Being currently ranked the top social media platform for business marketing, there is certainly some great benefits to be had by using Facebook for your small business. In fact, among small business owners, 41 percent now use Facebook as a part of their marketing strategy. However, despite its popularity as a marketing tool, Forbes reports that only 45% of business owners feel that their marketing efforts on Facebook are effective.

In light of this finding, you may be wondering if you should even bother to engage with Facebook for your small business, and the answer is a definitive YES! In this post, we will outline some best practices for engagement when it comes to using Facebook for your small business marketing. By following these guidelines for engagement when it comes to your marketing strategy you can make sure you fall into the 55% of business owners that do find Facebook an effective part of their marketing strategy.

When it comes to posting, find the perfect balance

If you are using Facebook to market your small business, you may be tempted to post too often, or, even worse, not often enough. In order to effectively market your small business, it is important to find the perfect balance when it comes to posting. You may think the more you post the better, but this simply isn’t the case.

In fact, according to a study conducted by Hubstaff, small businesses with 10,000 or fewer followers that posted 60 times or more each month had 60% fewer interactions on each post. Instead of falling into the trap of “quantity over quality” focus on producing fewer posts that are a higher quality for better results.

One study found that the ideal number of posts falls somewhere between five and ten posts weekly. Researchers arrived at this number based on findings that posting less than two times per week or more often than twice each day led to decreased engagement.

Engage with customers frequently

When it comes to interacting with users and gaining loyal customers, however, it is important to be quick with your response time. In fact, of users that complained about a company’s product or services via social media, 42% expected a response within less than one hour. So, although you should be careful to not post content too frequently, it is important to monitor your Facebook page activity on a regular basis to ensure you are engaging with your customer base and using the platform to market your small business in a positive light. Using Facebook for your small business needs to be a priority IF it is going to be used as a means of communication (no stale messages!)

Facebook for your small business marketing

Choose your post times strategically

When you are using Facebook for your small business marketing, it is also crucial to post choose your post times strategically to ensure your content is reaching the largest audience possible. Optimal posting times vary, depending on your audience and it is important to analyze your posts to determine how they are performing. You can analyze your post engagement by using the Insights tool in your Facebook account. Aside from figuring out what works for your specific audience, research has shown that content performs the best when posted between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. on Thursday and Fridays.

Facebook for your small business marketing

Figure out which types of content work best with your audience

One final thing to keep in mind when engaging with your Facebook audience is the TYPE of content that you are posting. This is not only because you should be posting valuable content that educates your followers, but also because by choosing content types that perform well, you are increasing the chance that your post will show up and be seen on your follower’s news feeds. According to Forbes, posts containing videos are the top way to improve your organic reach, with these posts receiving an 8.71% organic reach compared to the 5.77% reach of posts containing only text.

Again, the content type that works best for your audience is very specific to your unique group of followers, so the best way to determine what types of content have the best reach is to check in on your Facebook Insights. By analyzing performance and engagement based on content type, including videos, text-only, photos, and links, you can determine which kind of content resonates best when it comes to engaging with your audience.

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