Last week in Part 1 I reviewed the common Facebook misconceptions and this week I’d like to offer some recommendations for your Facebook marketing.
If you didn’t read part 1 yet – please start here.
The RIGHT way to use Facebook (to build your email list)
Last week you learned Facebook is not the place to sell your products and that you’ll actually be penalized for posting about how someone can purchase your products.
Frustrating, right???
You also learned email is the very best social media to be spending your time on building your farm marketing up. After you get your consistent email marketing program in place then you can branch out to the other social media outlets your ideal customer hangs out in.
Only now will Facebook work for you! But remember, it’s not a place to sell your stuff. Instead, use Facebook to converse with people, inspire them in your posts, get to know them, then invite them over to your website when you have your email marketing system in place so you’ll have a way to keep in touch with them through email.
Only then do you get the opportunity to consistently connect with them every 2 weeks via email to build a loyal relationship.
This consistent relationship building doesn’t work on Facebook, especially since Facebook limits who sees your posts and doesn’t show your posts to the same people every time.
Every once in awhile, someone will say something like, “Well, I posted on Facebook last month, and I sold a quarter beef, so it works for me.” You put a lot of effort into posting every time, and yes, you did sell a quarter beef, but a quarter beef doesn’t keep the farm running.
You need consistent sales and loyal customers, and that just won’t happen with Facebook.
Facebook is for conversations
Instead, when you start posting your original content you create on Facebook, and you’re giving your customers and potential customers what they want, instead of trying to sell, you will get people coming to your website to join your email list.
You can now build relationships with them by sending these email subscribers helpful blog posts you’ve written and emails that they’ll love to read.
Over time, people start sharing your content with other friends on Facebook and they get those people to come to your website, and you start the ball rolling.
So Facebook is a tool to build a friendship to the point you can invite them to your website to join your email list. Not a selling tool.
Eventually, those people convert into customers through your email list. That’s what it’s for, whether it’s Instagram, or Pinterest, or anything. Your website and email list is the central location for gathering a list of people who are interested in your product.
For example, if you’re at the farmer’s market every week, you have no way to get in touch with people who buy from your booth one time. If they ‘like’ your Facebook page, they may never even see your posts (I explain why in part 1).
But if you get each farmer’s market customer on your email list, then you have a way to communicate with them directly and keep in touch.
FB “likes” are not dollars
You don’t want to say, “My goal is to get 150 likes on my Facebook page this week” because that does not turn into dollars until you have a very successful email marketing system in place.
When I look at most farmers’ FB pages I see pictures of eggs or milk or chicken breasts telling people to come buy them, or a photo of their market booth telling people to stop in.
What to post instead?
Facebook is always changing the different types of posts it promotes and one thing that’s popular right now is live video. You will be shown to far more people on FB if you do a live video – but not a video of you trying to sell.
Instead, it needs to be an inspiring or educational video or relationship building in some way. Perhaps you do a live video of you milking the cow, and make sure you’re NOT saying, “Come buy our milk.” that’s super important to remember – no selling.
Or you do a live video of you getting your baby chicks in the mail for your meat chickens this spring – people will LOVE that, too!
Your post will get shown to more people on FB, and more and more people will become aware of you, some of them will “like” your page, some will pop over to your site to read your content that’s written just for them, and you’ll have the start of new loyal customer relationships.
When you use Facebook to inspire, educate or relate with people then they’ll comment, share, and love it! Nowhere do you mention selling anything. But that engagement on your inspirational posts means it will be shown to more people.
Then your interest will grow as you give and serve, and eventually, they will pop over to your website, sign up to your email list, and you’re in business!
What is Engagement?
Engagement is likes, shares, comments, and clicks.
Facebook likes to see engagement on your posts because that tells FB people are interested in what you have to share and say.
How can you get more engagement on a post? You need a call to action, or CTA in each post. You need to tell them to “like” or “click” or “share!”
And it’s super important that not once do you try to sell your products!! No mention of that or you’ll be penalized by Facebook.
Remember, the best social media by far – like, 1000’s of times better – is relationship based email marketing.
Guidelines for posting on Facebook:
- Make sure your posts are non-promotional/non-salesy
- FB targets specific words that sound like you’re selling so make sure you have no sales terminology in your post.
- Don’t link to a “buy now” page – instead link to a helpful blog post, such as a recipe for Grilled Burgers, and include a “buy now” button at the end of the post
- Don’t talk about what you’re selling
Here are some examples of posts you can embed directly from Facebook if you want
Inspirational Quotes
You can create these images really easily using a free software called Canva, or you can find some pre-made designs online. People love these little quotes and they get tons of engagement!
Blog Posts
Send people to your website by posting a link to a helpful blog post you wrote
Videos
The trend in Facebook right now is videos – both live videos and recorded ones that you can upload directly to Facebook. Take a quick video of something on the farm and upload it right to FB!
It bears repeating, don’t waste any time on FB until you get your email list and your basic website setup on your website. You’ll have nowhere to send your FB followers to stay in contact with them regularly and they’ll eventually stop seeing your FB posts.
Remember though – if you take my tips here & implement them without an email list you are wasting your valuable time and you are missing out on all the business those FB “likes” could bring you. These tips only go so far if you don’t have a way to capture these followers on an email list.
Bottom line, the best way to build an audience on Facebook is to create true engagement and conversations through your free content that then gets them over to your website so you can begin connecting with them through emails and blog posts.
One more resource to get you started – here’s a great live video I did where I talk about 3 kinds of emails to send your customers after you get your list set up. This will jump-start your email list which will in turn help when you start your FB marketing.
Click right on the picture below to watch:
