Despite recent media attention about Facebook, the platform is still the most popular social network on the planet. Founded in 2004 as a social platform for college students, Facebook has grown to over 1 billion users around the world making it a powerful marketing tool for businesses across the globe.

With so many businesses competing or user attention on Facebook, it’s hard to find the best way to make an impact without blowing your entire marketing budget. And with so many people active on Facebook, it’s hard to find your niche within this overwhelming space. In order to get the most significant ROI or return on investment, you’ll need a strong, actionable plan.

Let’s dive into the best simple ways to use Facebook for the best ROI for your business.

Text written by Ashley Lipman

How Do You Measure ROI on Facebook?

Measuring your ROI isn’t always straightforward, especially on social media. Because you’re spending money and time in ways that aren’t always easy to directly measure, you’ll need to look into unique ways to measure your actual return on investment. The main ways to measure ROI on Facebook is through the following:

• Brand awareness
• Revenue
• Engagement
• Customer satisfaction
• Followers

Let’s break these metrics down one by one. First, brand awareness is vital since it helps promote your business to new audiences. In the business world, this is known as the Rule of 7. In essence, a customer has to see your brand or offer a total of 7 times before they’ll make a purchase. Consistently appearing over social media is an excellent way to get to this magical number.

Revenue is easy to measure through Facebook’s analytical tools. If you’re running ads or promotions, Facebook’s analytic pages will show just how many users you’re converting. Engagement is similar to measure through Facebook by seeing the number of average likes or comments on your posts and content.

Finally, customer satisfaction and follower counts speak for themselves. If your Page has reviews, you want these to be positive. Facebook is a valuable tool for promoting your user experience and customer service. Your follow count also is important since it indicates you’re building a relationship with your users.

Know Your Goals

The reasons so many businesses miss the mark with Facebook is that they don’t have a clear target. You need reasonable goals to launch any Facebook marketing strategy. When creating your goals, you need to avoid chasing things like followers, likes, or shares. These are nothing but vanity metrics which are valuable, but not as useful as other things. While having more followers is something you should be proud of, it should not be your sole goal.

Not sure where to start with your business goals? Here are some of the best ways to approach your Facebook ROI goals:

• More sales
• Create value for your customers through content
• Stay ahead of industry trends
• Use your budget in smarter ways while growing your social presence

All of these ideas above will help you put your marketing efforts to good use over social media with the right focus. Remember, you don’t own anything on social media. Your followers belong to Facebook, not your business. At any time Facebook could close. That’s why it’s important to use Facebook as a tool to boost your website content, sales, and email list, not as a way to gain followers.

Niche Down

Do you know your audience? Without knowing who you’re talking to, you’ll never be heard. Facebook is one of the best marketing tools for advertising in a niche, specific demographic, Because they allow custom targeting, you can be sure the right people are seeing your content.

No matter who you’re trying to speak to, they’re on Facebook. It helps to begin by looking at Facebook’s public demographic information which highlights the types of users you’ll most likely find on the platform. For example, the majority of users on Facebook are female, and the core age is between 18 and 29.

Facebook lets you take your demographics a step further. Instead of surface things like age, education level, and gender, you can even target users who like competitors Pages. That’s why it’s important to be aware of what your competitors are doing on Facebook and beyond. By seeing who they’re talking to, you can learn how to target this key group more effectively.

Create Quality Content

All marketers know that content is king on the internet. This isn’t exclusive to blog posts on your website. You can use Facebook as a tool to publish and create high-quality content by taking advantage of all of its features for business accounts.

Think beyond traditional social media posts with these content creation ideas:

• Create a Facebook Group to connect with your community
• Publish how-to videos or video promotions to attract attention
• Interact with your audience behind-the-scenes with Facebook Stories
• Schedule blog posts to your Facebook Page so you’re never out of fresh content

All of these things are ways to stand apart from the competition. By creating a group, you can interact with your top users in a personable. By creating video content or Stories, you take advantage of a trending medium that performs well on Facebook. Finally, scheduling content takes the pressure of your marketing team so you can focus on developing your strategy in new ways without constant upkeep.

Experiment with Ads

Facebook, in many ways, thrives on paid ads. As a business account, you have a few ways to get in front of new audiences without paid advertisements. The good news is these ads are inexpensive and easy to set up. Over time, Facebook organic reach for business accounts has gone down. The algorithm doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon, so get started with Facebook ads.

Facebook ads were listed as 5 of the best social media advertising tools. Like any marketing effort, you need to optimize for best results. While you can advertise your Page for pennies, you still need to customize your audience and show off your best content.

Eye-catching images and clear calls to action go a long way. Facebook is picky about the amount of text you can include in ads, so keep it under 20%. Avoid being cute or fluffy in your language since consumers can pick up on when you’re being inauthentic. The best strategy is a varied strategy. Try new things and don’t be afraid to step outside of what’s “normal” for your industry.

Final Thoughts

Though Facebook might be at the forefront of the recent news, it’s still made an impact on the world as we know it. Knowing how to use Facebook to further your marketing efforts will strengthen your ability to adapt to this digital age. Learn how to monitor your own success through these ROI metrics, and use these tips to boost your strategy in ways that actually work. Remember, just because you found success with one method in the past doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow. Social media is always evolving, and your business has to grow with it to survive.

Text written by Ashley Lipman