As society continues to shift towards all things digital, small business owners are struggling to find ways to generate new business. I mentioned in another article, How To Grow Your Small Business With Online Marketing, that there were three things that every small business owner needs to be doing to promote their small business. One of those things was social media. In this article, I will take you on a deep dive into how to use Facebook to generate leads for your business.

Facebook is a behemoth with over 2.8 billion users. That’s alot of potential eyeballs having their own social party 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Before we can start posting, there are a few things that a small business owner needs to master:

1. Your personal profile
2. Your business page
3. Your groups
4. Messenger

Step 1: Find and Follow Your Influencers

Before we get into these four areas, the very first thing you need to do is determine who are your influencers in your industry that are using Facebook. Your influencers are the people, experts, and brands who have a very large following and a global presence in your market. These people have already amassed a large following of your ideal customers in your industry. Once you make this list of a few of these “big names” then you can work on crafting a strategy to attract these people into your world, and eventually into your website, funnels, email list, etc.

As you are finding these influencers, like and follow their Pages. Try to find their personal profile as well and follow them. As you follow more of these people, Facebook will make suggestions as to more similar people to follow. (Sometimes Facebook gets this wrong so keep that in mind.) As you start following people in your industry, your news feed will become the best online market research tool around. You will be able to see what types of ads they are running to attract their followers. You will be able to see what kind of conversations they are having; questions that they are asking. When you get to the point of creating your paid traffic strategy, you will create an ad on Facebook that targets people who are interested in these influencers.

Step Two: Prepare Your Home

Before you start liking, commenting, and sharing other people’s posts, you need to make sure your personal profile is properly setup so when people click on your profile image they will see what it is you do. A personal profile that is properly setup will be able to grab the attention of your potential customers who may be looking for more information about you and turn them into owned traffic. A properly set up personal profile will generate organic traffic.

There are five areas of your personal profile that needs your attention:

1. Your cover photo
2. Your Profile Photo
3. Your Intro Section
4. Your Headline
5. Your Timeline

Your Cover Photo

Here is where you design and upload a cover photo that can best represent your brand and what you are selling.

Your Profile Photo

Use this area to place either an attractive and professional headshot of yourself, or you can place your logo here.

Your Intro Section

This area is your business card where you can briefly tell people about yourself. Use the format of “I help ______ with ______ acheive ______.” Just fill in the blanks with your target customer, the name of your service, the expected outcomes they can achieve. Make sure you list your website, email, business phone number, and other social networks that you are on.

Your Headline

This area can be used to promote what you are selling at the moment.

Your Timeline

In this section, make sure you are paying attention to your audience when posting. If you are posting anything related to your business, set it to public. If you are posting anything non-business related, set it to friends only. That means anyone who is not confirmed as a “friend” or who is just following you will only see the public posts. If you confirmed someone to be a friend, they can see everything you post. You want people who have never visited your profile before to see your conversation starters as they relate to what you do. That could potentially lead them into your funnels.

Step Three: Your Business Page

This is where you can host your own show that targets your ideal customers. What I mean by hosting your own show is doing a Facebook Live at the very least once a week on a set schedule. Go live every week during the same day and time so your audience will get dialed in. As long as your Facebook Live is informative, educational, with some entertainment value, it will grow a following over time as your audience shares it to their networks.

This Facebook Live video can be anything that you want it to be. You can structure it as a free webinar, or maybe as a talk show with panelists that you invite, or you can invite someone to interview live.

Another type of videos to produce are value videos. These are videos that have a strong hook and story to tell, but have no call to action. Where Facebook Live can be used for lead generation, these types of videos are mainly for brand awareness. They are your short 3 to 5 minute long videos focused on one tip to share, a customer testimonial, or a behind the scenes clip at your office or job site.

Step Four: Your Groups Strategy

Your groups strategy is akin to throwing a house party where you only allow certain people to attend. When you create a group, you are the owner of that group, and you become the most powerful person of that group. You determine who to let in. You shape the conversations going on inside. Much like a frat party where if the person at the door does not like you, then you are not getting in. Or, it can be where you have to provide a secret code word like the speakeasies during the prohibition era.

You can even charge a membership fee for members to pay in order for your membership to be approved. I came across one such buy and sell group that is doing just that. They charge a $15 lifetime fee using PayPal. Once you make your payment and it is confirmed by the owner of the group, then your membership is approved. I love this idea since it is a great way to keep the people who will spam the group from getting in.

You can create a group where it can become a community where people can learn from each other. Think of a physical business networking event.

Step Five: Your Messenger Strategy

Facebook messenger has grown to become a simple way to stay in contact with your closest of friends, but also your most engaged audience. This area of Facebook gives businesses the ability to message their audience directly with news and information they might be interested in.

How do you start a chat on Messenger?

The first thing you can do is you can tie this into your paid ads strategy. When someone sees your ad, they can click on send message to start a conversation.
Another way is to create a button on your business Page where it will say click here to message us. Clicking that button will send your message into messenger in which a staff member can respond.

A third way is to install the Facebook Chat Box plugin onto your website. The Facebook Chat Plugin is a free and easy to use tool to connect with customers on your website.

With the right chatbot in place, you can virtually interact with any prospective customer or current customer online and automated using Messenger.

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