Facebook is a social platform that has changed the life of many people since its inception. Well, if we are talking about its initiation, then it crucial to state that this platform was not meant to do so many things which it is doing today. The interface was simple to use, and the main reason was to have connectivity among people from all over the world.
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Slowly and gradually it evolved as a large platform where people not only bond with each other in an informal way, but also bring in their business to make profits.
The sheer sharing of pictures and videos took a big turn, and it all became a process of influencing lives of everyone around us. But this does not mean that Facebook has only changed for commercialization. The aim is still the same to connect people, but only the functionality has changed a little. This medium is now not limited to just sharing your pictures and videos with your friends, but also help you in expanding your business and make good profits out of it.
What to Know How?
Now, Facebook marketing is helping many small businesses to outgrow and make a good turnover. You can create many crisp pages for your products and services and rotate the same among a large number of Facebook groups so as to increase visibility and awareness. Many small businesses have used the medium to make a great impact on the reader’s mind.
But one must remember that the marketing strategy of FB is entirely different from other channels due to the range of options available at your doorstep.
In this article, we will discuss how a small business can generate $5000 in sales using Facebook contest and other methods.
Steps to earn $5000 with Facebook:
Social rendezvous
Now social engagement is the secret sauce that will help you in either taking off your business or bringing it down altogether. If you do not have a resulting engagement of social groups or a large number of followers, then your business page will not stand out for a long time. For creating an active engagement, you need to-
- Create likable posts
- Post new content daily with appropriate headings and images
- Schedule your posts at a regular interval
- Make the post interactive through questionnaire, facts, fill in the blanks, and links
Boast about your product
To create awareness about your product, you need to flaunt a little about its qualities, especially in the case of physical products. The show off strategy works best for small businesses because the target users understand it better. A great-looking page will attract more users and will have demographic influence. More likes you get on an appealing page; more your product become visible to readers.
Make engaging posts so as to get more “Likes”
Having a good fan following is the key to success of every small business. But this also doesn’t mean that you are going to approach such users who do not have any interest in your post. So while sharing your page, you can put a limit on the number of users to see the posts. For this, you can ask your friends to share the page or invite friends via their page.
For small firms, friends and relatives are the best choices to engage with your posts.
For small business, “Promoted Page Likes” feature of FB works best. You need to pay a fixed amount to create visibility of your business page, and you can also target your audience on geographical bases. It works perfect for small local business when they have to target their nearby potential customers.
Make use of “Boost Your Post” FB feature
Most of the small business owners take advantage of this boosting option to revolve their post among more audiences. The feature is most recommended not only because of its affordability and use but also it is result-oriented. Small local businesses do not waste time on taking help of third party intruders, as it becomes complicated and expensive too. So whether a promotional tool is free or chargeable, one has to see his own feasibility towards it.
Facebook Manager and Power Editor are influential ad apps but mostly used by big business houses to promote on a large scale. These apps do help in creating new audiences but also get in more advancement which becomes time-consuming for small business owner.
Boosting is simple as it offers your many options like-
- Target audience
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Interest levels
- Budget
- Estimate of people to be reached
- And other advanced options
The Selection process is easy and simple, and anyone can go for it in order to boost their post.
Make your availability easy for the customers
Though we are technologically advanced and we have many free ways to communicate with each other, but some people still prefer the old way of communication, i.e. by calling you. For a small business house, it is paramount to include all that information which leads many customers towards them. No doubt, Facebook messaging is always a great option to reach you, but you cannot be online for the whole day as you need to look into other matters.
Providing a phone number is the best way to get more customers in short time. I do this because its quick and resulting. For example, if you deal in sports equipment, and target adults as well as children, it will be easy for your customers to contact you directly after seeing your FB page. Even I have done this to get my favourite boutique pieces by directly talking to the lady on the phone and get my orders done. You can put the phone number in About page.
Facebook offer/events
For a small business making $5000 via FB is not that difficult, as it has got many options to endorse your business. Events and offers are next big hit for small businesses. You need to spend a little amount on that and can provide your deal directly from Publisher page. You just need to click on “Offer/Event” option and many other choices will appear in front of you to make your business promotional journey easy.
When you click Offer, you will see a page with numerous choices to make your deal post attractive. On the left side, you will see the preview page and on the right side, you will see different options from which you have to choose like- headlines, target audience, price, photos, terms and conditions, and a date to start and stop your offer.
If you promote your local business through an “Event”, then you have to create an event page mentioning the place of event, time and the description of the event taking place, this will have significant influence on your business as people need to visit the particular event to understand your product and then to buy it. For example, if you have got distributorship of “Amway” products, then you need to invite people on a particular occasion and make them understand about the products and how they are different from other products available in the market.
How to generate $5000 from a small scale business through Facebook Contest?
Running a contest is an old marketing strategy to attract potential customers towards your brand. But your small scale business can flourish through theses contests; the only thing is that you have to do some giveaways to gain that particular market share. Facebook also took advantage of the same and integrated this feature in its huge social platform.
How it works?
This technique works completely fine with those who do not want to indulge in regular traffic generating practices like SEO, content creation, or website creation. Though these techniques are also important, every business person cannot afford to invest so much time and money in all such activities. So Contest marketing is the best way to do so.
Many people like FB contest pages which are actually engaging and beautifully structured to get more customer involvement. Contest are an excellent way to approach potential clients and most of us also like to win free samples along with our purchase. Few users dig in more through such contests and try to find ways to redeem them immediately or by visiting local stores.
Facebook, previously did not allow to run contests through its own interface and business owners took help of third party applications to do so. But recently Facebook itself has started this advance feature and enlightened different ways to do so. Using third party apps was an expensive, perplexing, and time-consuming affair for local business houses.
Facebook contest guidelines:
As soon as the Facebook announced its enormous renovation of the Facebook Promotions & Contests procedures for business pages, it took the marketing world by storm. It now became easier to manage contest and campaigns on FB page timelines and in apps. For instance, a business house can now:
- Accumulate accesses by having consumers post on the Page or comment/like a Page post
- Bring together all entries by having users communicate the Page
- Make use of “likes” as a voting tool
Now, you just have to post a content update along with a contest photo, and you are all set to go. You not only have to post it directly but also need to attach tempting lines in your pic and post. For example, if you have run a FB contest for your local restaurant, then instead of just saying “grab a complimentary lunch”, you can also add “$20 in free food” for whoever wins the contest.
Such simple contests get a tremendous response from viewers and also appeals the eyes. Even if you don’t win the contest, your mind will revolve around that tempting food pic that you saw on FB.
And the same will happens to others and they will surely get to the restaurant to grab any other favourite food item.
So, running a contest can be of great help to small business owners, and they can also expand their business through such promotions. For more details on “do’s and don’ts” and FB guidelines on Promotions and Contests, you can visit here.
Your Call
Now it’s up to you to decide which field suits you to promote your product in the local market. For big business houses, it is very easy to allocate the numerous resources at their disposal, in multiple activities. But in the case of small local businesses, the resources are limited, and for marketing, the owners use accessible and well-communicable platforms which have high accessibility. Facebook provides all those services for such business houses to make real money.
I hope this post helped you to have an exact idea on how a small business can generate $5000 in sales using Facebook contest.