How to Integrate Your Business’s Facebook Marketing with Offline Campaigns
When you start to solidify your Facebook marketing strategy, you may wonder how to integrate your social network marketing strategy with your existing marketing plans. You can leverage your existing offline campaigns with a social network, but be sure that you incorporate the campaigns into Facebook the right way: Include all elements of your campaign on Facebook. If you’re throwing an event or starting a campaign, for example, mention it to your Facebook fans. Pretty much anything you currently do can be digitized and used on your Facebook Page.
Here are some ways that you can integrate your offline campaigns with your Facebook marketing activities:
Promote face-to-face events. You want people to attend your event, right? Mention it on your Facebook Page, and even link to any outside information you have posted, such as on your Web site. Better yet, create an event by using the status update box and get a head start on your head count on those RSVPs that are going to come rolling in via your Page.
Adapt advertising campaigns for Facebook ads. Just be sure to make the campaign social and conversational in tone by creating short, attention-grabbing headlines and utilizing eye-catching pictures. Remember, you have a limited number of characters to use in a Facebook ad, so make every character count.
Sell products in the Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is the classifieds section of the Facebook Platform. You can post Help Wanted or Services Offered ads, as well as sell everything from collectibles to houses to vehicles. And you can easily add the Marketplace tab to your Facebook Page so that all your fans know exactly what you’re selling on the Marketplace without their having to go to the page and search.
Adapt promotions so that they have a social element and drive awareness of your brand. Everyone likes free stuff, and people like to win promotions. When your fans know you’re running a promotion with a cool prize, they’re more likely to not only enter the promotion but also refer their friends to your Page.
Compare research within Facebook to offline efforts. Take some time to view both your online and offline marketing results to get a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t. After you compile this information, you can focus more on what gets you the most results.
You need to evaluate your media budget and take inventory of your content assets:
Deciding on a media budget: Believe it or not, the cost of the technology used for social network marketing is rather low. For example, a blog costs nothing to start, a podcast can cost up to $2,000, a wiki can cost up to $6,500 per year, and a video can cost up to $15,000. Your Facebook Page is free, but a private, branded app on Facebook can cost up to $100,000.
Try to dedicate up to 25 percent of your traditional media budget to nontraditional media so that you can experiment with advertising, apps, and promotions, and create successful Facebook content.
Hiring an online writer: To create a steady stream of rich content that attracts the right audience, plan to have access to some additional, perhaps dedicated, writing resource for all your social content needs. Social writing is a unique skill because the writing needs to be conversational. Headlines need to be provocative and entice the reader into wanting to know more. Above all, body copy needs to have a colloquial tone without a trace of sales or marketing speak.
