "Contact Us," "Book Now," "Use App," Watch Video," and "Play Game") and link it to any website that aligns with your business' goals. It could link to your homepage, a landing page, a contact sheet, a video, or somewhere else.

10. Create custom page tabs.

By default, your page tabs are set as Timeline, About, Photos, Likes and More. But Facebook lets you create and leverage custom tabs -- which are basically like landing pages within your Facebook Page, or calls-to-action where you can feature anything from case studies to marketing offers to other promotions you're running.

They're right at the top of your page and let you give visitors specific path to do what you want them to do on your Page. For example, if you're hiring a lot of people, you might create a custom tab for "Jobs" that links to your jobs site, like Zendesk does on their Page :

You can create custom tabs by signing in, visiting your Page, clicking the "More" tab and choosing "Manage Tabs" from the dropdown menu.

11. Prioritize quality over quantity.

Here are two questions we hear a lot: How often should I post to Facebook ? Will posting more frequently will help me reach more people?

In short, the answer is no. At the end of the day, how visible your posts are in people's News Feeds all comes down to the quality of your posts. These algorithms are meant to filter out the irrelevant and the poor quality posts so that the highest-quality stuff is what gets through and gets shown to users.

So don't overwhelm your customers with content on Facebook, and be selective about what you're publishing. Spend more time crafting better Facebook posts , and less time crafting a lot of Facebook posts. Remember: It's a marketer's job to post content to social that's interesting, entertaining, helpful, and/or relevant to the audience. This means picking relevant topics, writing delightful copy, and posting compelling images and videos .

12. Post at the best times for your audience.

Another common question: When’s the best time to post to Facebook ? Unfortunately, there's no perfect answer -- different businesses may find different days and times work best for them. Timing often depends on what your target audience uses Facebook for, the region(s) you're targeting, the content of your post (e.g. funny or serious), and your goals (e.g. clicks versus shares), and so on.

That being said, there is data out there on optimal times to post on Facebook :

• The best time to post on Facebook is Wednesday, 11 a.m. and 1–2 p.m. Other optimal times include Tuesday through Thursday, 8 a.m.–3 p.m.
• The worst times to post on Facebook on Sundays, or every day either before 7 a.m. or after 5 p.m.

Think of this data as a general guideline, and use it to help you find the optimal posting times for your business.

13. Post your best blog content.

For businesses, social media continues to be driven by content. It's a marketer's job to post content to social that's interesting, entertaining, helpful, and/or relevant to our audience. Start populating your Page's timeline with content by handpicking your best, most helpful blog posts.

If you're strapped for resources but maintain a business blog, you can try connecting your blog to auto-post links to new blog content you publish. Many blogging platforms (like HubSpot) automatically offer this feature within the software -- you'll just need to turn it on and sync it with your Page. You don't want to put too much emphasis on automation, though. It's OK to auto-publish some content, but make sure a real human is posting and engaging with your fans, too.

6 Free Blog Post Templates

Save time creating blog posts with these free templates.

• "How-to" Post
• "What is" Post
• Listicle Post

14. Make sure your blog posts' meta descriptions are complete.

Have you noticed that when you post a link to Facebook, it pulls in a brief description as well as an image?

The description gets pulled from the page's meta description , which refers to the HTML attribute that explains the contents of a given web page. It's the short description you see on a search engine results page to "preview" what the page is about, and it's also the copy Facebook will automatically pull in the populate the description of a post.

Without a meta description, Facebook may pull in the first text they can find, which doesn't make for a very good user experience. Plus, meta descriptions are your chance to sell your visitors on what you have to offer: informative, valuable content.

Your meta description should be compelling enough to get people to click, and it should be 155 characters or fewer in length. Read this blog post to learn more about writing effective meta descriptions.

15. Remove links from your post copy.

Keep your copy succinct by removing the horrendously long URL you're sharing from the text in your post.

Your post real estate is precious, and you want to ensure any characters employed are purely for the sake of sparking a reader's attention. Plus, any user can click on the generated thumbnail or title for that URL to navigate to the blog post, web page, or any URL you're linking to -- so no need to include it in the copy of your post as well.

16. Post your most compelling visual content.

Facebook's timeline page design places more of an emphasis on visual content like images and videos. After all, Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than posts without images. One study found that Facebook posts with photos saw the most engagement over any other type of post, accounting for a whopping 87% of total interactions.

That's why posting compelling visual content is one of the most important things you can do to improve your Facebook strategy. Use this to your advantage posting your best visual content to your Facebook Page , or making more of an effort to make the content you already create more visual. ( Click here to download 50 social media image templates for free .)

A successful social strategy will often include photos, videos, and screenshots of infographics or other graphs. In addition to being fun to look at, it's important that your visual content be compelling and relevant to your audience.

Another reason to post lots of visual content? It'll help auto-populate the "Photos" and "Videos" tabs, which are automatically added to every Facebook Page. You want those to be rife with visual content when people click on them.

17. Make sure your images are properly formatted.

Don't just post images for the sake of posting images. To give your users the best experience possible, you need to optimize your images for Facebook so that they're the right sizes and dimensions. ( Click here to download pre-sized cover photo templates for Facebook and other social networks for free .)

Below are a few of the most common Facebook image sizes, but you can find a more detailed guide here .

• Cover photo: 820 px wide by 312 px tall
• Profile image: 170 px wide by 170 px tall
• Shared image: 1200 px wide by 630 px tall
• Shared link thumbnail image: 1200 px wide by 627 px tall

18. Post videos, especially live videos.

The folks at Facebook know that people like watching videos on Facebook. The number of people watching video content is rapidly increasing. In fact, there are more than 4 billion video views on Facebook every day.

Facebook is continuing to tweak how the algorithm measures people's interest in video content on Facebook, but the main takeaway is to make your videos as visually engaging as possible -- especially in the first few seconds.

Why? Because although all videos on Facebook autoplay in people's News Feeds, they're on mute until the viewer manually turns the volume on. The more visually engaging your video, the more you can entice people to stick around. Getting people to spend more time watching your video will help your video rank higher in the News Feed because to Facebook, signs of user engagement with a video include spending time watching the video, turning on the audio, switching to full-screen mode, or enabling high definition.

In their continued effort to promote video content in the News Feed, Facebook launched Facebook Live , a live video streaming service that lets anyone broadcast live videos from their mobile device straight to their Facebook News Feed.

19. Use Facebook Insights .

Facebook Insights is Facebook's internal analytics tool right that helps you measure and analyze your Facebook presence. The tool provides Facebook page administrators with analytics data about Page visits and engagement, which can help you understand which content is and isn't engaging to your fans.

Access your page's Insights here , or by clicking into the 'Admin Panel' on your Page. We've also published an informative blog post and video that walk you through how to analyze Facebook Insights to improve your content strategy.

Free Social Media Content Calendar Template

Download the free template and user guide to manage your social media posts and strategy.

• Coordinate campaigns
• Increase your reach
• Measure engagement
• Plan your posts

20. Schedule posts in advance.

Scrambling for Facebook content is not a new phenomenon. We have meetings. We run late. Things come up. That's why you'll want to use a third-party Facebook application like HubSpot's social media publishing tool to schedule your Facebook posts (and other social media posts) in advance.

First, download our free social media content calendar template to help plan your posts in advance. You can fill it in at the same day and time every single week to prep for the following week's social media content. Then, use that third-party Facebook application to actually schedule out your posts.

However, just as we advised against too much Facebook automation with blog auto-posting, the same holds true for scheduling. Don't get caught in the trap of turning your page into a robot, and make sure you're actively engaging with your fans, too.

21. Add Facebook social media buttons to your blog and website.

Adding Facebook social media buttons will help encourage visitors who are on your website to also connect and interact with you on Facebook, as well as spread your content and expand its reach.

The Facebook Follow Button lets you expand your Facebook reach by making it easy for your site visitors to Like your business' Facebook Page with just one click. It displays your page's number of Likes, as well as faces of people who already like your page, using social proof to amplify its effectiveness.

The Facebook Like Box lets you promote your business' Facebook Page on your website and blog, highlight other users who have already Liked your page, display your follower count, and feature recent posts on your page. With just one click, people can Like your business Page -- without leaving your site.

The Facebook Like Button lets people easily Like your content. When a user Likes a piece of content, it may show up in your friends' News Feeds because the algorithm takes it as a signal your friends will find it relevant.

(Note: This button doesn't allow them to add personalized messages to links before sharing them. To allow users to add a personalized message, use the Facebook Share Button, explained below.)

To customize your Facebook Like Button, visit this page and follow the instructions.

Facebook Share Buttons act similarly to the Like Button by sharing your content on their Timeline and in friends' News Feeds, except they also let people add a comment or message to the link when sharing it.

To generate a Facebook Share Button, visit this page and follow the instructions.

22. Subscribe to Facebook's Official Blog for future announcements from Facebook.

Give yourself a competitive edge by staying on top of the latest announcements from Facebook such as new features and tools by subscribing to the official Facebook Blog .

Tips For Advertising on Facebook

23. choose the right advertising tool..

Facebook offers users the Ads Manager . Facebook's Ads Manager works great for most companies. Figure out which is best for your business based on your company size and the number of ads you plan to run at once.

24. Use Audience Insights to learn about your audience.

The best Facebook ads are high-quality, relevant ads that fit seamlessly into the user's environment on Facebook. Learn more about your customers and prospects using Audience Insights , which you can find inside the Facebook Ad Manager in the left-hand navigation.

The tool will help you target your ads more effectively and learn about your audience -- even if you are not advertising to them. How? The data can help you build stronger buyer personas , create more compelling content, and uncover some gems for your competitive research.

25. Test multiple versions of a single ad.

Running a single campaign won't give you much to work with in terms of finding your audience, optimizing your ads, and determining if Facebook advertising works for your business. You need to be able and willing to run multiple campaigns to test and experiment with different parts of a single campaign.

Test your targeting first, using a simple advertisement and basic image. In order to reach and test on a wider audience, you're going to have to invest a reasonable amount of money on your campaign. The folks at BuzzSumo suggest that number be in the thousands. The reason for this? Facebook ads reward you for testing more ads and targets. Whereas cost-per-click doesn't change much when you're advertising on Google or LinkedIn, Facebook ads cost a lot less if you're diligently testing them.

Then, you can test the creative side of the ad, including images, headlines, and body text. Try testing 20–25 variations on your proven targets.

Facebook is still a great tool for your business and it's important to figure out how it can work for your company.

Want to learn more? Read this blog post to learn more about creating, optimizing, and analyzing your Facebook ads .

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

22 Facebook Stats to Know in 2023 [+HubSpot Data]

How to Create a Facebook Group for Your Business [+ Why You Should]

How to Use Facebook Live: The Ultimate Guide

Facebook Insights: A Beginner's Guide [+ Step-by-Step Instructions]

41 Facebook Post Ideas for Businesses

How to Promote Your Business on Facebook

Facebook Business Manager: How to Use Meta Business Suite in 2022

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Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

How to Create a Facebook Business Page (and Grow It) in 2024

An optimized Facebook Business Page makes it easier for people to discover and interact with your brand online. Find out how to set one up.

Table of Contents

What do Nike, Cheetos, and The Metropolitan Opera all have in common? They’re all brands with a Facebook Business Page. Not to be pushy, but we think your incredible company ought to be on that list, too.

Facebook has an audience of more than three billion active monthly users . It’s still the biggest social network in the world. And if you’re not there trying to connect with your customers, you’re missing out. (It’s called tough love! Deal with it!)

Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.

What is a Facebook Business Page?

A Facebook Business Page is a public profile on Facebook intended for businesses, organizations, and public figures to promote themselves.

Customers can follow (or “Like”) Facebook Business Pages to see posts, photos, and videos from — and connect with — their favorite brands, companies, and creators.

You need a Facebook Business Page to run Facebook ads, open a Facebook Shop , and use other Facebook Commerce and promotional tools.

How to create a Facebook Business Page in 11 steps

Step 1: choose or create a personal facebook account.

Facebook Business Pages aren’t the same as Facebook profiles or users. They’re assets managed by a personal account known as the Page administrator. A Page can have more than one administrator; more on this later.

You can either use your personal Facebook account or create a new one with your work email address if you want to fully separate your personal and work lives. (Do you remember last year’s holiday party? If not, definitely separate your accounts.)

Log into the account of your choosing, and then either click the Create a Page link or navigate to the Pages menu through your Facebook account.

Once you’re on the pages menu, tap “Create new page.”

Step 2: Enter your business info

Time to populate your new Facebook business profile with all the essential info. To kick things off, you just need a name for your Page. That probably is just the name of your business (Bean Squeezer Coffee, say), but you might get more specific from that. If you’re creating a Facebook Page for a specific branch of your coffee empire, for example, you might call it Bean Squeezer Coffee Miami Beach. Or, maybe you’re making a Page just for updates about the popular Bean Squeezer mascot—calling it Beanie The Bean Awareness Bean might make the most sense.

You’ll also need to fill in what Category your business falls under—Food & Drink? Media? Footwear Store? Dealer’s choice.

The Bio section here is optional, but a good idea to fill out as soon as you can. Consider including keywords to help with your social SEO. (For instance, writing “Miami’s favorite South Beach coffee shop!” will probably give you more discoverability than “A cool place to hang.”)

Press the blue Create Page button when you’re ready to move on to the next step. (You can tweak all of these details later if you need to, so don’t stress about it too much.)

Step 3: Pop in your contact details

This next stage of creating your Facebook business page involves entering your contact info. Pop in your URL, phone number, and email. (Note that this contact information will be publicly available… so make sure you’re comfortable with it being published!)

You can enter your physical location (if you have one) at this stage, as well as your operating hours (if you’ve got ‘em). Remember, any of this info can be added, changed, or removed later. Hit next when you’re ready to roll.

Step 4: Add visuals and an action button

Time to add a little razzle-dazzle. Just like a regular personal Facebook profile, a Facebook Business Page looks best with a profile photo and a cover image.

Using your logo for your profile photo is a good idea for businesses. This is the image that will show up alongside all of your other Facebook activity (commenting on your posts or other posts inside a Messenger chat), so we highly recommend choosing something that visually represents your brand.

Beneath the spots where you upload your images, you’ll find the “Add Action Button” button. Tap that if you’d like to add a call to action to your Facebook Page. You’ll be prompted to select an option like “Start Order,” “Send Message,” or “Get Tickets.” Depending on what option you pick, you may be prompted to connect this Facebook Page to your reservation software or ecommerce platform of choice.

Step 5: Connect to WhatsApp if you’d like

If you’d like to connect with customers using WhatsApp, you’ll have the option to add a special WhatsApp button at this point. Just pop in your WhatsApp number and get a confirmation code to enter.

Not a WhatsApp user? Just hit “Skip” to move to the next phase of your incredible Facebook Business Page journey.

Step 6: Invite all your pals to like your Page!

Obviously, once you’re hard at work creating amazing, engaging Facebook content, your follower count will be blasting through the roof. But everyone needs to start somewhere, right? Before you officially launch your Page into the world, you’ll have a chance to invite your Facebook friends to connect with it. Go on… don’t be shy!

Step 7: Set your notification preferences

You’re going to want to know when the action happens on your page, right? By toggling “Page notifications on your profile” on, you’ll receive updates about your Facebook Business Page even when you’re logged in to your personal profile.

This is also the spot to opt in or out of marketing and promotional materials and Meta products and services. Who doesn’t like getting a little email now and then?!

When that’s all set, hit “Done”!

Step 8: Customize your Facebook Business Page

Okay, even though you just hit “Done” moments ago, there’s still a little bit of optional work to do here.

If you click the “Edit details” button, you’ve got the chance to enter in some more info to help let your followers know what you’re all about.

You can toggle your contact information on or off and add information about your service area (or pronouns).

You might add in a price range or details about what services you offer.

Along the top menu, you can click on “More” and “Manage sections” to remove what sections are publicly visible. Like, you could uncheck “Reviews given” if you don’t want the world to know that you’ve been going around giving zero stars to your competitors.

Step 9: Adjust your privacy settings

On the left-hand side of the page, select Settings and then Privacy. Here, you’ll be able to tweak your privacy settings to your heart’s content. Do you want to allow others to post on your page willy-nilly? Are you OK if followers leave reviews of your business?

These are settings you can toggle on and off at any given time, but it’s good to think about your comfort level before you really get going.

Step 10: Link your Instagram page

If you’ve got an Instagram Business Page, too, it makes sense to connect it to Facebook. You’ll be able to manage things on both platforms in one place—like your Instagram Shopping catalog .

Step 11. Start posting!

Your dreams have come true. You’ve created a Facebook Business Page. And now it’s time to actually (surprise!) post some content on it.

You can post on a Page just like you would on your own profile. Use text, add photos, share links, conduct polls, or go Live if you dare .

We’ve got a full guide to Facebook marketing here , but the TLDR is: offer your followers value, not just a constant sales pitch .

Aim to entertain, inform or inspire. To get you started, try out these 16 Facebook post ideas and watch the likes and shares start pouring in.

Pro tip: if you really want to extend the reach of your posts beyond your existing audience, you might consider boosting your post .

If you’re feeling intimidated by the pressure to post something creative every day… that’s what scheduling tools like Hootsuite are for. (And a solid content creation process .)

How to add an admin to a Facebook page

Step 1: login as your page.

Head to the menu (that little circle with nine dots in the top right-hand side) and select Pages. Select your new Facebook Business Page.

Step 2: Open the Page Access menu

On the left-hand side of the screen, click on Page Access. You’ll open the access management menu, where you’ll see there are two different options for granting permissions.

Facebook access includes things like dealing with ads, Insights, and content. Anyone you add to be a Facebook access admin will be able to:

• Create, manage, or delete posts and Stories
• Send and respond to direct messages and make calls
• Review and respond to comments, remove unwanted comments, and report activity
• Create, manage, and delete ads
• View insights for the Page, content, and ads
• If you flip the toggle to give them full control, this person will be able to give admin access to others, remove people from the Page (including you!), and even delete the Page… so don’t be too loosey-goosey handing this one out.

Task access is for people with more limited access—for instance, any community managers. They can’t switch into the Page admin specifically, but they can manage tasks using tools like Meta Business Suite or Creator Studio.

When you add someone with task access, you can pick and choose what they’re able to do.

• Toggle the ability to create, manage, or delete posts and Stories on or off
• Toggle the ability to send and respond to direct messages and make calls
• Toggle the ability to review and respond to comments, remove unwanted comments, and report activity
• Toggle the ability to create, manage, and delete ads
• Toggle the ability to view insights for the Page, content, and ads

As you can see, these two categories of admin are almost the same. Task access, though, can be limited to specific tasks, while Facebook access gives the admin total control over all of these areas. Dole out this power wisely.

One more admin option is to assign someone the title of Community Manager. These folks have an even more limited scope—they can delete comments from live streams, ban people from current or all streams and see all admins of your Page.

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your strategy, track results, and share with your boss, teammates, and clients.

Step 3: Click “Add new” in the category of your choice

Whether you’re adding a new person for task access or Facebook access, click the relevant Add New button.

Search for your new admin by name and click on the right account.

For Facebook access, you’ll need to decide whether you want to toggle that full control option.

For task access, pick and choose the tasks you’re comfortable with your admin performing.

When you’re done, click Give Access. You may be prompted to re-enter your Facebook password for security reasons.

To invite someone to manage your stream, click Manage next to “Community Managers.” From there, tap Add Community Manager and type in the name of the community member you want to invite.

They’ll receive an invite in their Facebook notifications of this prestigious new role, which they can accept or decline.

Step 4: Add admins to Meta Business Suite

So, you may have collaborators who need to be involved on a more financial level. Less moderating Live streams, more number crunching, you know? Those are the folks you’ll want to add as Business admins in Meta Business Suite.

Go to Meta Business Suite, scroll down, and click the “Create a Business Account” button.

What’s the difference? Employees can only manage the business assets they’re assigned, while a business admin has full control of the business account. A big responsibility!

How to delete a Facebook Page

Step 1: log in to your facebook business page.

From your personal account, click on your profile pic in the top corner, and then select your Facebook Business page from the drop-down.

Then, tap your business page name in the left-hand menu to open your page and access admin menus.

Step 2: Navigate to the delete or deactivate menu

Click Settings in the left-hand menu, and then click Privacy. Click Facebook Page information.

Here, you’ll see the option to temporarily deactivate or permanently delete your page. Click view.

Deactivation is temporary: your Page will be disabled, and your name and photos will be removed, but you can reactivate it later on if you’d like. If you delete your Facebook Page, though, it’s gone forever, including all your Messenger messages you sent as the Page .

Are you ready to burn it all to the ground and walk away?! Or do you just need a little break?

If you select Delete Page, you’ll be offered the chance to download or transfer your info before everything is destroyed. And, of course, before everything is permanently deleted, you’ll be asked for your password once more… for old time’s sake.

How to easily manage Facebook Pages

Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, has a native solution to manage one or multiple Facebook Pages: Meta Business Suite.

You need Meta Business Suite to run ads, use Facebook Commerce, and connect your Facebook and Instagram business accounts. It also recently absorbed Facebook’s Creator Studio, so now Meta Business Suite also features creator tools for planning, creating and posting content across both platforms.

Another Facebook Page management tool that’s easy to use? Hootsuite.

We don’t mean to brag, but Hootsuite is the best tool for social media managers. For starters, it’s more advanced than Meta’s native tools, with features like scheduling, social listening, inbox management, and in-depth analytics all in one place.

Plus, Hootsuite can be used to manage profiles on many platforms—Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest—so you can look at your social media kingdom at a glance.

Plan and compose your content

In Hootsuite, you can create and schedule all of your social posts in one place. This includes Facebook posts, Facebook Stories, Facebook Reels, and Facebook Group posts. Plus, the built-in Canva editor helps make graphic design a breeze, and the OwlyAI writer is there to help when you can’t quite find the words (or need a brainstorming boost).

Practice social listening

Want to keep an eye on your competitors, stay engaged with relevant online conversations, and protect your brand’s reputation? Hootsuite Streams can help you do all that — and more.

Get insights in real-time (and cool reports when you need ‘em)

Hootsuite Analytics is a social media analytics tool that lets you easily track the performance of your Facebook Page alongside all your other social channels so you can replicate what works and get more engagement. It helps track metrics like reach, engagement rate, impressions, shares, and more.

You can set up custom boards that give you an overview of your most important metrics at a glance, over a select period of time, and look up much more granular information, down to the performance of every individual post you published.

And when you’re ready to share insights with the team, it’s easy to quickly generate beautifully designed reports.

Find the best time to publish

Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature (found under Analytics) tells you the best times to post on Facebook (as well as Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok).

The recommendations are based on your past performance and tailored to your unique audience and their activity patterns on social. Plus, the Best Time to Publish tool breaks down different suggested times, depending on your brand goals—do you want extended reach, brand awareness, increased engagement, or traffic?

Then, use the user-friendly scheduling function to populate a whole week, month, or year’s worth of content to go out at the exact right moment.

And that’s not to mention Hootsuite’s Inbox management tool, the boosting tool, benchmarking abilities, and the rest… maybe you’re better off just learning more about all of Hootsuite’s features here ?

Facebook Business Page FAQs

Is there a difference between a facebook page and a business page.

Facebook Page and Facebook Business Page are two names for the same thing: a Facebook profile for your business.

Is a Facebook Business Page free?

Yes, creating a Facebook Business Page is completely free. Paid services, such as Facebook advertising and boosting posts , are optional.

Can I separate my Business Page from my personal account on Facebook?

Yes. Your personal Facebook account and Facebook Business Page aren’t connected on Facebook and won’t be publicly listed on each other. You need a personal account to create and manage a Facebook Business Page, but you could always create a separate personal profile with your work email address if desired.

What’s the recommended Facebook page cover photo size?

Currently, the Facebook Page cover photo size is 851 x 315 pixels. But platforms change often, so check our social media image size guide for up-to-date information.

Grow your Facebook presence faster with Hootsuite . Schedule all your social posts and track their performance in one dashboard.

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Stacey McLachlan is an award-winning writer and editor from Vancouver with more than a decade of experience working for print and digital publications.

She is editor-at-large for Western Living and Vancouver Magazine, author of the National Magazine Award-nominated 'City Informer' column, and a regular contributor to Dwell. Her previous work covers a wide range of topics, from SEO-focused thought-leadership to profiles of mushroom foragers, but her specialties include design, people, social media strategy, and humor.

You can usually find her at the beach, or cleaning sand out of her bag.

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Facebook Marketing for Small Business: How to Grow in 2024 and Beyond

As a small business owner, you usually don’t have the bandwidth or funds to invest in comprehensive digital marketing plans like big companies do. Unpaid social media marketing helps grow your business without a dedicated marketing team or a big budget. With 2.9 billion active users , Facebook is the most popular social network of them all. No matter what kind of business you have, your customers are likely on Facebook. What’s more, 2/3 of Facebook users visit a local business’ page at least once a week. It’s no wonder that 93% of marketers use Facebook, and 54% of them rank Facebook as the most important social network for marketers. Facebook can help you magnify brand awareness, find new customers, nurture customer loyalty, increase website traffic, improve sales, and enhance customer service. All it takes is a free business page to get started.

Can your small business do well on Facebook?

Any business can do well on Facebook — whether you own a local tea lounge, ecommerce store, hair salon, or landscaping business. If your customers are on Facebook, you can be successful on the platform. But if you only have time to focus on one or two social media platforms, you want to make sure Facebook is most popular with your current (and future!) customers. Here’s how to find out.

1. Ask your customers

The easiest way to find out if Facebook is a good place to reach your customers is to ask them. If you have an email list, send a brief survey to your customers asking about their social media habits. Ask which platforms they use most often and where they like to follow brands. Typeform and SurveyMonkey are two free survey tools to try. Typeform has a social media survey template you can use to get started. Customize it so you can get the information you want about your customers. No email list? Ask customers whenever you have a chance, whether that’s at the checkout in your physical store or during a client’s appointment.

2. Compare your target audience to Facebook’s users

Different audiences are more active on certain social media platforms than others. You can compare the demographic (gender, age, geographical location, income, etc.) and psychographic traits (interests, values, beliefs, and personality) of your target audience with the social media platforms you’re considering. For example, Facebook is most popular with millennials.

Aside from teens, even other age groups have more than 290,000,000 users making the platform worth exploring. But if teens are your target audience, you’ll want to consider other platforms like TikTok, where 25% of users are in the 10-19-year-old range.

3. Take a peek at your competitors

If businesses similar to yours have a large following and are getting lots of audience engagement through comments and likes on Facebook, it’s likely your target audience is on Facebook. After all, your competitors’ customers are potential customers for you, too! You just need to start posting. If your competitors aren’t on Facebook, it might not be the right platform. That said, if multiple customers have told you they’d follow you on Facebook, it could mean there’s untapped potential in your niche, and you’ll be the first to discover it.

How to get started with Facebook marketing for small businesses

Getting ready to create your first post? Use these Facebook marketing tips to set your business up for success.

1. Fully set up your Facebook business page

As a small business marketing on Facebook, your business page is like your homepage on the platform. It tells potential fans who you are and what you do as a business. So it’s important to set up your business page for recognizability.

• Start with your profile picture : This is the most important thing to do to make sure your brand is recognizable by your audience. Use your logo or brand icon as your profile picture.
• Add a cover photo: A cover photo is your audience’s first impression of your brand. The good ones elicit an emotion or encourage a specific action, like acting on your seasonal sale. Snap a picture of your product in action, physical store, team, or upload an image that features your latest offer.
• Fill out contact information: This should be complete and up-to-date, including your website, email address and/or phone number for customer service, and location, so people know how to find you and connect with you.
• Clarify your business in the about section : It’s important for browsing fans to know what you do! Focus on what makes your business unique. For example, maybe you own an apparel business that focuses on high-quality, versatile designs. Or maybe philanthropy is a focus, and you donate to charity with every purchase, like Bombas below. Let your fans know here.

• Choose the right page template: Facebook has several pre-built templates that cater to different types of businesses. Select the one that represents your business best and customize your page from there.
• Customize your call-to-action (CTA) button : Want your Facebook fans to go to your website? Book an appointment? Call your store? Customize the CTA button at the top of your Facebook page to direct your fans to take the most useful action for your goals.
• Create a vanity URL : Once you have 25 fans, you can claim a vanity URL for your page (e.g. facebook.com/bufferapp 😄). This will look more official and be easier for your audience to type than a long URL of random letters and numbers.

Now you’re ready to draw in fans!

2. Know your content types

Video posts see the highest engagement rates . And posts that contain photos see higher engagement rates than posts with links or plain-text posts. However, every type of content has its place on Facebook, and it’s worth using all of them depending on how you’re trying to engage your audience.

• Plain-text posts : These are great for sparking conversation. You can use plain-text posts to ask your fans questions or ask for feedback.
• Link posts: Posts with links show a preview of the website, so the visuals can catch more attention than a plain-text post. Use these when you want to encourage a specific action like shopping a sale or promoting a blog post.
• Photo posts: Facebook posts with photos catch people’s attention when they’re scrolling their news feed. They take less effort to create than videos while still increasing your chance of engagement.
• Video posts: Facebook videos play automatically, so it’s even easier to grab people’s attention. It doesn’t have to look professional, either. Casual videos taken on a phone feel authentic to viewers and can help build connections. Use video to show new products in action, behind-the-scenes footage, Q&As, and more. Go live for real-time engagement with your fans.
• Stories: Skip the news feed algorithm and post a Facebook Story . According to Facebook, 62% of people became “more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in stories” across the Facebook family of apps. Stories lend themselves well to casual content. Consider posting fun questions, interesting links, polls, anything to keep people engaged.

Want more info on content? Here’s how to craft high-quality Facebook posts .

3. Be relatable, not salesy

Your fans came for your products and services, but they stay because they like your style and how you engage with them. Think of social media as an extension of your brand’s personality . You can still post promotional content — it should just be in the mix with plenty of engaging non-salesy content to make your brand worth following on Facebook. Apparel brand Bombas shows their personality through a fun poem while reminding fans of their guarantee:

4. Publish media directly on Facebook instead of linking out

Sometimes you’ll want to get people to your blog or website, but you’ll benefit by posting media directly on Facebook when possible. The Facebook algorithm favors media that’s published directly on the platform over something linked out. So limit how frequently you post to other websites. Plus, posting directly on Facebook enables conversation right on the platform, which is better for engagement and leads to more eyes on your content. Food blog Ministry of Curry posts a video version of a recipe on their Facebook page and links to the blog for the full version.

5. Adapt your content for Facebook instead of copy-pasting from other channels

Several of your fans probably follow you in multiple places. They might be on your email list or follow you on another social network like Instagram or Twitter. You need to provide a unique experience for these people, so they have a reason to follow you. Instead of just posting the subject line of a recent email that promotes a new blog post, adapt your content for different platforms, so there’s something new for your followers to interact with. Consider creating a TL;DR version of your blog post as your Facebook post or asking relevant questions to spark conversation.

6. Interact with your fans

Social media is more than posting great content — it’s building relationships with your followers. So engage with your fans ! Like and respond to their comments to keep the conversation going. It will encourage people to keep interacting with you on Facebook.

7. Consider starting a Facebook Group

With over 10 million groups on Facebook and 1.4 billion people using them on a monthly basis, Facebook Groups are a fun way to build community around your brand and a loyal following. Groups can be a way for your brand to keep people motivated through challenges, you could offer sneak peeks or exclusive discounts, or it could act as a resource for people seeking advice around shared values. Eco-friendly home goods brand etee has an exclusive Facebook group for its Plastic-Free Club — a membership that grants its members lower prices on its products. CEO and co-founder Steve Reble engages members with sneak peeks, asks for product feedback, and starts discussions around environmentalism. Fans come to support each other in their quest to live a more environmentally-conscious lifestyle.

8. Post on Facebook consistently

It’s going to take time to build your fan base, but don’t be discouraged! It might seem like you’re not reaching anybody at the beginning, but if you keep posting consistently, your fans will get in the habit of interacting with you, and you’ll slowly grow your Facebook presence. Once a week will be plenty to start.

9. Measure the right metrics for success

As you build your Facebook presence, you’ll want to make sure your efforts are paying off. The number of fans and likes you have in the beginning will be low to start. That’s normal! It will take some time to take off. The important thing is these numbers improve over time. Use your metrics to find the types of content your fans are engaging with and make more of it. Here’s a step-by-step guide to using Facebook Insights .

Save time on Facebook marketing with a social media scheduling tool

As a small business, marketing on Facebook is no small task. You have dozens of projects to manage and a small team to get it all done. Sometimes it’s a one-person show! So you need to make it as easy as possible on yourself to create and maintain your Facebook content calendar. Save time with a social media marketing tool like Buffer. With Buffer, you can schedule your posts weeks in advance so you never go dark on Facebook. Plus, Buffer is free for up to three social media accounts. And you can schedule up to ten posts on each account which is plenty for a small business to get started with Facebook marketing.

Did you find this article helpful? You might also like our all-you-need social media toolkit.

The all-you-need social media toolkit

Publish Flawlessly. Analyze Effortlessly. Engage Authentically.

Buffer is the all-you-need social media toolkit that lets you focus on doing what you love for your business.

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How to Create a Facebook Business Page: The Complete Guide for 2022

Want more people to find your business on Facebook? Wondering how to make a Facebook business page?

In this article, you’ll learn how to create a Facebook business page, including a complete tutorial with optimization tips and suggested features to integrate.

How to Make a Facebook Business Page: Step-by-Step Tutorial Using Your Personal Facebook Profile

First, let's look at how to set up a Facebook business page from your personal profile. This workflow is best if you don't want to use Business Manager or Business Suite to manage your page. You can always move the page to Business Manager later if your needs change.

#1: Navigate to Your Personal Profile

Start by opening Facebook in a browser and clicking the flag icon in the top menu bar. Then click the Create New Page button in the left-hand menu. You'll automatically be redirected to Facebook's Create a Page pop-up.

#2: Enter Basic Page Information

Next, add basic information about your business. Enter a page name and indicate that you see a green check, which confirms that the name you entered follows Facebook's page name rules . For example, the page can't include inappropriate capitalization or punctuation.

Choose up to three categories that describe your business. Type a keyword or two to start browsing your options.

In the description box, write a concise introduction to your business. Since you have only 255 characters to work with, this is a great place to feature your unique selling proposition. The description will appear in the About section at the very top of your page.

Click the Create Page button when you're finished. Note that you can always go back and update or edit the information you've entered.

#3: Upload Facebook Page Images

After you've created the page, you'll see some new options to upload images. Add a profile photo that your customers can easily recognize and associate with your business—such as your logo, your product, your location, or yourself (if your page represents a public figure).

Note that Facebook recommends using a square image that displays at 170 x 170 pixels. And keep in mind that it displays as a circle, so the corners may be cut off.

Next, choose a cover photo to tell customers more about your business. Your cover image might show some of your products, a view of your store, a snapshot of your team, or your current offer. Although it's a good idea to keep your profile photo consistent, you can plan to change your cover photo frequently.

Facebook recommends uploading an image that measures 1640 x 856 pixels. But it's important to note that your cover photo displays at different dimensions on desktop vs. mobile. Use the toggle in the upper-right corner to preview your cover image on both. When you're done, click the Save button to complete the basic page setup process.

#4: Connect Your Facebook Page to WhatsApp

Next, you'll see an option to connect your Facebook page to your WhatsApp business account. This is an optional step that you can complete now or return to later.

If you do connect your WhatsApp business account, note that anyone who visits your Facebook page can see your WhatsApp number. You can also add a WhatsApp button to your page, include a button in certain posts, or run WhatsApp ads to get more messages.

Curious About How to Use AI?

We recently launched a new show that help marketers, creators, and entrepreneurs understand the business applications of AI. It's hosted by Michael Stelzner and explores this exciting new frontier in easy-to-understand terms. Pull up your favorite podcast app and search for AI Explored. (Look for the cover art shown to the right.) Or click the button below for more information.

#5: Choose a Username for Your Facebook Page

Once your page is set up, the first thing you should do is choose a username. Ideally, your username should include all or part of your business name or domain name. It should also be consistent across social media channels so customers can easily find and tag your business.

Click the Create @Username link and enter the username you want to use. Since usernames must be unique, you'll see an error message if the handle is already taken. Once you've found one that works, click the Create Username button. Note that your page's username appears in your URL like so: https://facebook.com/username

#6: Add a Call-to-Action Button to Your Facebook Page

Next, decide which call-to-action (CTA) button to add to your page. Click the Add a Button button in the upper-left corner and choose one of the available CTAs.

The best option for your business depends on what you want to accomplish:

• To grow your audience, choose Follow or Sign Up.
• To start conversations with customers, choose Call Now, Contact Us, Send Message, Send Email, or Send WhatsApp Message.
• To get people to engage with your website or app, choose Learn More or Use App.
• To drive sales, choose Shop on Website, Start Order, or Book Now.

#7: Provide Business Details

Although you already added a description of your business to your page, you should also add contact information so customers can learn more about your business. Scroll down to the Provide Info and Preferences section or click Edit Page Info in the left-hand menu.

Then add details like your website and phone number. If your business has an office, store, or physical headquarters that's open to the public, add business hours and location info.

#8: Pick a Facebook Page Template

By default, Facebook pages use a standard template. But you can choose a different one to market your business more effectively.

In the left-hand menu, select Settings. Then click Templates and Tabs. Under the Tabs section, click the Edit button. Then browse the available options to find one that fits your business type.

If you plan to sell products from your page, for example, choose the Shopping template. If you run a service-based business, go with the Services template instead.

Then review the tabs that display on your page. You can toggle off those you don't plan to use and place the remaining ones in an order that works best for your business. You can revisit them and switch tabs back on at any time.

#9: Introduce Your Facebook Page

Now you can start growing your audience and using your page. Scroll down to the Introduce Your Page section and click the Create Welcome Post button. Alternatively, click the Create Post button at the top of your page. Use the opportunity to welcome followers and customers, introduce them to your business, and tell them what to expect.

Then start inviting people to your page. You can click the Invite Friends button to ask friends, family, co-workers, and other personal connections to follow your page. Note that this option won't automatically invite all of your friends. Instead, you can select the people you want to invite to your page.

#10: Add Another Facebook Page Admin

Even if you plan to manage your business page mostly on your own, it's critical to add at least one more admin. That way, someone on your team can still access your page if you get locked out for any reason.

To add another admin, select settings from your page's left-hand menu. Then select Page Roles. In the Assign a New Page Role section, change the setting to Admin. Then type the name of the friend you want to add.

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Note that any admins you add automatically get the same permissions you have. If you want to add a social media scheduler or community manager to your page, change their settings accordingly.

#11: Move Your Facebook Page to Business Manager

You can continue to manage your business page from your personal account. But if you want to separate personal from professional activity, you can move the page to Business Manager instead.

Open Business Settings by clicking the gear icon next to your business account in either Business Manager or Business Suite. Then open the Accounts drop-down and click Pages.

Click the Add button and select Add a Page. Type your page's name or copy and paste the URL. Confirm that you've chosen the correct page and select Add Page. If you're both the page and the Business Manager admin, the page will move to your Business Manager instantly.

How to Create a Facebook Business Page: Step-by-Step Tutorial Using Business Settings

Now let's look at how to set up a Facebook business page directly in Business Settings. If you work with a team or need to manage multiple Meta business assets, this workflow is a good choice.

#1: Open Business Settings

If you're starting in Business Suite, open the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner and click the gear icon next to your business account. If you're starting in Business Manager, select your business account and click the gear icon in the lower-left corner.

Under the Accounts drop-down menu, select the Pages tab. Then click the blue Add button to open a new drop-down menu. Click Create a New Page to set up a new page for your business.

#2: Create Your Facebook Business Page

Then choose the category that best fits the type of page you want to create. Options range from local business to public figure to cause or community.

Next, pick a name for your page—ideally, the name of your business, brand, organization, or yourself (if you're a public figure). Use the drop-down menu to select a category that describes your page. Then click the Create Page button.

#3: Complete Your Business Page Setup

Once it's created, your page will appear in your list of pages in Business Settings. Click the View Page button in the upper-left corner to finish the setup process. Alternatively, you can return to Business Suite or Business Manager and access your new page at any time.

Use the workflow detailed above to complete the setup:

• Connect the page to your WhatsApp business account or cancel out of the prompt.
• Choose a username that's unique to your business and consistent across channels.
• Write a short description of your business.
• Add business details including your website, phone number, hours, and location.
• Upload a profile photo and a cover photo that fit the recommended dimensions.
• Select a template for your page and adjust the tabs to meet your needs.
• Publish an introductory post and invite friends to like your page.

#4: Add Team Members to Your Business Page

To add admins or employees to your page, go back to Business Settings. Open the Accounts drop-down menu and select Pages. Find your new page in the list and click the Add People button. Then choose the people you'd like to add.

Plan to add at least one admin, and then add other team members as employees. That way, you can give people the necessary access only—such as publishing content, responding to engagement, and sending messages—without giving them complete control over your page.

Optimization Tips for Your New Facebook Business Page

To market your business more effectively, use the optimization tips below.

#1: Link Your Business' Instagram Account

If you plan to market your business on Instagram too, connect the two accounts. Open the settings for your Facebook page and select Instagram from the left-hand tab. Then click the Connect Account button.

Choose whether you want your Instagram messages to appear in your Meta inbox and click Continue. Then log into your business' Instagram account and finish linking the two.

Once you connect them, you can manage comments and messages for both Facebook and Instagram in your Meta inbox. You can also publish and schedule content to both from Business Suite.

#2: Add Facebook and Instagram Shops

If your business sells products online, you can use your Facebook page and Instagram account to increase sales. To set up your shop, click the Get Started button on your Facebook page. Alternatively, open Commerce Manager from Business Manager or Business Suite.

Then use this Instagram Shops and Facebook Shops tutorial to set up your shop. You can set up shop on one or both channels and create catalogs that you can use for advertising.

#3: Set Up Services, Appointments, or Orders

If your business offers services rather than products, you can promote them through your business page. To add a menu, first select the Restaurant page template. Then switch on the menu tab on your page and upload a menu file.

To promote services, choose the Business page template and switch on the Services tab. Then go to your page, click the More drop-down menu, and select the Services tab. For each service, you can write a description, list a price, and show timing.

To allow customers to book appointments through Facebook, change the CTA button on your page to Book Now. You can connect a third-party booking tool or allow people to book on Facebook.

#4: Use Business Suite to Post Content Regularly

To attract more followers, get engagement, and meet your marketing goals, publish content regularly. With Business Suite, you can publish or schedule posts and stories to your Facebook page and your Instagram account. Use the optimal time recommendations to find the best days and times to reach your audience.

#5:Check Business Suite Insights

To set goals and track progress for your page, use Business Suite insights. You can set reach or audience goals to reach any key performance indicators you want. Then you can monitor reach, audience growth, and content metrics to make sure you're on the right track.

Whether you want to use your personal profile or Business Settings, you can create a Facebook business page in just a few minutes. Using the optimization tips above, you can better serve your audience and maximize the value you get from your Facebook page.

Get More Advice on Using Facebook for Business:

• Learn how to optimize your Facebook business page for the latest layout .
• Find 13 ways to create Facebook posts that generate meaningful interactions and improve organic news feed visibility .
• Discover how to leverage Facebook pages, profiles, groups, ads, live video, analytics, contests, and more .

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10 steps for a successful facebook marketing strategy (+ examples to boost engagement).

Sabina Varga

May 12, 2024

No credit card required!

There’s no digital marketing without an effective Facebook marketing strategy. The social media giant has gone through controversies, rebrandings, and rumors of downfall, but it remains the most popular network worldwide.

For all social media managers out there struggling to find inspiration for their Facebook marketing in 2023, here are some must-do steps (including  scheduling Facebook posts and Facebook Reels ), and creative ideas to help you stay competitive.

What is a Facebook marketing strategy?

A Facebook marketing strategy refers to the various approaches that businesses and marketers employ to advertise and promote products and services on Facebook. The strategy includes defining goals and audiences, creating a content calendar , setting up Meta Ads, and tracking results.

With 3 billion active users, the social media platform offers a wide range of marketing opportunities and advertising tools to reach targeted audiences. Having a solid strategy in place allows brands to use Facebook to support business objectives, generating engagement and favoring community building.

How to create a killer Facebook marketing strategy

Facebook marketing can help you reach various business objectives, but it can also get overwhelming. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a Facebook marketing strategy that eliminates your doubts and boosts audience engagement.

Step 1: Define your audience

Everybody and their mom (literally), is on Facebook. This means your Facebook marketing campaign has the potential to reach many people. But it’s also tricky: you and your mom don’t necessarily respond to the same kind of social media posts or ads.

Here’s where specific targeting comes in.

Define who you want to reach on Facebook. Who is most likely to engage with your brand? Who are your potential customers? Here are some ways to research demographics, interests, and preferences:

• Social media listening. Look at your own social media pages and those of your competitors. Observe discussions, trends, language, topics, and issues that resonate with your audience.
• Facebook groups and other online communities. Groups and forums are great at getting to know people, their problems, ways of expressing themselves, and reasons for buying.
• Google Analytics. Understand who’s visiting your website and why. What are the most popular pages and topics? What patterns of behaviors do you see?
• Interviews and questionnaires. Face-to-face discussions with potential customers are valuable, and so are online questionnaires, which you can send to your newsletter subscribers, for example.
• Industry research and reports. Market research conducted by reputable sources can give you essential data on consumer preferences, behaviors, and trends.
• Facebook audience insights. Not least, take advantage of the Facebook business tools that offer advanced information about both people on the social network and those connected to your page.

With this information in mind, create and save Facebook audiences to use in your campaigns. For each group, identify problems that your product and services solve and the type of message and creative ideas that will resonate.

Step 2: Set up your goals

Goals help you stay focused, make strategic decisions, and measure results so you can improve. And they depend on your business.

For example, a coffee store will try to convince people to pay them a visit, while an eCommerce business will aim to sell products online. A software company might be looking for subscribers, while a furniture shop is more likely to want to maximize the value of each sale.

What’s more, the same business will have evolving objectives. Here are some common Facebook goals that apply to various business types:

• Awareness. Aim to reach as many people in your target audience as possible, with catchy messages that make your brand memorable. Important for new brands or freshly-launched products.
• Traffic. Create Facebook ad campaigns that convince people to visit your website, landing page, app, or even a physical store. Crucial for connecting the dots of your digital marketing strategy.
• Engagement. Ask questions, make people curious, and convince Facebook followers to like, comment, or click on your content. Essential for building communities.
• Leads. Use Facebook’s dedicated tools (forms, messages, calls, sign-ups) to collect leads for your business. Great for moving people down the marketing funnel.
• Sales. Target people who are already interested and who are more likely to buy with relevant and convincing offers. Powerful for growing your business and demonstrating Facebook marketing ROI.

Set up Facebook goals quarterly to help support your overall marketing strategy and business objectives.

Step 3: Perform competitor research

Competitor research helps you gather insights and analyze the Facebook pages, posts, and campaigns of your competitors. Understand what works and what could be improved, and apply the learnings to your strategy.

Here’s how to conduct Facebook competitor research:

• Make a list of competitors , both direct competitors, as well as those who target a similar audience or operate in a related industry. Consider both local and global competitors.
• Analyze competitors’ pages and their Facebook marketing strategies . Look at the types of content they post, their messaging, tone of voice, posting frequency, timing, and engagement.
• Explore Facebook’s Ad Library to see what types of ads your competitors run. For example, if you’re a soft drinks manufacturer from Portugal, Pepsi’s campaigns in that location are relevant. As seen below in Facebook Ads library , the page runs a lot of video ads — an indication that this type of ad is effective for its audience.

Pepsi Portuguese ads in the Facebook Ads Library

• Observe engagement strategies. How do competitors get followers to react? It can be contests, giveaways, polls, user-generated content, or something else.
• Expand research beyond Facebook. Explore other social media platforms, websites, and email marketing campaigns to get inspiration for your own page, and see how you can integrate Facebook efforts into your overall marketing strategy.

Remember to filter everything through your own goals, target audience, brand identity, and marketing strategy. For example, even if Ryanair’s Facebook page has great engagement rates, this tone of voice is not suitable for all brands.

Quirky Facebook post from Ryanair

Step 4: Optimize your Facebook page

Algorithms and features evolve, and so should your Facebook page. Revisit it periodically and make sure it remains engaging, informative, and relevant. Keep an eye on Facebook updates to pages and ensure that you use all features to your benefit.

Fill out all the necessary information in the “About” section of your Facebook business Page, including a clear and concise description of your business and contact information.

Pay close attention to what appears in the “Bio” section. Starbucks does a good job here by using a warm, inviting tone of voice to create familiarity with the brand and increase engagement on the page.

Startbucks’ Facebook page

Choose a high-quality profile picture and cover photo, representative of your brand and visually appealing. As much as possible, make them complementary to create a nice visual effect — and beware of how they show on different devices.

Not least, customize the Facebook call-to-action button and align it with your social media marketing objectives. You can invite followers to “Shop Now,” “Sign Up,” “Learn More,” or “Send Message”. Link the CTA button to the relevant page, form, or app.

All these optimizations improve your brand’s image on Facebook, increase your likeability and the chances that people will perceive you as a trustworthy, professional brand.

Step 5: Plan your content strategy

First, identify your relevant content pillars and themes. These are the broad focus topics for your Facebook posts. Let’s say you have a tourism brand. Your content pillars could be destination guides, travel tips and advice, and local culture and traditions.

Second, determine the types of content you’ll create. Take into account your audience’s preferences and the format that best helps you convey your messages.

Here are a few popular content types:

Informative updates

Educating and informing your audience should be a priority in your social media strategy. According to the latest studies , some of the main reasons for logging into social media for most age groups are reading news stories and keeping up with trends.

Provide relevant industry trends and happenings, and also useful evergreen content, such as tutorials, how-tos, guides, etc. And for those times when you’re lacking inspiration, rely on our AI caption generator for Facebook that’ll take your rough idea and turn it into a scroll-stopping post.

Remember to keep posts short and readable and to use relevant visuals.

Links to blog posts or website pages

Links to interesting articles or to pages on your website are definitely something to include in your Facebook content mix.

Write an interesting description that makes people curious to click and read more. Use cool, fun hooks, but avoid clickbait — it may get people to click in the short run, but it can eat away at their trust.

Here’s how Tourism Ireland’s Facebook page uses short, catchy copy and beautiful imagery to entice people to visit their website.

Insightful infographics

Infographics are a great way to present data in a visually pleasing way. They’re also share-worthy.

Transform industry reports, analyses, and trends into short infographics that catch people’s attention. The Schengen Visa Info page is doing it right:

Engaging video posts

Video content has been a trend in social media for years, and it’s not slowing down. A Databox 2021 survey showed that video ads and posts performed better overall than static images. So Facebook video posts are a must if you want to get engagements and remain relevant.

A great way of getting more authentic, creative video content is to collaborate with influencers in your industry who are known for this type of format.

Special offers

Include special offers in your Facebook content calendar to help increase sales — but don’t overdo it, as they can be a turn-off for audiences.

People like to discover products on social media, so take the opportunity to talk about benefits and about the problems that you can solve for your target audience.

Stay on top of your content strategy

It’s not a lack of content ideas that marketers find most challenging when it comes to the Facebook content strategy. It’s consistently executing the strategy every day, week, and month.

Planable excels at helping teams work together on creating and publishing Facebook content on a consistent basis. With its highly visual and interactive content calendar, it makes it much easier to plan and stay consistent in the long run.

Content calendar in Planable

Step 6: Schedule and publish your content

When should you post on Facebook? According to the American Marketing Association , the best times to do so are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. They also advise against posting on Saturdays.

Aim to publish content between three times a week to daily. Post several times a day only occasionally, and if it’s really necessary.

For example, a festival might have a high posting frequency as it’s happening, with practical information for participants, photos, videos, etc. But an online store on any given day won’t need to communicate as often.

This being said, analyze your own Facebook insights to decide on posting frequency and the best times to schedule posts.

Post ready for publishing in Planable

Scheduling social media posts improves effectiveness, and Planable helps you do that easily on multiple platforms at once, so you save time and stay organized. With a Facebook management tool , everything becomes a breeze.

Step 7: Engage with your audience

Have you ever visited a brand’s social media profile to find posts with zero comments, few likes, and no trace of shares? It’s a sad image.

Many times, it’s not for lack of trying. The brand posts regularly. But that’s not enough. Internet users are oversaturated with content, so you have to be strategic about it.

Here are a few tried-and-tested ways to increase your Facebook engagement:

• Be relevant and authentic. Below, innocent is acing the engagement game by using humor in the right context.

• Don’t post and forget about it. A bar in my area made this mistake. They posted on a controversial topic on Friday and went on to enjoy the weekend. By the time they got back online, their page was in full backlash.
• Don’t ignore negative comments or, worse, start arguments. Even if you believe people to be wrong, keep a polite tone and have a problem-solving attitude.
• Do report spam and inappropriate speech. Facebook has its own filters, but keep an eye out and make your page safe and clean.
• Following up on the example above, here’s how innocent keeps the conversation going and creates loyal fans through content.
• Use Facebook Messenger. Encourage people to contact you and reply quickly. You even have the option to show ads in Facebook Messenger as a great way to spark conversations naturally.
• Manage reviews. People rely on reviews in their online research. Just as with comments, reply to reviews in a respectful manner and consider them valuable feedback. Take the opportunity to build trust — just like a former boss of mine who offered a free consultation to someone who had left a negative review on Facebook. The result? A new customer in days.
• Involve employees. Encourage your team to interact with your Facebook content. It helps boost engagement, and it shows others that you’re a trustworthy brand.

Step 8: Set up Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are a powerful tool to be included in all Facebook marketing strategies. With organic reach decreasing steadily over the years, ads have become a must to reach Facebook users.

Facebook Ads has rebranded into Meta Ads, allowing businesses to advertise across the Meta ecosystem: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

Here’s the process to create a Facebook ad campaign, in brief:

• Campaigns and ads are created from the Ads Manager, which you access from your Facebook business page. Once there, click on “Create” to get started.
• Choose the ad objective: awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion, or sales. Depending on this, Facebook will optimize who it shows it to.
• Opt to do A/B testing. This is useful to compare the performance of different ad copy or visuals.
• Set a daily or lifetime budget for your campaign. Facebook will use this budget in an optimum way throughout your campaign period.
• Within each campaign, you can have different ad sets with individual ads.
• For each ad, choose a saved audience, add the creative elements, and preview how the ad shows on different platforms.
• Lastly, publish the ad. It will go through an approval process before going live, which can take up to 24 hours.

Another essential step is setting up the Facebook Pixel — now Meta Pixel — on your website. The pixel is a Java snippet that allows you to track users’ actions.

Gather information on people’s behaviors and preferences and use it to analyze campaign performance, but also to improve ads and create remarketing campaigns.

Step 9: Collaborate with influencers and ambassadors

Influencer marketing is now part of most digital marketing campaigns, enabling businesses to reach wider audiences, enhance brand credibility, and drive engagement and conversions.

For successful campaigns, influencers must fit your brand in terms of interests, type of content produced, and tone of voice. Make sure that their Facebook community is not only large, but engaged . You can also work with micro-influencers, who have a smaller following but are very active and trusted.

Set up objectives for your collaboration and also leave creative freedom to influencers because they know what works best for their specific audience.

With long-term collaboration, influencers can become brand ambassadors and be a constant source of high-quality, highly-engaging content.

Step 10: Analyze results and optimize your content

Access the Meta Business Suite from your Facebook Page to view audience insights and get information about how your content performs. Alongside, consider using a third-party Facebook analytics tool to gain deeper insights.

Facebook analytics in Planable

Monitor key metrics, such as reach, engagement, or click-through rate. Identify trends in behaviors and types of content that perform best. Based on observations, adjust your Facebook marketing strategy and enrich your content calendar.

By being data-driven, you improve the performance of your business page, maximize social media ROI, and achieve the goals you set at the beginning of the process.

FAQs about the Facebook marketing strategy

Is facebook marketing free.

Yes. Creating a business page and publishing content is free. However, reaching wide audiences is generally possible only through Facebook advertising, so brands typically allocate a budget for their business page.

Do hashtags work on Facebook?

Yes. Though not as popular as on other platforms, hashtags work on Facebook, and you can add them to your posts to increase reach.

How much do Facebook ads cost?

You can run Facebook ads for as little as $1 per day , but you’re competing in an auction system, so a very small budget might give you modest results. Start small and increase budgets as you feel more comfortable with Facebook marketing tactics.

Get started on your best Facebook marketing strategy

So, are you ready to compete with photos of pets and dreamy holiday snaps?

You got this. With the strategic steps highlighted above and the examples provided and with the right Facebook marketing tools , you’re well on your way to populating your social media calendar with relevant, engaging posts that will make followers fall in love with your brand.

Remember: Planable supports your successful Facebook presence with a user-friendly interface that simplifies content planning, creation, scheduling, and analysis. It also allows you to collaborate with your team or clients, manage feedback, and get content approvals. Give it a go — the first 50 posts are free.

Sabina is a freelance writer with 15+ years of experience in the MarCom industry. Her to-do list includes helping people write better and businesses sell more through content. She is the host of Zest, a podcast that brings writing within listeners’ reach.

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Facebook Marketing Plan Template Fine-Tuned for Maximum Sales

By now you’ve probably heard that Facebook is the #1 referral source of traffic for clever marketers. Those who have cracked the Facebook code swear by it and just can’t stop raving about it. Today’s  Facebook marketing plan template will help you join those marketers.

How can sellers like yourself jump on the bandwagon and achieve same levels of success with Facebook?

It’s possible even without spending a single dollar on Facebook advertising . This Facebook marketing plan template is designed to help you with that.

After reading this post, you’ll learn:

1) Why it’s important always to start with one main goal for Facebook marketing. 2) How to get to know your Facebook audience. 3) What, when and how to post. 4) How to build a posting schedule. 5) How to measure the effectiveness of your Facebook strategy.

Let’s get to it.

Define your Facebook marketing goals

Continuous success of any marketing strategy is based on the 3 stage process of measuring, analyzing and adjusting your campaigns. Even more so with Facebook marketing. With the trove of data provided to you for free in Facebook Insights – the measuring part is always already completed for you.

As with every planning activity, before you begin to plan for anything – you need to understand what are your goals. What are you trying to achieve? It’s easier to hit the target if you know which target you intend to hit. Otherwise, you might find yourself shooting blanks in the middle of your campaign.

As a business that is trying to succeed on Facebook, there are two basic goals you could aim for.

You might be willing to drive referral traffic back to your shop or product pages. This way the key metric you’ll be monitoring is clicks. Alternatively, it’s also possible you want to strengthen your brand and increase brand awareness. In this case, you better watch out for the reach your posts are getting.

Whatever your main goal, don’t forget that Facebook is a social network. It’s where people are open to building new relationships and becoming a part of new communities. It’s easy to get carried away by the scheduled routine and forget that key to your success on Facebook lies in actually interacting with potential and existing customers.

Action : Decide if you’re going to optimize your Facebook marketing efforts for clicks or reach.

Know your Facebook audience

You could spend hours trying to decipher the Facebook Insights  and affinity categories in Google Analytics  in search for some new powerful connections between your customers and their interests. But in the end, you’ll probably find that visitors of your Jewelry store are interested in Handmade Jewelry and Luxury Products. Really? What a surprise!

There’s a better use of your time if you’re looking to quickly get all the info you need about your customers. Just ask them. Creating a survey or a poll couldn’t be easier these days. You can use Typeform to create beautiful surveys and forms out of the box. I promise you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you take a look at the survey completion rates.

Use typeforms to learn more about your potential customers.

Better yet, why ask your customers anything if you can see everything you need for yourself? With tools like Hotjar you can spy on your visitors and see exactly what they are doing on your website. A simple integration with your e-commerce software will allow you to see a video recording of the actions visitor performed on the website. You can then see what type of products customer was searching for, how long has he spent on checkout and if everything was clear to him and more.

The idea behind all these activities is to gather as much context as possible about your customers. You can then use that information to create a user persona  for your Facebook campaigns. Use it to understand who you’re reaching out to on Facebook. It helps to get a better understanding of who you’re targeting and come up with content ideas.

Action : Construct a buyer persona by gathering as much information about them as possible. For best results, use tools like Typeform, Hotjar, Facebook Insights and Google Analytics Affinity Categories.

What type of content you should post

What kind of posts should you write to get more sales ? Is it photo posts, link posts, video posts or text posts?

The answer is all of them.

Even though video is an undisputed winner  when it comes to comparing content types for reach, as a seller you need to mix the type of content you’re posting. Try posting multiple types of content per day, see what works best and do more of what works.

CoSchedule – built for people who are tired of planning social media campaigns in spreadsheets.

To help you remember what content to post you can go old-school and use a spreadsheet OR you can use a marketing calendar like CoSchedule . Not only will it help you plan your campaigns and organize everything in a very neat calendar view, it will also allow you to re-schedule some of the older posts you have already created. Essentially it’s two tools in one!

Action : Accept that you can’t just post link+image posts anymore. Prepare to create all types of content if you want to hit the goals you outlined in the steps before.

Measuring the effectiveness of your Facebook marketing efforts

It’s easy to convince yourself that you were always going for brand awareness with your strategy. After all, getting views is so much easier than actually converting those views in leads and sales. However, you and I both know what you really want is sales.

So don’t waste your time on vanity metrics . Measure clicks, leads and sales. That’s it. That’s all you need to start.

The more you post, the more you’ll understand what kind of content performs best. Do more of what works and you’ll soon find yourself among the select few marketers who cracked the Facebook Code.

Action : Don’t spend hours trying to understand all the metrics you see in Facebook Insights. Pay attention to the clicks, leads and sales.

Facebook marketing plan template

As promised, here’s the Facebook marketing plan template for you to use to jump-start your Facebook Marketing strategy session. It’s divided into 3 sections – daily activities, monthly schedule, and long-term plan.

Preview of the Facebook marketing plan template with weekly and daily activities.

Start with the long-term plan, identify the key targets you want to hit in the given month and what are the activities that will get you there. Proceed with the monthly schedule – this is where you plan the type and date of the individual posts. And finally the daily activities – to help you stay organized throughout the day.

Get inspired by thousands of Facebook Ads in AdEspresso gallery. Use them to create a similar paid campaign or adjust them for use as a regular post.

And if you’re completely stuck and don’t have any ideas on what to actually post, here’s a gallery of good Facebook ads . Learn from the best, but remember to adjust this to the sell without selling principle. Facebook doesn’t want to put sales updates in user news feeds.

Action : Download the Facebook marketing plan template and visit the Facebook ad gallery for tons of Facebook inspiration.

Over to you

Now it’s your time to create Facebook marketing strategy for your store. Getting sales from Facebook is a long game, so don’t to push your product down customer’s throat. Win their hearts by avoiding direct selling and pique their interest with something truly entertaining. Good luck with your sales!

Want to Learn More?

• 5 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Marketing Strategy for Online Stores
• Facebook Ads Tactics That’ll Skyrocket Sales!
• How to Create a High-Converting Facebook Marketing Strategy
• The Beginners Guide: Facebook Marketing Cost and Tips

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The Supreme Court declined to allow cheaper student-loan payments for 8 million borrowers through Biden's new repayment plan

• The Supreme Court declined to lift a block on payments through the SAVE student-loan repayment plan.
• It comes after a group of GOP state attorneys general filed a lawsuit to block key parts of SAVE.
• This means that millions of borrowers enrolled in SAVE could face higher payments.

The nation's highest court said millions of student-loan borrowers still can't get lower monthly payments through a key relief program.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said it would not lift a block on key provisions in President Joe Biden's SAVE income-driven repayment plan . The plan is intended to give 8 million enrolled borrowers lower payments and a shorter timeline for debt relief.

The Supreme Court, in a one-paragraph order , said it would not override a ruling from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked the plan in its entirety on July 18 in response to a lawsuit led by Missouri's attorney general, pending a final court decision. The 8th Circuit formally placed a preliminary injunction on the plan in early August.

"We are disappointed in this decision," an Education Department spokesperson said in a statement, "particularly because lifting the injunction would have allowed for lower payments and other benefits for borrowers across the country. The Department will work to minimize further harm and disruption to borrowers as we await a final decision from the Eighth Circuit."

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a response to the Supreme Court that blocking the SAVE plan could cost borrowers significantly. The Education Department would be forced to recalculate millions of borrowers' payments, requiring a forbearance period during which interest would not accrue. Borrowers would not make any progress toward forgiveness through Public Service Loan Forgiveness or income-driven repayment plans.

The Education Department has already placed SAVE borrowers on forbearance following the 8th Circuit's decision, but at the time, it was unclear how long the forbearance would last. The back-and-forth court rulings have promoted confusion among many borrowers who are struggling to plan for their futures.

"I'm going to have to rebudget all over again," Alan Pedrick, a 41-year-old SAVE borrower, previously told BI . "And this is probably the most difficult time of my life as far as finances go with the cost of housing, the cost of vehicles, gas, food has shot up and now they want to go back and make us start repaying. It's kind of depressing, really."

Watch: Why student loans aren't canceled, and what Biden's going to do about it

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Checks and Balance newsletter: Trump’s mass-deportation fantasy

How many people could donald trump actually deport.

This is the introduction to Checks and Balance, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter bringing exclusive insight from our correspondents in America.

Sign up for  Checks and Balance .

John Prideaux, our US editor, considers Donald Trump’s mass-deportation promise

James is preparing himself for the home stretch of the election campaign by unplugging and plunging into a lake somewhere in Pennsylvania (I think), so this week’s newsletter has a different author. Here at  Economist   HQ we have been thinking about mass deportations, a phrase that has gone from insult to slogan. At the RNC in Milwaukee people waved “ MASS DEPORTATION ” campaign signs. Donald Trump has taken to promising the biggest deportation programme in American history. Our colleague Aryn Braun went to Texas, where she spent time in an immigration detention centre and an immigration court, with the aim of working out how many people Mr Trump could actually deport if he really wanted to. That piece is  here , accompanied by a  leader . There’s a chart in Aryn’s piece that shows what’s been happening with deportations over the past 30 years.

A removal (dark red) is when the federal government arrests someone, puts them in an immigration detention centre or jail and then puts them on a plane or a bus back to their home country. Removals peaked under Barack Obama’s presidency. A return is when someone who is in the United States is told to go back and does so. Returns were much higher in the 1990s and 2000s, when most migrants were Mexicans crossing the southern border. In recent years, many more migrants have come from Central America, or farther afield, which makes returning them harder. You will hear a lot of competing claims about these numbers in the election campaign, but you can see from the chart that, taken together, removals and returns were higher in the last fiscal year (2023) than at any point under Mr Trump’s presidency. The grey bar confuses the story, though. These are “Title 42 expulsions”. Title 42 is a public-health law that allows migrants to be expelled without due process when the federal government is worried about the spread of infectious diseases, like covid-19. Those numbers are so high because Title 42 was used to return people who had just crossed the border illegally. Many of them tried to cross multiple times, and so were returned under Title 42 multiple times. The Harris campaign could use these Title 42 numbers to claim that the current administration has been far tougher than the Trump administration, but that would be misleading.  Editing the story and writing the leader also got me thinking about how often it seems things can’t go on like this—and how usually they can. Ten years ago I too went to an immigration detention centre and an immigration court in Texas to write a story called “The great expulsion”. All the pathologies of America’s immigration system were on display then. If anything it’s even worse now, as the judge Aryn quoted suggests. He currently has 23,000 immigration cases pending in his court. While I have you, please do read and share this head-spinning story about bitcoin in Texas. Have a wonderful Labour Day weekend. James will be back next week. ■

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