The holiday season is a great time to reevaluate your social media marketing strategy. And although there is talk of Facebook becoming less important for businesses, the reality is that it is still used by nearly 3 billion people each month worldwide. Plus, just under 2 billion of them log in every single day!
The good news is that Meta has been leaning into AI-based content recommendations more than ever. For example, you may have noticed on your own account how you see content from Pages you don’t follow on your feed. These opportunities may give your brand a better chance of getting in front of interested consumers than before. That is, if you set up your profile and strategy the right way. Keep reading for how you can improve your Facebook holiday marketing this year.
Tips for Facebook Holiday Marketing
So, let’s dive into how you can set yourself up for success with your Facebook profile.
Complete Your Profile
It should go without saying, but there are a lot of businesses that don’t do this – complete your entire profile! On your business Page, Facebook gives you tons of places to fill out vital information about your business. This helps consumers, but it also helps Facebook when it categorizes and recommends your Page to others.
In the “About” section of your page, describe what your business does and why it does that. You should also include relevant images that represent your business. Finally, make sure you use a call to action that directs visitors to take a specific action. This could be to visit your website, give your business a call, or purchase a product.
Hopefully your business has done all of this already. But still, Meta frequently updates and changes, so if it’s been a while since you’ve reviewed your Page details, now might be a good time to do so.
Establish Your Competitors
Next, it’s helpful to have an understanding of what is working in your niche as well as what realistic benchmarks are for your page. For example, do other businesses in your industry or region see high engagement rates? Or is it relatively low? You likely already know some of your competitors, so now you can start digging in a little bit.
Facebook does provide a helpful tool for this research within Facebook Ads Manager. You can utilize Audience Insights to find engagement insights for your own page as well as related Pages in your niche. This information can be found in the “Benchmarking” section of Audience Insights. Unfortunately, this information often isn’t accurate for businesses that are just starting out, which is why you should also conduct your own basic research.
In addition, Meta’s Ad Library is another place to conduct this research. There, it lists advertisers by topic and shows related topics that you can use to increase the scope of your research.
Research Competitor Pages
Now that you know who your key competitors are, you can start looking into their stats. Through Audience Insights, you can see an overall indicator of how a Page is doing. You can also see what their most successful posts are. Within Meta’s Ad Library, you can also see what ads they’ve run to inspire your own ads or give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.
It is worth putting your data together in a spreadsheet so that you can determine average engagement rates, follower growth, and more. Armed with this information, you’ll have an excellent understanding of what kind of performance you should be expecting and aiming for. After all, engagement rates vary greatly by industry, so having realistic expectations is essential.
Establish a Posting Strategy
When it comes to what you’re actually posting, there are some general best practices. However, you should take these with a grain of salt as each industry is different.
For example, video posts tend to do better than text posts. Reels are not only a focus on Instagram but on Facebook as well. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that Reels engagement is up 40% year over year on both Facebook and Instagram and that it keeps people in the app for longer. For this reason, it might be worth integrating Reels into your everyday strategy.
If you’re going to do a text post, keep in mind that shorter posts typically generate more engagement. Research has found that the best length of a Facebook post is just 25 to 55 characters. This is largely because in the mobile app, anything over 80 characters automatically generates the “See more” prompt, which can decrease engagement.
Measure Your Performance
Once you’ve had your strategy in place for a while, you need to regularly measure your performance. At the beginning, we recommend taking a look at your best-performing posts each month to discover what is resonating the most with your audience. You’ll likely be able to clearly identify what is working and what isn’t at all.
While you’re measuring your own performance, it is also helpful to periodically take a look at your competitors’. Are they seeing engagement drops or increases? What content is working for them? You can use your information and theirs to further refine your strategy.
Facebook Posting from 98 Buck Social
Do all of these Facebook holiday marketing tips sound intimidating? We understand. Keeping track of all of these best practices might be more than you bargained for as a busy business owner.
Luckily, 98 Buck Social is here to help you create a consistent presence on all of the biggest social media platforms, including Facebook. Check out our packages or schedule a call with a member of our sales team to learn more about how we can help you use Facebook to its fullest potential this holiday season and beyond!