Marketing Your Business on Facebook: How to Choose Between Profiles, Pages, and Groups

Want to start marketing your business on Facebook?

Wondering how to choose the best Facebook channels for your business?

Understanding the basic features and functionality of Facebook personal profiles, business pages, and groups can help you develop an effective business identity.

In this article, you’ll discover the options open to business owners on Facebook and the pros and cons of using each for marketing.

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#1: Support Your Business With a Facebook Personal Profile

When you sign up with Facebook, you’re doing so as yourself with a personal profile. According to Facebook’s Terms of Service, each person is allowed only one personal account. In addition, Facebook asks that personal profiles not be used solely for business purposes.

The terms say, “You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.” However, you can share business activities in a way that doesn’t violate Facebook Terms of Service.

Pros of Using Your Personal Profile for Business

After you understand the Facebook Terms of Service and the basics about privacy settings, you’re ready to discover how you can use your personal profile for business.

Attract Facebook follows. If you post about your business on your personal profile and make those posts public, people who don’t know you can stumble upon your posts.

For example, say you post about your new business location or recent event, and a Facebook friend likes or comments on the post. Your friend’s Facebook friends may see a notification or your friend’s activity may appear in their news feeds. People who are curious about your business may click the post to see your profile.

People can follow public posts on your Facbook personal profile, without you having to accept a Friend request from them.

If your privacy settings allow everyone to see your public posts, then people who aren’t connected to you as a Facebook friend can visit your personal profile and follow your future public posts by clicking the Follow button to learn more about your business and what you do.

After people follow you, your posts appear in their news feeds so they can tune into what you’re doing with your business. Remember that to keep your personal posts private, you need to adjust the post audience through your privacy settings and/or the drop-down menu on a specific post.

Personalize your business. Every business has a story. Using your personal profile to share that story is a great way to talk about your business without violating the Facebook Terms of Service.

Share what prompted you to start your business. Post about employees, new products, and upcoming events. These behind-the-scenes posts are a great way to market your business and personalize the experience for friends and new followers.

Help potential customers contact you. In the About section of your personal profile, you can also add your business website and links to other social media platforms you use in addition to Facebook. Thoroughly fill out the About section to give new followers a way to reach you if they want to inquire further into your business.

In the About section of your personal Facebook profile, share your business website and links to the social platforms where your business is active.

Cons of Using Personal Profiles for Business

The most obvious reason not to use your personal profile to promote your business is that you don’t want to risk violating Facebook’s Terms of Service and have your account removed. Your account is at the mercy of Facebook, which can close your account at any time.

Also, your friends and family might care about you and your business, but they may not be your primary source of paying customers. Think about whether business updates on your personal profile will attract the engagement you want or eventually exhaust the people you care about most.

Marketing your business with only a personal profile limits your reach in other ways, too. Facebook advertising is a powerful marketing tool for businesses. If you use only a personal profile to communicate about your business, advertising options are very limited so you can’t post ads with links to your online ordering or other pages on your website.

Without advertising and other features of a business page, scaling your business via Facebook marketing can be difficult. Nearly two billion people are on Facebook, but finding new customers is challenging if you’re only using your personal profile. Facebook has amazing opportunities for you to scale your business and reach new audiences when you create a separate Facebook business page.

Guidelines and Best Practices for Using a Profile to Support a Business

You absolutely can promote your business using your personal profile with the strategies outlined above. Creative posts about your business keep you within Facebook’s terms and communicate interesting information to your family and friends that can also attract engagement. Be aware of your privacy settings and post only relevant content publicly.

On your personal Facebook profile, share stories and announcements about your business that have a personal touch.

If you adopt a strategy that combines occasional posts to your personal profile along with more frequent posts via a business page and maybe groups can help you get the most out of your social media marketing on Facebook. Also, learn how your personal profile connects to business pages and groups so you know where your content and images do and don’t appear.

#2: Market and Advertise Your Business With a Facebook Business Page

With a Facebook page, you can create a business profile that’s separate from your personal profile. Having a separate Facebook page for your business keeps your account in good standing and gives you the freedom to post, advertise, and focus your content around your business, industry, and customers.

However, all pages you create are connected to your personal profile. To access a business page and post or interact as your business, log into Facebook using your personal login details. Then to access your business page, select the page from the drop-down menu in the upper right.

Pros of Using a Facebook Page for Business

Advertise. Facebook has powerful advertising tools to help you reach new audiences and nurture people who follow your business page. With a business page, you get access to the full line of advertising options.

Using a Facebook Page gives you access to a variety of advertising options.

You can design an advertising campaign to:

• Encourage people to like your page and thus increase your number of followers.
• Show an ad to people who like your page.
• Target people who have engaged with your posts.
• Target people who have already visited your website.
• Display an ad to people on your email list.
• Attract people who share traits of those who already like your page.

Even with a small advertising budget, you have many opportunities to grow your business with Facebook advertising.

Separate your personal life from your business. Your business page has its own timeline and home page, cover photo, and profile photo. For your business page profile picture, use a logo or professional photo. For your business page cover image, design a cover that highlights your product or service.

Amy Porterfield has a business page that features a professional profile photo and a cover page that highlights the products and services her business offers.

Although what you post on your business page and personal profile is different, people might have opportunities to see your presence in both places. So you should think carefully about how you want to be seen on your business page versus your personal profile.

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For example, Amy Porterfield uses more casual images for her personal profile than her business page, but her personal images would still be appropriate in a business context.

Amy Porterfield uses casual images for her personal Facebook profile that would still work in business contexts.

Access analytics. Because Facebook knows you use business pages to attract customers, Facebook provides analytics, which give feedback about what’s happening on your pages. For example, in your analytics overview, you can see at a glance how many likes, views, post engagements, comments, and shares each page is generating.

When you use a Facebook business page to market your products and services, you see analytics about activity on the page.

Cons of Using a Facebook Page for Business

Your ads might not be approved. Facebook’s ad policy prohibits certain types of content in advertising and posting in general. For example, your ad may not promote the sale or use of tobacco products on Facebook.

Managing a business page can be time-consuming. As a business owner who’s likely running day-to-day operations, you have only so much time for social media marketing. However, if you create a content calendar and schedule posts ahead of time, you can avoid becoming overwhelmed with managing pages.

As your page grows, hiring a community manager can help you develop inspiring and engaging content your fans will appreciate.

Guidelines and Best Practices for Facebook Business Pages

Setting up a Facebook page for your business allows you to post regular content about what’s happening inside your business without the fear of feeling overly promotional. People who follow your page are interested in your content and how you can help them. Separating your business activities from your personal activities creates a professional online environment for your customers.

Dollar Shave Club is a good example of a Facebook business page that promotes products in a clever and inspiring way. With more than 3 million followers, Dollar Shave Club’s page shows you how to find, create, and share content that’s relevant to your products and tells a greater story to keep people interested.

Dollar Shave Club shares relevant and clever content on its Facebook business page.

#3: Engage a Narrow Audience With Facebook Groups

A Facebook group is a community you join as your personal profile. A group is made up of like-minded people and organizations that come together to discuss and share ideas around common interests. Often, a group has rules to keep interaction focused on the group’s purpose.

Facebook groups are yet another way to create awareness and promote your business, as long as you follow the group rules. You can join groups that are related to your business and share relevant blog posts, podcast episodes, and so on. Groups are also a great way to find new connections, customers, and partners. You can even create your own group about your industry, products, or another relevant topic.

When you join a group, your personal profile photo appears when you comment or post anything inside the group. That’s why you see many people using a professional photo on their personal profile. You can’t join a group through your business page. Inside the group, you communicate as yourself but can talk about your businesses and help others by answering questions and getting involved.

Every group is governed by one of three privacy settings that control how people join the group and whether people can see the group on the Discover page.

Each Facebook Group can be public, closed, or secret.

• Public groups are groups anyone can join and be accepted immediately. These groups are free and are usually large. These groups can be found by anyone through the discover page.
• Closed groups have an administrator who looks at all requests to join, deciding whether to accept or deny entry into the group. They’re typically smaller than public groups, often to make the group easier to moderate and maintain a safe place for people to chat with each other. People create closed groups to reduce spam and random individuals’ posts.
• Secret groups are strictly private and don’t appear on the Discover page. The owner of a secret group usually will invite specific people to join.

The Facebook Help Center has a useful table that outlines how group privacy settings affect the visibility of the group, its members, and posts within the group. To see a group’s privacy setting, hover over its name on the Discover page or look in the upper-left corner of the group page. This group for home theater enthusiasts is a closed group.

You can see a Facebook group’s privacy settings in the upper-left corner of the group page.

Pros of Using Facebook Groups for Business

Because groups are formed usually around a central topic, the people inside are a very targeted and receptive audience. Your posts and comments will be appreciated and supported. Also, because people who join groups are usually looking to be supported in one way or another, group members are engaged inside the group and willing to help.

After you develop relationships among group members through your posts and interactions, you can find many people willing to partner on specific projects. It’s easy to take a relationship outside of the group and work on a podcast episode, mastermind, coaching call, and even generate sales for your business. Groups are a way to connect, support, and help others.

If you have a helpful blog post or any other content that can help support the group community, posting a link can generate a ton of traffic to your website. You just have to follow the rules when posting your content. Many group owners and managers offer daily prompts for when you can post a blog link or a promotion.

Cons of Using Facebook Groups for Business

Groups are a great tool, but you can be removed from a group from any reason if you don’t own it. You also need to consider how much time to give each group. Reading and commenting on posts in several groups can become time-consuming. You need to weigh the time you give to the group with the payoff for your business.

Guidelines and Best Practices for Using Facebook Groups for Business

When you join groups, do so with the mindset that you’re going to be helpful and supportive to other group members rather than thinking promotionally about your own business. For example, if you own a local home salvage business, a group for owners of old homes would be a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and connect with potential customers simply by answering questions.

Group members post relevant content and support each other.

Members of the group will soon start to look at your posts and comments and see you and your business as an authority or influencer in your industry. This is by far the best way to engage with groups.

To avoid becoming overwhelmed, join just one or two groups and remain helpful and active while managing your time inside.

It’s also important to note that most groups have rules right on the home page, and they’re definitely worth reading. Otherwise, if you post something overly promotional, you can get kicked out of the group. While you wait for your join request to get approved, you can click the group’s name to see the rules.

Before you post or interact in a Facebook group, read the group rules.

Conclusion

Choosing the right Facebook platform for your business takes a thoughtful approach. Depending on what type of business you have, choosing some combination of a personal profile, business page, and group can help you achieve your business goals.

What do you think? Does a Facebook business page make sense for your business? Do you think joining or creating a Facebook group would help you find a targeted and engaged audience? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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6 Steps to a Successful Social Influencer Marketing Campaign

Interested in working with social influencers to promote your product?

Wondering how to find and connect with the right influencers?

Social media influencers can help share your brand message to a wider, yet tailored, audience.

In this article, you’ll discover six steps to running an effective influencer program for your business.

#1: Identify the Goal for Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

To build a successful influencer marketing program for your business, you’ll need to determine how the program fits into your overall goals. Every marketing channel plays a role in moving the needle for the business and your influencer marketing program should be no different.

Typically, businesses look to influencers to help create and promote brand content around an event or product launch. But these aren’t the only reasons why marketers leverage influencers.

Air Canada partnered with Instagram influencers to promote new routes to Amsterdam, Mexico City, and Dubai.

According to Augure’s State of Influencer Engagement 2015 study, participants cited these reasons for working with influencers:

• Content promotion
• Product launch
• Content creation
• Event management
• Corporate communications
• SEO
• Crisis management

Once you’ve settled on the overarching goal of your program, attach 2-3 key performance indicators (KPIs) for each of these goals. For example, if you want to improve content promotion, think about your business’s social media reach, post engagement, and follower growth.

#2: Define Your Ideal Influencer Profile

Social media influencers are social media users who have an established credibility and audience. These are users who can persuade others by virtue of their trustworthiness and authenticity.

The number-one challenge that marketers cite when rolling out an influencer marketing program is identifying the right influencers to work with. There are many different types of users who have built large followings online.

Gap recruited a variety of social media influencers for their Styld.by campaign.

To tailor the selection process, consider these five golden rules for potential influencers:

• Have a large and engaged audience
• Relevant to your customers
• Appear to be authentic
• Active on social media and post frequently
• Have a tone and style that match those of your brand

However, avoid confusing size with influence. The key to a successful influencer program is to uncover and align with the people who have the attention and respect of their audiences, not just people with the most followers. In fact, Digiday published a study that shows that the influencers with the most engaged audiences have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, not followings in the millions.

Gap partnered with lifestyle writer Cat Juan Ledesma to reach a niche audience for their Styld.by campaign on Instagram.

#3: Find Potential Influencers

Now that you know which types of influencers are a good fit for your brand, you’ll need to identify the influencers you want to partner with. If you aren’t using influencer marketing software, there are several ways to find influencers manually.

Do a Hashtag Search

The easiest way to find your brand influencers is to explore who’s already posting about your brand online. Conduct a simple hashtag search to see if you already have brand advocates in your midst. You can also look up relevant keywords in social media searches to find influencers who post about your industry or competitors.

If you’re marketing wedding gowns, you might search for the hashtag #weddinggown on Instagram.

Use an Influencer Marketing Tool

There are many tools that can help you identify influencers across social media. When looking for influencer software, use your program’s objectives to guide your technology platform selection. The five key capabilities to look for in influencer marketing technology are the ability to discover, connect, engage, recruit/pay (influencers), and measure (success) via the platform.

Ask for Recommendations

Social influencers tend to know other influencers. Once you’ve identified influencers whom you enjoy working with, ask them to recommend others who are similar. Some social media networks, such as Instagram, will even give you recommendations of their own when you follow an influencer on the platform.

#4: Reach Out to Influencers

Once you’ve identified a list of brand influencers you’d like to work with, build out these partnerships. To start these relationships off on the right foot, make sure you reach out directly, get to know them, and keep track of your goals.

Reach Out Directly

Businesses often rely on the agencies they work with to drive communication with influencers. However, 79% of social influencers prefer businesses to reach out to them directly. While it’s tempting to outsource your outreach to your agency, influencers are most responsive when they’re contacted by the business itself.

It’s more effective to contact influencers directly to discuss potential partnerships.

Get to Know Them

Brand influencer relationships should be mutually beneficial. Before reaching out, find out everything you can about your influencer. Going through this exercise will help you better align your brand with your influencer’s and will result in a win-win for both of you. A key part of the outreach process is proving to the influencer that your opportunity is relevant to their audience.

Monitor Progress

If you don’t have an influencer marketing platform, use an Excel spreadsheet to keep a record of your influencers’ information and posts. By using a consistent method to manage your influencer relationships, you’ll be able to keep track of your progress and measure the health of the relationship.

#5: Provide Rewards

One of the largest prevailing myths about influencer marketing is the assumption that all brand influencers want to be incentivized with money. However, when it comes to influencers’ motivations, several factors actually outweigh cash rewards. The participants in Augure’s study cited these as the most common motivations:

• 55% Increase their reach/grow their audience
• 45% Create quality content for their audience
• 29% Shape their image
• 25% Get perks (discounts, free samples)
• 24% Earn money
• 22% Living new experiences (trips, events, …)

Offer appropriate incentives for influencers you partner with.

While traditional incentives are monetary payment or branded products, businesses can cultivate influencer relationships through unique experiences and perks.

For example, Tissot, the official timekeeper of the Tour de France, sponsored influencers to attend the event and share their experience on social media. Roxy Quicksilver sent its influencers free clothing and discount codes for their followings.

#6: Measure Your Results

Once your influencer marketing campaign is up and running, you’ll want to assess whether your campaign has helped you meet your business goals. Think back to the KPIs that you defined in Step 1. Have you made progress on these metrics? What business insights have you learned?

If you’re using your influencer marketing program to promote content, for example, report on how much cheaper each influencer’s cost per engagement was compared to other marketing channels. If you’re using your influencer marketing program to expand brand reach, look into how many impressions you were able to generate with your influencers, and so forth.

Conclusion

Digital marketers are always looking to connect with their audience in ways that build brand visibility, expand product awareness, and strike the right note with today’s consumers. As studies continue to highlight the ways in which social media marketing influences purchasing behaviors, marketers have acknowledged that social channels are more than just a nice-to-have.

Today, social media platforms play an integral role across the entire buyer journey. However, it’s not the social media channels themselves that are influencing purchasing decisions; it’s the peer-to-peer content and personal storytelling present on these channels that affect sales.

Even more, it’s the social proof that social media influencers and everyday customers are creating for brands and sharing on these channels that allow companies to reach and resonate with customers in a more natural and effective way.

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eCommerce Entrepreneur’s Guide to Finding Freelancers

If this busy season has left you feeling like you have too few hands, you’re not alone.

Many small business owners and new eCommerce entrepreneurs rely almost entirely on themselves for everything from digital marketing to product sourcing. However, as a business grows, multitasking can start to take its toll on you – because who has time to do everything, right?,  and on your business – because we can’t be good at everything. Getting the right people with the right skills to fill in where your skills lack can make or break your business and turn you into an eCommerce giant.

Taking on full time copywriters, marketers, or graphic designers etc., doesn’t always make good business sense for a number of reasons. Reasons that can be answered with freelancers and these key benefits:

• Accessibility to a global market of skilled professionals
• Ability of freelancers to work independently
• Flexibility to hire certain niche skills
• Saving in benefit costs you would need to pay full time employees
• Saving you invaluable time

Freelancers, remote workers or digital nomads used to conjure up images of flaky, bearded people who didn’t want to be corporate. Today though, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Freelancers are highly skilled professions that with the help of co-working spaces and internet are now able to more easily offer their skills globally.  In fact, it is estimated that by 2020 50% of the US workforce will be freelance.

Now I am not saying you should go out and hire 5 freelancers at once. No, when you’re starting out or are a new business you want to move slowly. Do an audit of your business needs and a good audit of what skills you have to determine where your biggest skill need gaps are and start with one perfect freelancer before spreading yourself too thin.

So how do you find the perfect freelancer? In this post we discuss just that as we guide you through where you can find the freelancers you need for any aspect of your online business.

1.  Finding Freelancers Through Referrals

The first place you will want to start on your freelancer search is through your own network. In the same way your shoppers trust your products through your reviews and displayed UGC (user generated content), finding a freelancer through friends, family, fellow industry leaders is a great place to start. With freelancers taking roles for anything from restaurant social media managers to professional online PA’s, almost every business owner you are associated with may have a personal recommendation. Ask your network for freelancer referrals in the skill niche you’re looking for they can recommended based on skills, professionalism, etc.

Bonus: 5 Tools to Increase UGC, Pronto!

2. Finding Freelancers on Social Media

Your next big freelancer search tool is social media. From photographers to SEO experts, everyone has at least a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Linkedin profile giving you access to their portfolio of work. Here are the top two ways you can get your freelancer search on:

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are a great freelancer resource, in fact I have hired most of my freelancers almost exclusively from groups. You can start by asking for recommendations, where allowed, in top eCommerce Facebook groups from fellow eCommercers. Also, by engaging with blog post links posted to the group, you can engage those service providers directly. Yes, freelancers are global but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be looking local; city/ local store owners/community Facebook groups can be a great resource for this.

Plus, a lot of these groups have weekly promo threads where freelancers can post their services allowing you to contact them directly through freelancing websites. That’s not to say those websites don’t have their benefits, but we will get to that later.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is by default the professionals social network, making it great place to get those freelance referrals from everyone in your work circle. Other ways to use the group is to search by professions, connect to professional acquaintances and use your connections to get some recommendations.  

3. Finding Freelancers Through Websites

Next on your search list are freelancing job portals or websites. The bonus of using these sites is accountability and if you are new to hiring freelancers they can give you peace of mind. The disadvantages are that there are fees and, for some, is the amount of work you may find yourself having to manage with your project briefs when you have a lot of submissions.

Here are the top 6 Freelancing hiring websites:

Fiverr

From VAs (virtual assistants) to programmers, Fiverr is freelance website with bootstrapped entrepreneurs in mind. You can find the service you want, for the budget you want and in the time you need it, making it very flexible option; especially for once-off jobs like logo creation for example.

Toptal

If you’re looking for something a lot more exclusive and have a bigger budget, then Toptal is for you. Toptal boasts at having a platform that only includes only the top 3% of freelancers who are added by invite only. This is the kind of platform you would use if you’re looking for a very specific business need such as CFOs or developers.

Upwork

Upwork is a giant in the freelance search field. Formally known as oDesk, this largest site has over a million registered freelancers where you can hire per hour or per project depending on your preference. All registered users have access to skill tests which are shown in their profiles to give you peace of mind and allows you to choose between beginners to experts, depending on your need and budget. All work submissions and payments are done via the platform, which helps reduce risk.

Freelancer

Another big freelancer finding giant is Freelancer. Similar to Upwork, freelancer allows you to post your needs where freelancers can apply if it suits their skills. Too much work? No problem! Their ‘Recruiter Project’ function helps you find the perfect freelancer for less work.

99designs

If you’re exclusively looking for design work, then 99designs is for you. This freelancer platform puts you in touch with thousands of talented designers who can help you with anything from a ‘quick’ logo to the full branding of a new store. Their site works in three steps:

• The platform will guide you through creating your brief
• You then pick your package based on your budget
• You launch your project specs where over 100k designers can ‘compete’ for the job and you choose from the designs they present

Storetasker

If you’re looking for qualified freelancers experts in Shopify specifically, then Storetasker is the site for you. Acting as more of an online agency than a free-for-all platform, Storetasker is made up of a small group of elite freelancers and is easy to use, affordable and offers quick turnarounds.

4. Finding Freelancers Through Agencies

And lastly, for those eCommerce entrepreneurs of you who have a bigger budget for your skill searches, there is always freelancer search agency such as Remote that gives you access to their top tier remote workers. Or you can go niche with agencies that cover specialist subjects like blog management or SEO specialists.

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You are well on the way to growing your virtual team! If you need further help or advice finding freelancers for your eCommerce business, drop your questions in the comments below and I will point you in the right direction.

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