If you want to make money through social
media, then Facebook is definitely the place to start. It is the largest social
network — and third most popular website — in the world. With billions of
users, you’ll have no trouble finding an audience that will be interested in
what you have to promote. In this guide, we’re going to look at specific tips
you can apply to your Facebook marketing strategy to make money, as well as
great resources that will help you make the best use of your time, inspire, and
educate you so you can increase business revenue and/or personal income.
Since
most businesses make money from their mailing list, let’s look at some specific
ways you can grow your mailing list on Facebook to increase your online income.
Build Your Mail List
- Post new signup incentives (free e-books, reports, whitepapers, discounts, etc.)
on your Facebook wall. For extra exposure, promote your post using the
traditional Facebook
Ads interface so you can target your post to the Facebook
audience most likely to sign up and later become customers. Continue the
ad as long as you continue getting signups.
- Look for opportunities in relevant Facebook groups to share your signup incentives. Start by joining
groups where your target customers are active. Look at the question they
post most frequently. Create signup incentives that answer those questions
and leave a short, informative answer with a link to your squeeze page so
people can learn more. .
- Install apps from your email service provider to put an opt-in form on your Facebook page as a
custom tab. ESPs that offer Facebook apps include Aweber, MailChimp, GetResponse, Constant Contact, and iContact.
- Use the Woobox HTML tab app build an iframe on your Facebook page. You can easily
add your mailing list squeeze page and have it show as one of your four
custom tabs beneath your cover photo.
- Update your page’s cover photo to “point” to the custom tab on your Facebook page
where people can sign up for your mailing list.
- Add a cover photo with a call to action to “click here” to get your free incentive. Make sure the photo’s
description has a link to your squeeze page so that when people click on
the cover photo, they can easily click through to your squeeze page. You
can also make a shortened URL for your squeeze page (something easy to
type like bit.ly/freeguide as opposed to bit.ly/Gu8sce2) and add it to
your cover photo.
- Use the Custom Audience feature in the Facebook Ads Power Editor to target ads about your signup incentive to
other email address lists you have access to like your customers, LinkedIn
contacts, personal email contacts, etc. Note that you shouldn’t says
something like “Thanks for being in my network on LinkedIn — come download
this.” Don’t give away how you know people in your ad; let them just think
they were “randomly” targeted.
- Use the Custom Audience feature in the Facebook Ads Power Editor to target ads for a new signup incentive to
people who have unsubscribed from your mailing list.
Sell Your Products
Do you sell physical or products,
online or off? Here are some ways increase your sales using Facebook to turn
your visitors and fans into paying customers.
- Announce new products on your Facebook page and promote the post using the traditional Facebook Ads
interface so you can target your post to the Facebook audiences most
likely to buy.
- Use the Custom Audience feature in the Facebook Ads Power Editor to target ads to your current customer base
and mailing list to increase visibility for your new products.
- Add a custom tab to your Facebook page that lets you
sell directly on Facebook,
or that guides your Facebook fans from your page to your online store.
- Look for opportunities in relevant Facebook groups to
promote your products.
Start by joining groups where your target customers are active. Look for
questions that can be answered with a mention of your product and answer
them, preferably linking to your product’s landing page.
- Comment on blogs using the Facebook Comments plugin that your customers regularly read. Either comment as
your Facebook page or comment as your personal profile after you have
connected your page to your profile under the employment section of your
personal profile’s about tab. You will get a link to your Facebook page
with either option. Look for posts that allow you to casually mention your
products in the comment so people will have reason to click through to
your page.
- Update your cover photo with a photo or benefits list
for your new / bestselling product.
Make sure the photo’s description has a link to your product’s landing
page so that when people click on the cover photo, they can easily click
through to your landing page. You can also make a shortened URL for your
landing page (something easy to type like bit.ly/ourproduct as opposed to
bit.ly/Iso93lco) and add it to your cover photo.
If you sell high-end products or
services, you might be more focused towards generating leads through Facebook.
Here are some ways to attract them.
Generating Leads
- Create content on your blog that is conversion-oriented for your business. If you offer SEO services to small
businesses, write posts about SEO challenges for small businesses. Share
these posts on your Facebook page and promote them using the traditional
Facebook Ads interface so you can target the audiences likely to need your
services.
- Look for opportunities in relevant Facebook groups to
demonstrate your expertise.
Start by joining groups where your target customers are active. Look for
questions that are related to the services you offer, answer them, and
casually mention that you offer services that could help with their issue.
- Lead a group on Facebook about the industry you offer
services for. If you’re a freelance web
designer, create a group for businesses who need small pieces of design
advice. Just be sure your group’s goal is to attract customers, not
colleagues.
- Link your business Facebook page to your Facebook
personal profile using the employment section
under the about tab. This way, potential customers who see your
interactions throughout Facebook can learn more about your business.
- Find popular blogs in your industry that your potential customers read. Be an active
participant in the wall posts of that blog’s Facebook page using your
Facebook page. If you offer great advice to people, they’ll be more likely
to contact you about your services.
- If you offer local services, look for business referral
groups on Facebook in your region.
Participating in these ail leave a huge ROI as people come to them to look
for good businesses to work with. Even the smallest cities have them.
- If you are offering services to entrepreneurs or small
business owners who manage their own Facebook
page, consider sending a personalized message to their Facebook page about
specific ways your services could help them. Skip the generic “I can help
you build your Facebook marketing strategy” and go for “I noticed you
don’t have a link to your website in your page’s short description —
here’s how to do it.” Insert directions and then let them know you can
help them with other aspects of their Facebook page if they are
interested. Sending it to their Facebook page will help you bypass the
“Other” message folder.
Promote Your Books
If you’ve authored a book for sale
(or as an incentive for mailing list signups), then you can promote it on
Facebook. Here’s how.
- Create a cover photo for your book, both on your personal profile and your Facebook page.
Include a call to action that points to the book website, an arrow that
points down to a custom tab with a sample chapter that can be downloaded
if people opt-in (which will put them in an autoresponder series to
ultimately buy the book), etc.
- Create a Facebook page for your book itself so people can add it to books they’ve read.
Better yet, add instructions in an image on how people can add your book
to their favorite books on their personal profile.
- Create a group so people can come discuss the book. As the group grows, more people will become
interested in joining and will lean more about the book.
- Join groups for book lovers so you can share the news about your book. Also join
groups where people who would read your book are active.
- Start an interest list with the top books in your
industry and include your book’s page
in that list. Then promote it.
- Design some images with quotes from the book. While these aren’t as powerful on Facebook, they
still get a lot of shares. Make sure a link to your book is early in the
description with the image; specifically, make it a shortened URL after no
more than 90 characters in your update.
Market
Affiliate Products
Another way to make money on
Facebook is by promoting the products you are an affiliate for. Note that if
you do share an affiliate link on Facebook, it is proper etiquette (and an FCC
requirement) to disclose that the link is an affiliate link.
- Promote your blog post or video review of the affiliate
product on your Facebook wall
and promote that post using the traditional Facebook Ads
interface to target the ad to people who are most likely to buy the
product.
- Personally reach out to people who might be interested
in buying this product. You
will find these people in relevant groups and interacting on popular
Facebook pages within the industry. For this to work, you have to be
genuinely passionate about the product, willing to write personalized
messages to individuals about why they should try it, and disclose that
you are an affiliate (but that you’d promote it even if you weren’t). Make
sure these are people you have interacted with in groups or on pages, and
let them know you sent them a message so it doesn’t get lost in their
other folder.
- Look for opportunities in relevant Facebook groups to
promote the affiliate product.
Start by joining groups where the product’s target customers are active.
Look for questions that open the door to sharing your review post or
video. If you’re promoting a WordPress theme, look for any group where
people are asking what theme is best for their blog or business, then
passionately suggest the theme you’re promoting
Look for a Job
If you’re not making what you want
at your current job, then you might be in the market for a new one. Here are
some ways to use Facebook to help increase the odds of getting hired.
- Make your Facebook personal profile as professional as
possible. Regardless of the legality of
employers checking up on potential job candidates on Facebook, they still
do. You don’t want someone to see your latest wild weekend in Vegas photos
or status updates where you complain about your job, past or current.
- If you know of a company that is hiring, and you can find people from that company in public
Facebook groups using Graph Search (try Groups that John Smith Belongs
To), join those groups and start interacting with those people. The
familiarity could help you during the interview process as you will be
demonstrating your expertise with potential interviewers.
- Find a common interest with your future boss or
interviewer. Many Facebook personal
profiles have some public information; see what you can find before you go
for your interview and brush up on it so you can casually throw it around
in conversation. The connection will help you be more memorable.
- Turn your profile and/or page into a portfolio. Add images that represent your best work in a specific album. If applicable, add a link to the description for the image.