In marketing there’s seems to be two approaches:

 Targeted, and the mud at the wall method, as my sales manager used to call it

“Throw enough mud at the wall lad some of it will stick.” I had that drummed into me.

The main instigator of the mud method is the chap in Nigeria who, through a half-baked yarn, has millions of dollars from his role in the UN and now needs you bank account to get it out the country, and will give you 20% just to let him put it in your bank account, so he has a database of billions of emails, and he only needs half a dozen takers (suckers) to make more money than he would working down a copper mine for twelve years!

Then there is the targeted method, where you would spend your time concentrating your efforts focusing on finding areas where your most likely potential clients are going to be. Like a chap selling Liverpool Football shirts outside Old Trafford (sorry could not resist that!).

In my experience over 12 years in Sales and Marketing the targeted method is more likely to deliver results. Yet I think you should always utilise both methods, like anything in life if you do a bit of everything it should prove fruitful.

Facebook marketing tips

 Groups on Facebook, (targeted method)

I have a gut feeling that Facebook’s board of Directors met up a while ago and thrashed out ways to get more revenue, so one way is to help the admins grow the members on Facebook groups by placing relevant ads for other similar groups on the group page.

 This is to me a long term strategy where we will soon start to see targeted advertisements on groups and group admins will be incentivised to show certain ads. If for example;  on my group which is a geographically targeted group for people in Bangkok interested in the internet and computers:  Web/IT Network Bangkok.  I think soon we will start to see ads for IBM and Cloud based services on the groups. So, for this to work well Facebook has already started to promote your groups in strategically targeted ads on the right. Anyone who has a Facebook group will have seen quite a growth spurt in their members recently, and Facebook is behind this! So my tip is to start a group and get going as soon as you can, because Facebook are promoting them now for free!

Promoting posts (Mud at the wall)

For the mud at the wall method promoting posts on Facebook is a good way to get people to see your business name and become accustomed to your brand and, some non-friends and people who have not yet liked your page may even click and pop in to browse your blog, which is a bonus!

You should not really pay for promoted posts and expect direct leads, it is merely a branding exersize, and I reiterate a lot in my blogs about the differences between branding and advertising, because start-ups on the whole just don’t get it, that magic but invisible return on investment that comes God knows when, but can make you or break you!

 I had read a lot lately into promoting your page on the right through the Facebook paid options, yet some of the members profiles are a little suspect, so stick to promoting posts for now till this has been investigated further.

Always promote good content, if you are in business.

 If not then your baby, puppies, your teddy bear or political views are just fine for your friends!

I can’t begin to tell you the amount of people that I have met over the years who tell me they; ‘just don’t get social media!’ Yet when I explain what is involved, there is a moment of cognitive dissonance where they understand all right , but they will never accept that you need over a million typed words on your own blogs written by you, and only you, and shared to a social media reach which will take years by itself to gather to get anything like what you could call brand recognition.

Experiment with Headlines

I use a different headline to promote my blog on each Facebook group and page I own, and a different one for LinkedIn, for Twitter, for Reddit, stumble upon, dig etc.  Then I see through analytics which heading worked well. Questions and dares have always worked well, as do topical headlines, and if you can somehow use a personality (with truth) that always works very well indeed!

Remember be human

If all you do is promote posts and nothing else, people will bore of you and see you as a marketing robot regardless of how compelling your blog headings may be, so spread some humanity in there! Let people know you still love the kids and you appreciate a good joke, motivational quote, funny video or simply a photo of you in the park or coffee shop so people can see you have not developed bolts on your neck just yet, and to show you still have your feet on the ground!

Facebook alone sends me around 100 people to each blog I publish on day one, and I can actually now put an ROI on that as the leads that come through from the calls to action at the bottom of every blog I write which results in cash at the other end of the marketing mincer, and well the missus loves a salad from her favourite restaurant and blogging pays for that!

Remember always to concentrate on the feeling and emotion that the very base level desire will give you, and the magic happens, for me it’s watching her tuck into her cold cauliflower that makes it all worthwhile to me!

To learn how to take your family out to dinner based on the cash that comes through the sales that come through leads that comes from your website through traffic that comes through blogging and marketing that comes through sharing your content on Facebook then:

Contact Netmedia