Skip to content
Not Marketing On Facebook? Here’s What You’re Missing
Facebook is one of the premier social media platforms of our time. At its inception, Facebook was primarily used as a forum for communicating with friends and family. However, recent developments in technology have brought attention to the e-commerce potential of this website.
According to ebizmba.com, Facebook ranks as the No.1 most popular social networking site in the world, with an estimate of 900,000,000 unique visitors per month. The sheer volume of monthly global web traffic makes this social media platform a wonderful opportunity to evaluate and retain potential customers.
This social networking website can be used to interact with customers and observe consumer interests and needs in addition to product display and advertising. The global web traffic generated by Facebook makes it a virtual ocean teeming with potential fish (consumers) that are searching for products and services. As social media networkingwebsites have evolved, various companies have recognized the marketing potential of such sites.
On the side of Facebook timelines, various advertisements can be found. These are usually based on the “likes” or Google searches of a particular user. Google and Facebook collaborate in tracking computer usage to present information that is of interest to a specific demographic. After preforming searches for the weather in Hawaii, for example, you may notice that the side panel of your Facebook profile has offers from Groupon for hotels, or airfare discounts from Travelocity.
The presence of advertisements and the amount of information gathered from consumers makes this an ideal platform for sales and marketing. Facebook has turned into a very popular and useful search engine that can be used to evaluate a company’s potential for providing a particular good or service.
An addition to the Facebook profiles of businesses and professional organizations are “Calls to Action” buttons. These are for consumer-business interaction, to emphasize the primary objective of the social media presence, conversions. The seven calls to action are as follows: Book Now, Contact Us, Use App, Play Game, Shop Now, Sign Up, and Watch Video. Each of these buttons provides businesses an opportunity to engage customers.
Online stores or their links can be accessed on several corporate Facebook pages. Retail content management systems such as Store Ya, Storefront Social, Shopify, Ecwid, Big Commerce, Vendevor and Beetailer can be used to manage this online presence. Some of the services and products on Facebook currently utilizing the “Call to Action” buttons include clothing and accessories, entertainment, food and beverage deliveries, travel agencies, and transportation systems.
The “Call to Action”buttons close the gap between the social networking website of a business and their traditional website. These action buttons can be used to provide information regarding the goods and services offered by a company directly on the Facebook page, rather than requiring a potential customer to leave the Facebook page and go to another site. The lack of a redirect can mean an increase in customer conversion, which in turn can generate greater revenue. The centralization of information can serve to attract more individuals who have an interest in the goods and service being offered, and makes the transition from marketing to an actual sale less about guess work and more about providing a means of complete a transaction before leaving the Facebook page.
The seven buttons provide sufficient variety so that there is potential usefulness for a variety of types of businesses and organizations. The “Book Now” option could be used by a consulting firm to provide and opportunity to set up an appointment. The “Contact Us Now” button can give consumers an opportunity to instantly be connected with a live representative. Applications for business have become a popular way of making consumers aware of sales, special offers, and store locations in one compact device; these can be accessed with the option to “Use App.” The “Shop Now” button can call customers to view merchandise and complete a transaction before leaving the page. The “Watch Video” button is a wonderful option for a company that values a YouTube or Vimeo presence.
With the development of technology, many consumers appreciate the opportunity to have information regarding the goods and services they use on a daily basis at their fingertips, quite literally. New methods of analyzing and applying data generated by internet usage has made this possible. A decade ago, no one would have dreamed of having a conversation with their banks, telephone company or grocery store on Facebook, but technology has made this possible. On Facebook you can interact with your family and friends, access the goods and services that fit your lifestyle, and purchase a variety of personal and household items.
This is the wave of the future, shopping on Facebook with the click of a mouse.
— Gabrielle Brown-Samuels, SEO Coordinator
