If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it 1,000 times… social media advertising is important for small business marketing success. However, what they don’t tell you is which platform is best for your business.

On October 19, 2018, I spoke at the 7th Annual Women’s Business Expo in Athens, GA about my favorite social media platform and why small businesses should start their digital advertising journey there first, but which platform you ask? Facebook!

Facebook has well over 1.6 billion users. Meaning, you can reach almost any group of people who you want. In fact, you can probably only list a handful of friends who don’t have a Facebook profile.

If your target market is a human, you can reach them on Facebook.

Oddly enough, there’s a common misconception that Facebook isn’t as successful for B2B companies, but I disagree. In fact, you can apply the same theory above to B2B. Can you name a business that’s not on Facebook?

The misconception comes into play when talking about “decision makers.” Some people assume that if you want to reach the C-Suite Executives, you should be on LinkedIn and advertise to them via LinkedIn. However, the odds are, if they are on LinkedIn, they are probably on Facebook too. And, like most people, they probably check their Facebook account more often than their LinkedIn account.

One selling point to incorporate Facebook advertising over any other social media platform’s advertising services is due to Facebook’s extensive knowledge of its users.

Facebook has more interest based data than any other platform in the world, which is why Facebook advertising is SO valuable to marketers.

Thanks to that good ‘ole “Like” button, Facebook knows the restaurants you like, the TV shows you watch, the music you listen to, the causes you believe in, the people who inspire you, on and on…

In short, Facebook is able to collect a ton of data on its users and it’s all accessible to marketers… you just have to know how to use it.

Luckily, Facebook makes advertising and targeting fairly easy – especially if you follow the advice in the workbook I distributed at the expo. In the mean time, check out my pro tip for how to build Facebook followers quick:

How to Build Facebook Followers Quick

Likes are great and all, but if they aren’t quality likes, does it really matter? Yes, it looks great for trust, but when it comes to actual conversions (which is where the money is at), you will want quality likes. In addition to running “page likes” campaigns and what not, you can also acquire new likes by inviting people who’ve engaged with your posts to like your page. This is where the pro tip comes in… any post you boost, you will have the prime opportunity to invite qualified and targeted candidates to like your page.

Here’s how:

1. Visit Page: Go to your business page on Facebook.
2. Find Boosted Post: Find a post on your business page that you’ve boosted.
3. View Engagement: Click on the area of the post that shows how many people have reacted to the post.
4. Invite: You will see the list of people who have reactive to the post and which of those people have already liked your page and which ones you are able to invite. Scroll down and invite each person who has engaged with the post.

Hopefully, within a few days, all the people you’ve invited to like you page will follow through and become new followers, which will not only expand your company’s reach, but help build trust with other users as your follower count grows.

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