On February 4, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg decided to create a social networking service—a universal website where people can connect and socialise. The result of that decision today is Facebook.
Currently, Facebook has over 1.79 billion monthly active users around the world. Little wonder it’s one of the top social media platforms big companies use for digital adverts. Apart from the increasing number of Facebook users every day, one other thing that makes Facebook a very viable advertising/marketing platform is its consistent creative innovations. It is rated one of the most innovative companies of 2017.
From a simple website where people all over the world connect to socialise, share their thoughts, etc., Facebook has risen drastically to become one of the most effective and productive social media platforms where small, medium and large-scale companies effectively advertise/market their products and services.
In this piece, I examine the creative features of Facebook Page which businesses, particularly small and medium scale companies, can use to advertise and market their products and services without breaking the bank.
Facebook Page is simply a platform designed for Facebook users to showcase their brands. It can be used to advertise products/services, promote a cause, mobilise people, and so on. Discussed below are top features of the Facebook Page that can be used to optimise your marketing activities:
Page title
This is where your page name appears. Your page name, ideally, should be your company’s name. Here you will also select a category where your page falls into, e.g., ‘Local Business or Place’, ‘Company Organization or Institution’, ‘Brand or Product’, ‘Artist, Band or Public Figure’, ‘Entertainment’, ‘Cause or Community’.
Cover photo
The cover photo is the first thing a visitor to the page will see, so it has to be well designed to showcase your products/services in a creative and alluring manner. The cover photo can also include texts that will direct your page’s fans to take action, e.g., Download your copies now! Also, don’t make a cover photo permanent or stay too long, change at regular intervals.
Profile picture
This is where you put a unique picture or design that expresses your business, preferably your company logo.
About us: Company information
This where you describe your company and the products you sell/the services you render. You have limited characters to use here, so you have to be creative enough to express/convey what your business is all about within the available words limit.
Contact number and address
This is where you put your business lines for your customer to call and your physical address if you have.
Available office hours
This feature makes it possible for you to let your fans know your availability time—the days and time you’re open for business.
Friends’ invitation
This feature allows you to build your customers’/fans’ base by inviting them to like your page or suggest your page via an email contact by clicking on the Suggest Page Link. You can also build an audience by sharing the page on your timeline, in a Group or another Page you manage, in a private message and an event by clicking the Share Link.
Message tab
This tab makes Facebook Page an online customer service platform where you get messages from your fans/customers and reply to them promptly. It also has an automated response system which allows you to respond to fans even when you are not online.
Call to action button
This feature allows you to direct your fans or customers to take actions: ‘shop now’, ‘call now’, ‘send message’, ‘sign up’, ‘call now’, ‘use app’, ‘play game’, ‘watch video’, etc. You can creatively harmonise your call to action text in the cover design with your call to action button.
Facebook shop/e-commerce
This is a new feature added to Facebook Page. It is one of the essential features of Facebook Page, especially for small and medium scale companies that don’t have e-commerce websites. The Facebook shop gives you a mini e-commerce platform where you can add well-designed images of your products, their descriptions, and prices.
Status updates/page posts
This is a content management platform. Here, you can publish posts about your products and services and other useful contents (relevant to your products and services) that will make your page a number one go-to place for relevant resourceful contents. The Page post feature also allows you to engage your customers by asking them relevant questions. In addition, new features have been added for different types of post you want to create. For instance, your posts can be created through ‘Create an offer’, ‘Get phone calls’, ‘Get messages’, ‘Get sales’, ‘Help people find your business’, ‘Write a note’, etc. tabs, depending on what you intend to achieve with the post.
Another interesting feature of the page posts is that it allows you to tag the products in your shop with relevant posts.
Insights tab
This is where you analyse your page’s performance—page views, likes, post engagements, post reach, message response rate, etc. It also allows you to compare your performance with other relevant pages.
Event creation
This feature allows you to create upcoming events where you invite your fans/audiences to connect with them physically.
Adverts
Beyond your organic efforts, you can also sponsor your posts or other page activities through Facebook Page adverts.
