Online Marketing That Makes Sense

Transform Your Facebook Page Into an Audience Magnet (No Ads Needed!)

• Pat & Cressie O'Brien • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Ever felt like your Facebook business page is just shouting into the void? Fear not, entrepreneurs and marketing maestros, because we're about to arm you with the tactics to grow your audience without spending a fortune on ads. 

Picture this: your page, optimized for every phone and tablet out there, with images that speak volumes about your brand, and an intro that's speak to your customer's pain points. We're not just talking about making your page pretty; it's about transforming it into a beacon that draws in the right crowd, using content and behavior as your lighthouse. Let's create a top-of-funnel strategy that gets people buzzing about your business, engaging with your posts, and craving more.

This episode isn't a one-trick pony, it's a full-blown rodeo of organic growth strategies. We're taking you behind the scenes of Facebook's algorithm, showing you how to mingle in groups and engage with other pages in a way that's anything but spammy. It's like teaching your business to dance with the algorithm, and trust me, you'll want to lead. And once you've built an audience that's as tuned in to your brand as you are, we're going to show you how to keep them coming back for more. It's not just about getting likes and shares; it's about creating a community that's invested in your success. So grab your notepad, and let's turn that Facebook Business page of yours into a crowd-pleaser that keeps your business in the spotlight.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Online Marketing that Makes Sense. I'm your host today, patrick O'Brien, and this is a marketing podcast packed with social media strategies, productivity tips, traffic growth hacks, marketing truths and inspirational stories that will help you design your dream business to impact more of the people you feel called to serve. Whether you're a dreamer, have a side hustle or are looking to take your business to the next level, you're in the right place. Tune in and get inspired. Alright, my friends, today we are going to talk about a subject that I cover in great detail inside of the Facebook Marketing Mastery course, and we're going to look at how we should be looking at using Facebook business pages to grow our audience organically. Now, this is going to be an important subject because, especially those of you who are just starting out or maybe don't have a giant ad budget, or maybe you don't really know a ton of different people in your market to collaborate with, you're going to want to learn how to get scrappy and learn how to use your Facebook business page to maximize your audience growth. Now, when it comes to Facebook, did you know that roughly a quarter of the world's population is actually on the platform Facebook? That's huge, not to mention that Facebook also owns Instagram. There's a very interesting story how all that came about, but the reality is is now Facebook and Instagram we know them, today's meta, and so when you jump on Facebook and then you eventually learn Instagram, then you can have literally half of the world's population open up to you. But what we know right now is that a quarter of the world's population is on Facebook. That means we, as business owners, want to be using Facebook for our businesses, especially when it comes to growing organically. Now, later on, you'll pursue different things for ads and ad budgets, but I'm going to show you how to actually start growing your audience now. Ad budgets, but I'm going to show you how to actually start growing your audience now.

Speaker 1:

Now, when you create a business page, it's important that you set up an actual business page and not just use your personal profile page. It's actually against Facebook's standards and agreements when you try to sell primarily on your personal page. It doesn't mean you can't, every now and again, talk about what you're doing and your program, but you need to have your main sales and business and offer stuff coming from your business page. Super simple to create a business page, but a business page when you get to your business page. You want to teach Facebook right away what your business page is about. That means that cover photo that goes at the top. You need to make sure that that is optimized for mobile view. It might look really great on your desktop but it looks like trash on your phone and the words are cut off and people can't tell what it says. That's a red flag. You don't want to do that. You want to make sure that whatever image you use if you create it in Canva and put it on your actual you know the cover photo, the large rectangular photo of your business page that it's mobile friendly. So always check whatever you do on a website or on Facebook, check it on your phone. Make sure that it's responsive, that it moves and it can be read. Make sure that that profile image, that circular image that you see on your page, speaks about what your page is about, that it resembles what the people need to know when they come to your page.

Speaker 1:

If you're just starting out with your business and you're wanting to try to grow your business page, your page needs to be less about who you are and more about who your audience is when they come to your page and see your images. They need to quickly be able to identify with them and you can do this as sort of like a flash test. Take your page, take your images and show a stranger, show a coworker, somebody who doesn't know what you do, and say and show them for like a brief second hey, here's the images. And then ask them what do you think the page is about? If they can't read the page title and see the two images there and know what your page is about is a good chance that maybe your page is not optimized to the particular audience that you're trying to attract to your page. So you want to make sure you pay close attention. That's your first impression. This is your public business page is the top of funnel. This is where people are going to come and click on to find out who you are, what it is that you do. If you're turning them away at this point, they're not going to progress any further.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you've optimized your cover photo and your profile image and you have the name of your page identifies with who your people are, then you're going to want to make sure your intro, your little bio section, is discussing a little bit more about the pain points that your audience has. You want to make sure that you speak to the problem that they're having and how you can help them, how you are the solution. What you offer is the solution to that problem. Put that right there in the intro. Don't put some long story about why you started the business or how you started the business, and make it about you, make your page about them. Remember, this is top of funnel. You want to get their attention. You want to attract them to take more action on your page. There's time later for when they go on your website and go into your groups and further into that relationship, that you can talk more about what you do and your mission and your vision and all the different things. But your first impression needs to make sure that you're attracting the right people. Then you want to make sure that your posts on your page, on your business page, are relevant. You want to make sure that you're posting content that speaks about what you do, your offer, your solution.

Speaker 1:

Don't just post random things on social media. Listen, I'm going to give you a little bit of a tip here. The people who are successful with using their social media as a top of funnel are very intentional about what they post every day. Now there's different strategies and tips and again we go into some more of that in greater detail in the Facebook Marketing Mastery course. But you can definitely just go to the people who are in your market, go to the people who are major influencers in your market, who have the same audience that you have, and see how they're posting and you can model that. Don't copy it, but model it and post the similar things that they're posting in a different way. Right, give a new spin to it, add some different flair to it, your personality to it.

Speaker 1:

But look at what they're doing.

Speaker 1:

That's a first thing that you could be doing it. But look at what they're doing. That's a first thing that you could be doing. But always mix it up. Sometimes people just get stuck with always posting videos, reels or images. Mix it up. Your viewers are going to want to see things that are differently. Right, just a text, just type a text post. Just have an image post with a little bit of text. Have a long text post. Have a real post. Have a post that's a pull and a post that's a real, and your purpose with posting is remember to always have a call to action. That doesn't mean that you're getting them to buy something, but a call to action to take action on your page and on your post.

Speaker 1:

You want them to engage. Facebook is going to reward you for the more engagement you have on your page. So your goal as a public facing top of funnel platform for Facebook, your business page, is to get engagement. So you need to ask questions, talk to them, ask them things, have them respond in the comments and work with them that way. Now that's how you start to grow your page organically. Now you can also do a couple other things. The other pages that are in your industry, that are in your market, that serve the same audience, go to those pages as your page. So, while you're logged in as your business page, go to those other pages and like those pages as your page, because what that's going to do is it's going to tell Facebook the algorithm that okay. Because what that's going to do is it's going to tell Facebook the algorithm that, okay, this new page, or this page in general, is liking these three, five, 10, 50 other pages that have to do with that audience. That must mean that they have a similar audience. That's what the algorithm, the Facebook robots, are doing and they're thinking and you're helping them move along Now as your page.

Speaker 1:

Go to those other pages that are in your market and leave comments, like in heart, on their posts. Leave helpful, value-packed comments as well, because then people are going to see you as well and they're going to click on your page name and they're going to be sent to your page. And when they're there, if you did what we talked about from the very beginning of this episode and you optimized your page correctly, when they're there, if you did what we talked about from the very beginning of this episode and you optimize your page correctly, when they're there, that first impression they're gonna have is wow, I need to follow this page and they're gonna follow your page. They might read through some of your posts. That's gonna be important. So you're driving engagement that way. And then you're also driving engagement because, again, the Facebook robot, the algorithm, is gonna see that your page is engaging on this page with their audience. So maybe their audience might like to see some of your posts. So then Facebook is going to recommend your page to these other people on their page and on their platform for themselves, on their profile. They're going to see your page as a recommendation, so Facebook's actually going to reward you for being engaging on their platform. Remember, it's social media. They want us to be social.

Speaker 1:

Okay, another thing you can do is actually share a post from somebody else in your market. Now I know you might be thinking, well, I'm going to drive all my traffic to them. That's just not how it works. It doesn't work that way. So don't be afraid of that. Go and find who else in your industry is serving the same audience as you and take one of their posts that was mostly converting. Right? You want to pick the highest converting post in the last week or so that you can find and share that post on your page. One is, you're going to be able to ride on the coattails of that high engagement for anybody who's following your page, and you're also going to do something else to teach the algorithm that, because you've just shared that page, now you're going to want to the Facebook saying, well, these people are going to want to show your page to the those people of that audience. Right, these are things you're training the algorithm, you're training it to understand, and so these are things and steps that you want to do throughout the week.

Speaker 1:

So one day you want to go to five of your top market pages and like some of their posts and leave a value comment, and then the next day go to another separate five, like a few posts and leave a comment. Now be very careful here. Don't just go to all the different pages and leave dozens of comments and posts, because you're going to be seen as spam and you don't want to do that. So go slow and start slow with this process, but do some kind of collaboration like that every single day and mix it up with what you do whether leaving comments or liking posts and sharing one of those posts on your wall and get creative with that. Stack those accordingly. That's going to be super helpful in teaching the algorithm who it is that you serve and so that it will actually start to recommend your page to more people and you're also helping your page get in front of more people as well.

Speaker 1:

Now a couple other beneficial things you can do is actually take your page and join Facebook groups that have a audience of the people that you want to serve, and you can engage in those groups as your particular page. Now, not every group allows you to join as a page and that's okay. But if you can join as your page, join as your page, interact and engage with other people as your page, because, again, the first thing they're going to do is going to click on your profile. If they say, wow, this person's really smart or they're adding a ton of value, you know who are they. Right, they're going to click. You know we're nosy people, right, we want to. We know how many, how many of us have been on social media and and and investigate or spy on other people by clicking through different things. Right, it's just human nature. They're going to do it. They're going to click on your profile. When they do, they're going to see your profile for that group.

Speaker 1:

Now here's the super powerful little hack I want to tell you you can actually change the way your profile image looks for that particular group. You can actually, if you go inside of a group, you can do this as a personal profile too, but as your page in that group, you can say edit your profile and when you edit your profile, you can change that image that's up there, make that image something that's going to be relevant immediately to that audience in that group and then have a link in there. It's not going to be a clickable link, but you can make it. Say something and then an easy URL that they can maybe type in, or a website to find you or something else, or an invitation to send me a DM. Right, that's another first impression and then they can always go to your page itself and again see more of your posts and content to see what you're all about. So those are a couple of different ways. Again, you're going to be getting engagement on your page in those groups, and Facebook is going to see the type of people that are engaging on your page and it's going to begin to create an understanding of who it is that follows your page.

Speaker 1:

Do all these things the right way in the beginning. Don't just have a ton of people, a ton of friends and family, like your page. Don't just, you know, accept anybody to follow and like your page. Don't put your page in posts in groups that you might just get some cheap likes. Don't boost your page to get a bunch of advertisement likes either. The people that are on your page are very important because when you do, later on, run Facebook ads which you will if you're a business, and we'll teach you how to do that when we get into the Facebook Marketing Mastery course. But when you run ads later, you're going to be that much further along, because Facebook's going to have a really good understanding of who follow your page.

Speaker 1:

In fact, you could actually create a lookalike audience of the people that already are on your page. If you have 500 or 1,000 people that are the right people, that are your audience, who follow your page, and you tell Facebook, hey, I want a lookalike audience, I want you to find more of these exact people. Well, it'll take a profile of all those people that follow your page and it'll match it to other people. It'll find you people and it's tons cheaper to do that when you target for ads that way and they'll find people for you particularly right. That's going to be super helpful as you move forward. Now you can also be engaging on your personal profile too. On your personal profile, engage in those other groups where your audience is as well, because you're going to become known as that person. People are going to see you more.

Speaker 1:

Now, that doesn't happen overnight and all of these things are not going to get you a viral overnight. This is something you want to just put into your marketing strategy, day after day, week after week, and do these things. Go to those other pages, write them down, make you a big list. So you go to those other pages, check off which ones you left comments on, which pages you shared a post, on which ones you left some comments on Okay, comments on which pages you shared a post, on which ones you left some comments on and stay consistent and do that for a few weeks. You're going to see Facebook starting to show your page to more people.

Speaker 1:

But you have to be proactive. If you're wanting to work your way in, instead of paying your way in to growing your audience, then you're going to have to do the work. You're going to have to do some more labor in it from the beginning. The other option is to pay your way in, and that's using Facebook ads, and that's for another episode, for another day. But right now, this is what you got to do to get started to grow your audience organically on Facebook.

Speaker 1:

Well, my friends, I hope that was helpful for you. I hope that you'll take some action. Go to your page, check out your profile and mix a few things up a little bit. Try some of the tactics you learned today. Try them for a little while, maybe a week or so, and let me know how it works out. Send me a direct message, send me an email, let me know what's happening, how it's working, what maybe didn't work, and if there's something else you want to learn a little bit more about when it comes to marketing on social media. All right, until next time. We'll talk again real soon.