Social media platforms have evolved from just spaces where friends can connect to spaces where brands can flourish as well. With their various features, they have become excellent marketing tools.
Of course, Facebook, the biggest social media giant, is among the places you need to be in. There are billions of people you can find here. That makes Facebook perfect for expanding your reach and increasing brand visibility.
Lots of brands on Facebook saw tremendous growth after joining the platform. However, some did not see any at all. And why could that be? That’s because they used the wrong approach.
When marketing on Facebook, it is essential to understand how it differs from other marketing channels. Strategies that work on websites or magazines may underperform on Facebook. Needless to say, to be successful at marketing on Facebook, you need to know what works and what doesn’t.
Here are eight tips you need to know to up your chances of increasing conversions on Facebook.
Set A Clear Goal And Plan Your Strategies
What are you trying to do? How are you going to accomplish that? It is essential to ask yourself these questions. It makes planning your marketing strategies on Facebook easier. By setting a clear goal and design, you’ll get direction or a roadmap for your Facebook marketing. In turn, that will allow you to measure your success.
A common goal for businesses is to increase engagements on the platform and increase sales. A proven tactic to achieve this is tapping into UGC (user-generated content). You can encourage your customers to post photos of themselves using your products or to eat your food. Perhaps, hold a competition to incentivize them for doing that. The win is that they can get something valuable from you – a coupon or a free item. For you, on the other hand, you will get free advertising.
Different strategies work for other goals. So look into them closely. If you don’t know what to do, you can always check your competitors’ pages.
Understand That Facebook Is A Social Media
Brands flock to Facebook to increase sales. What you might think to do is rely on hard-sell tactics. Please be advised to refrain from doing so. That will not bear positive results.
Repetitive posts about a specific service or product, lists of products and prices, and even advertising slogans will alienize you. People would consider this as “spammy” and may result in them unfollowing you. You would also look desperate, which is never a good thing.
You need to keep in mind that Facebook is a social media platform. People come here for entertainment, to chat with friends, or to relax. In short, they come to Facebook to have fun while online. Being bombarded with advertisements is not fun. So, no. Aggressive selling does not work on Facebook.
Humanize Your Brand to Buy Yourself Facebook PostLikes
Again, Facebook is a social media platform – meaning people come here to socialize. They want to talk to people, not to impersonal businesses. This is why brands on Facebook buy Facebook Post Likes on their personalized content.
That said, even if you are representing your brand on the platform, you must talk like a person. It would be best to loosen the tie a bit. Opt for a friendly and likable voice rather than a professional one. It will improve your brand-customer relationship a lot.
Nurture Your Relationships
Using a casual tone can help strengthen your bond with your customers. But it would not be enough to keep the relationship like that. You need to do more to achieve that.
Giving rewards to loyal customers would help you foster positive relationships. So would participating sincerely in conversations. Providing helpful content and responding to inquiries and comments would help immensely too.
Be Consistent With Your Posts
In magazines, you write an article featuring your products and then publish. There’s no need to publish another one the next day or the day after that. Same with television. You produce a commercial; then it would be months before you need to make a new one.
On Facebook, things are different. Unlike traditional media, this channel requires frequent updates.
It is highly recommended that you post new material often – at least once a day if you can. It will keep your audience engaged. Furthermore, it will make your channel active and alive—those help in converting prospects into customers.
Use Pictures And Videos
A wall of text is engaging only for some people. Most will not pay attention to a post if it is like that. But, if you put a photo alongside the article, things change. People would be more inclined to read what is being written.
That is the power of images – they make people engaged and keep them entertained. You don’t even need a lengthy caption to go with them. A photo of a new product, with captions like “Coming soon,” would work great. Likewise, day-to-day pictures of an ongoing project would show your audience your progress. It will make them excited about what the finished product would look like.
Videos are even more fantastic marketing tools. Many regard it as the most engaging content. Thus, it is the best type of content for marketing. The best thing is, there are so many things you can do on your videos. You can choose between short-form and long-form content. Funny videos related to your product or service work best for short-form video content. If you choose the other route, however, you can consider doing Q&As on a live stream.
To summarize, images and videos will help you deliver information to your customers in a fun way – which they prefer.
Use Facebook Insights
Facebook Insights is an excellent feature every marketer on the platform should utilize. It will allow you to learn more about the people who liked your page. You can use that knowledge to tailor your content and offers to match their needs and preferences. That would bring you closer to your customers. As a result, it will increase your sales.
Real-World Example of Facebook Marketing Fails
Most people do not like feeling alone. That makes the pandemic a challenging time for everybody. Social distancing measures and lockdowns made people stay alone in their own homes. As a result, it induced an overbearing feeling of isolation. This feeling could have made many people crazy if the pandemic had hit at a different time. But not today, because we have advanced technology at our side.
Many devices, software tools, and websites have been helpful during the pandemic. Social media, in particular, helped bring a feeling of togetherness in a world where people should be at least 6 feet apart. These platforms allowed people to converse and interact with each other. They are now where people find new friends or dates and even products to buy.
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are among the most popular social media platforms. They have done their part to make life during the pandemic more manageable – providing entertainment, convenient features, and opportunities to connect. But they are not the only ones that did that. The pandemic gave rise to niche social media platforms. These offer unique features that certainly helped keep people happy amid this global health crisis.
One of these platforms is Houseparty, which, unfortunately, is shutting down this October.
Maybe Your First But Your Last Look At Houseparty
Of all the social media platforms, the handiest ones are those video call features. They do more than what phone calls can do. These platforms let people see and talk to talk to their family and friends live. The ability to do those without leaving the comforts of your own home is much needed now more than ever. Unsurprisingly, social platforms that offer and focus on this feature skyrocketed in popularity.
Houseparty is one of the said social media platforms. In the mobile and desktop app Houseparty, up to 8 participants can enter a video chat room. Furthermore, each user can have an infinite amount of rooms active. They can float between those with ease. Users are also notified when their friends are online and are ready to video chat.
People can also play games while on the video chat. Houseparty has partnered up with Ellen Degeneres’s “Head’s Up” and with Mattel. That added charades, Uno, and Magic 8-Ball to the app. Aside from those, Houseparty has its games: Quick Draw, Chips & Guac, and trivia games. These games allow participants to have fun as if they are at an actual party. Perhaps, that is why The New Yorker described it as the “virtual living room” of apps.
Indeed, this app helped people feel connected. It gives a face-to-face experience without actually being face-to-face with other people.
The app was created by the people that made the streaming platform, Meerkat. Life On Air, the company is called. Houseparty was designed to replace Meerkat when the company decided to favor private chats over public broadcasts.
Acquisition By Epic Games
The app has been here since 2016. But, Houseparty just recently saw a spike in popularity in the early days of the pandemic. In March 2020, when it all started, the app was downloaded over 17 million times. That newfound prevalence earned it the “Breakout Of The Year” award in the 2020 Webby Awards. The app continued to gain traction in the months that followed. As per Fast Company’s report, it became the number 1 app in the Social Networks category in the iOS store in April. According to the report, the app was downloaded 50 million times.
Company’s co-founder – Sima Sistani – became the chief executive officer. With her leading, the company was acquired by Epic Games for an undisclosed amount. The newly announced CEO noted that players of the world phenomenon, Fortnite, have been using their service. And thus, the decision made sense.
With Life On Air Inc. as a subsidiary of Epic Games, the user experience of Fortnite players improved. House party became integrated with Fortnite. The Fortnite mode allowed users to stream their games to Houseparty for friends to watch. While playing, they can see their Houseparty friends on the added side panel and talk with them. It removed the need for another device or an additional monitor.
This acquisition helped Houseparty’s success, but it is also why it is now shutting down.
Epic Games Announces The Shutdown
On September 9th, Houseparty posted a blog that made its users sad. It was an announcement saying that we are now saying goodbye to the platform.
In the said post, Houseparty thanked the tens of millions of people who used the service. The service aimed to bring people the feeling of togetherness while they are physically apart. And that it did. People turned to Houseparty to celebrate birthdays, engagements, and marriages. They also used the app for family game nights. Wonderful memories have been created, even when people are apart, thanks to Houseparty—mission accomplished.
If that’s the case, then why is Houseparty bidding farewell? The blog said that since joining Epic Games, Houseparty’s core technology had been used by Fortnite players and developers alike. That rendered the Houseparty team unable to give the app and its community the attention they deserve.
Conclusion
The Houseparty team will create new ways to have meaningful social interactions at a metaverse scale across the Epic Games family. That means players of Fortnite and Rocket League have something to look forward to. It seems Epic Games has some social features in store for them. But that is good news only for those players. Users of Houseparty who relied on it to connect with friends need to look for a new service.
The app was immediately delisted from mobile app stores after the announcement. Those that already have it can use the service until the service’s discontinuation. That also applies to the Fortnite Mode – it will work only until Houseparty’s final day.
It is saddening to kiss something beneficial goodbye. Alas, we can’t do anything. Cherish the memories you made with Houseparty. That would honor the app.
