How to Harness Facebook for Business Growth

Facebook is a powerful tool brands, entrepreneurs, and creatives  of all types should use to grow their businesses. Unfortunately, many business owners and creatives think they are better off without Facebook – perhaps with good reasons.

But, with roughly three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, it is not advisable to ignore the giant social network completely. Chances are your target audience is already on Facebook.

Here are some ways to harness the power of Facebook to build valuable business relationships, increase brand visibility, convert leads for fluid sales, and grow your business and brand on the giant social network: 

1. Set up a Facebook business page and promote the page across your other social media platforms

At the bare minimum every creative entrepreneur and business owner should have a Facebook business fan page. A business page allows you to display basic information such as contact information, hours open and links to your website.

If you haven’t already, set up a Facebook business page and secure your page's custom URL, such as www.facebook.com/[brand-name]. Promote your new hub of business across your other social media profiles, like Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Instagram etc., and on printed marketing materials like business cards, highlighting: We're on Facebook!

That’ll announce you are open for business and people will be able to find you when they search for you on Facebook.

2. Invite your friends (and friends of your friends) to like your business page.

Go to your personal Facebook profile page and invite your current friends to like your Facebook business page. People who like your page are the ones most likely to see your posts in their News Feed.

Next, scroll through your friend’s timelines. You’ll see your third level friends (friends of your friends) and what their interests are, depending on their privacy settings. If you see third friends with interests that align with your business page’s topic, introduce yourself and invite them also to like your page.

Chances are a good number will like your page and you'll connect with new prospects, and grow your network further.

3. Add a Facebook ‘Like’ button on your website.

Adding a Facebook 'Like' button on your website makes it easy for visitors to either share your site with their friends or follow your Facebook business page. You don’t need to be a coding wiz to add a Facebook like button.

Go to the Facebook developer page here to configure your like button. Click the 'Get Code' button to generate your Like button code. Copy the code and paste it on your website.

A person visiting your website who is one of the 3 billion active users already logged into Facebook that day may be inclined to click the like button, earning you a fuss-free business fan.

4. Link your social media channels.

Synchronize your social media accounts such that when you post on Facebook it will automatically post on Twitter and Instagram. That’ll save you time and promote your Facebook page concurrently.

Go to facebook.com/twitter and click on the “link to twitter” button to connect to Twitter. Go to your other social media accounts and link them to your business page from the settings link.

Also, consider investing in social media managing tools like Hootsuite, BufferApp, and Mass Planner to manage all of your social media accounts from one dashboard, and attack two or more birds with one stone.

5. Find out the interests of your fans and include those interests in your marketing campaigns

Browse through the Facebook profiles and timelines of some of your most engaged, prominent, or otherwise interesting fans to learn more about your followers without asking them to complete a survey. You’ll get useful insights such as specific movies, music or sports teams they like, as well as their ages and where they are located.

Once you have this information, include topics, prizes, promotions or other incentives related to your fans’ interests in your content and see if that increases engagement with your posts. This information will also come in handy if you are going to run Facebook ad campaigns or create Facebook check-in deals to entice your fans to try out your offerings.

Audiences love it when brands speak to their interests directly.

6. Find and partner with businesses that provide complimenting offerings to yours on Facebook

As you scroll through your fan’s timelines and profile pages, you'll see some of the other pages they have liked besides yours, depending on their privacy settings.

Use that information as a starting point to learn more about the other brands and businesses that influence your fans so that you have a good idea where your audience does business when they are not doing business with you.

Identify people or businesses that have complementary offering to yours and reach out to them for a partnership, such a book illustrator with a children’s book author.

Also, identify businesses that have the same amount of likes as you and approach them with an offer to cross promote your businesses, whether it be a mention, a joint offer or a competition. It’s a savvy way to double your following. 

7. Publish interesting and engaging content regularly on your business Page

Post interesting and engaging content to gain a loyal fan following—for free.

Posting interesting content regularly will also position you as the go-to source of reliable information, and give people a reason to "check in" with your page more often and update their friends and families of their interaction with the business. This simultaneously secures a following and increases your brand exposure.

Some experts suggest posting content on your page five times a day so you’re “top of mind” of your fans. If that seems too much, post as often as you have something interesting to share. Just make sure you don’t wait too long that people forget about you, at least once or twice a day.

8. Engage with your fans enthusiastically

Social comments, shares and “likes” can influence how people perceive your brand. These social signals can persuade online shoppers, for example, to buy (or not buy) from a business.

So, reply to comments and participate in discussions happening on your page. Unlike Twitter that’s designed for brevity, Facebook pages are designed for detailed discussions with fans, which helps to form a perception of your business and generate word-of-mouth advertising.

9. Run targeted Facebook ad campaigns

Facebook ad campaigns provide real-time analytics and metrics, including the number of impressions your ad has made, click-through rates, etc – all while directing specific ads at the users most likely to benefit from your offerings.

Choose a comfortable campaign budget, as little as $5 per day, boost your Facebook posts/page, and run targeted ads to spread your message on Facebook.

If you don’t get the results you want, don’t be too quick to change the tool – try changing the approach first. Sometimes that’s all is required for good results.

10. Link apps that sync products for sale seamlessly into your business page

Use shopping store apps like Ecwid, StorefrontSocial, and Shopify's Facebook Store app that sync products on Facebook for seamless sales on your business page. These apps provide customers a way to access and purchase products without having to leave your page and go to the website, thereby improving convenience and conversions.

Also try facebook landing page apps like Wix, Heyo, and ShortStack to customize the look and feel of your page and boost sales.