Facebook has been a prominent social media platform since 2004, allowing over 1 billion friends and family to share statuses and photos amongst their network of ‘Facebook friends’. Although it’s primarily for social interactions, many companies have found that advertising their products or services through engaging Facebook content has allowed them to reach audiences they hadn’t considered or been able to access before.
Facebook is now a great place to market to your target audience – with an ever-growing advertising toolkit and market of individuals ready to consume your content. For maximum success, you should be at the forefront of their feed.
So, do you want to grow you FM business but aren’t sure of where to start? Read the advice that has helped us achieve amazing results below and see how you can too!
Creating Your Audience
Social media platforms like Facebook are brilliant tools for driving traffic to websites, building contact lists and communicating with both customers and other FM World team members. So, how do you get started?
When you’re creating a campaign with the goal of growing your FM team, the first thing to do is imagine your ideal target audience. After all, there would be no point in creating engaging Facebook posts without knowing who you want to consume them. Answer some questions such as are they male or female? How old are they? How many kids have they got? Think about what they do for a living, their hobbies – the more details the better. Giving your ideal target person a name will help you to keep them in mind when advertising to them. You can also label your audiences ‘primary’ or ‘secondary’, for example if you discover there is more than one group you want to target.
Next, your attention should turn to the problems they may have, such as ‘Do they need extra income? More time freedom?’ and how you are going to put yourself forward as the best solution possible.
Here are examples of the types of people you may have within your target audiences:
Example 1:
Are they male or female? Female
What age group is she? 25-35
How many kids does she have? Two aged 3 and 6
What does she do for a living? She’s a mother staying at home looking after kids
What interests does she have? Social media and going to the gym
Does she want extra income? Yes
Is the money for a car? a holiday? To provide a good life for her kids
What’s her name? Monika
Example 2:
Are they male or female? Male
What age group is he? 18-24
Does he have any kids? No
What does he do for a living? Currently, a student
What hobbies does he have? Football
Is he looking for extra income? Yes, but he also wants to learn new skills
What’s his name? Ben
There are no right or wrong answers, as this is someone you’re creating in your own mind. It should be the type of person you would like to have as your customers, who you’d be happy to work with and to whom you can relate.
Targeting Your Audience With Facebook Ads
Once you’ve decided on your ideal target person and audience, you need to think about how you’re going to advertise to this audience. Here at FM Perfume Group, we know that successful marketers have moved from advertising in local and national newspapers to paid advertising campaigns online, where they can reach the biggest audience.
So how can you reach your target audience with Facebook ads? You may think this is a very complicated task – but we’re going to show you how fast and easy it can be once your target audience is ready.
Here’s an example of how to set up your own Facebook ads. In this audience, ads specifications are set to ages 25-40, women who speak English with interests in beauty, business opportunities, direct selling, multi-level marketing, or party planning. This example takes less than 5 minutes to configure and could reach up to 1,350 people daily.
You may also think that Facebook advertising costs a lot of money. The good news is, it doesn’t have to! With Facebook ads, you have complete control over what you spend. An ad can have a daily spend budget of £5 (the above example is based on this) and you’re only charged when people click on your advert. To begin with, you could run an advert for a few days to calculate your return on investment then increase it to a week or so during each month.
Creating adverts
Hiring a giant advertising agency to create your ads isn’t always the answer for your business. You can create amazing adverts that won’t just look great, but perform too! Below is an example of one of the most successful adverts we’ve created:
As you can see, you just need a captivating image and the right wording to attract your target audience. Our advert was designed to target females, aged 25-35 who had interests in social media, network marketing, direct sales, party planning and who also wanted to improve the lives of their families.
The screenshot here shows you where to insert your wording within Facebook Ads Manager for the advert, and how it’lll be displayed alongside your chosen featured image. Your ultimate goal is to drive people to click your advert – so use keywords to entice your target audience within your ad headline, text and description.
When you come to create your own advert, remember your target audience must be people you want to work with and you can relate to. Our advert is just an example – you should select your own image and wording that targets the audience that you want to reach.
Running a Successful Facebook Group
Have you heard of Facebook groups or ever wondered what makes a group different to a fan page? You’re in the right place.
The main difference between the two is that groups are far more interactive – group members will get notifications every time you post about new offers or products which encourages more interactions amongst them (encourage friends who you add to the group to comment on your posts to begin the activity for you!). We highly recommend creating one to be engaging on Facebook.
Why create your FM group?
Facebook groups can be a great way to promote products to customers – allowing members to add everything from product information to testimonials. Although these groups are a great tool for generating sales, they should primarily focus on educating and providing engaging value to your target audience. For example, rather than making a post explaining that a facial cream is good and suggesting that your followers should buy it, you should delve into the real benefits of the product and list the ways in which it can solve those all-important problems that your audience have.
Creating Facebook groups won’t only help you sell FM, but can also assist in growing your team. Be sure to use your page to educate your audience on why joining FM is an amazing opportunity and to tell them how they can sign up. If you want to take this approach you should set your page to a ‘Secret Group’.
Engaging posts
Once your group is created, whether it be focused on selling and educating or for growing your team, put up a welcoming post for members letting them know who you are, of any rules, and include a link to the FM team support site (if applicable). A tip for important posts like this one is to pin them so they always appear at the top of the group feed.
As with many things in network marketing, consistency is key. You want to be posting in the group regularly, at least two or three times a day, whilst commenting on and liking other posts in the group. Ensure that you are creating interactive Facebook posts and adding value to your audience, otherwise, people may believe your content to be spammy and leave your group. This will help you not only to build up the engagement to then promote your successful group elsewhere, but also to properly interact with the members, get to know them, build relationships, and become a trusted individual in the industry.
Facebook group best practices:
- Ask open questions to get others commenting and interacting
- Keep things fun and exciting by sharing new things, the latest news and creative product pictures and videos
- Introduce some friendly (positive) competition
- Create content that’s simple but effective, for example, a quick video shot on your phone will encourage other people to post similar things
- Share your group frequently on your other social media platforms and encourage members to do the same; that it’s the place to be on Facebook
Your Guide to Online Parties
Have you thought about having a party on Facebook but didn’t know how to do it?
Online parties aren’t just a way to sell FM. They’re an ideal way to expand your FM Group business into new areas, and with social media being the vast platform it is today, virtual Facebook parties can be both fun and successful! They’re perfect for selling FM when the weather is temperamental – and many of the things that work for offline parties can work online! Quick tip – men are more likely to attend online parties, so don’t discount them!
Pre-party preparations
Host coaching
The first thing you’ll need to do is to send FM catalogues to your host so they can choose which products will be on their wishlist. From then, you’ll discuss how many party sales they would need to get the items they want the most. E.g. if they wanted £30 worth of products and you had decided 10% of product sales results in free products, then the goal of the party would be £300.
Next, ask the host who they’re going to invite to the party. Explain that they’re welcome to show catalogues to any family and friends not on Facebook, and that any orders from them will count towards the party total too.
You can also discuss the extra rewards you can offer if additional party bookings are made from theirs.
Creating the event
When creating your event, you’ll want to do so from your fan page and not from your personal profile. We’ve found that the best evenings for the actual party date are Monday – Thursday; Sundays can work in the winter. You should make your host admin of the event and ask them to share the link with potential guests via personal message in the same friendly way they would give a party invite offline.
Grabbing people’s attention is key for events like these – so the title of your event should tell people why exactly it’s beneficial for them to attend. For example, Ann’s FM Party – Luxury Perfumes For Under £25! To further grasp people’s interest, make sure the cover photo is eye-catching (using Canva is great for creating Facebook covers). Once created, your first post on the event page should be a picture introducing yourself; you should include that you enjoy being an FM distributor and tell people to invite their friends who also have an interest in the product that will be featured at the event.
Make sure to include any important information such as how to order your products and how to pay for them.
Give encouragement
Offer incentives for those that invite their friends or contact you for catalogues/orders ahead of the event (this will also allow you to gain their contact details). Other incentives could include posting an offer on a few products that complement each other as a set at a lower price than on the day of the event or asking those who have a catalogue to post up a picture of themselves with it and/or their wishlist and provide a prize for the best one – this will gain you more publicity for your party event.
*TOP TIP*
Make sure to check up on your event page regularly, respond to comments and questions quickly and thank people for their orders!
Party time!
On the day of your event you’ll want to solidify numbers; ask your host to remind those who have said they are attending and also check up on those who have not confirmed. You can also discuss any pre-party orders that have been placed and see how far away they are from their wishlist goal.
To gain people’s attention before the event starts, post about how excited you are and contact everyone who had requested a catalogue and/or purchased products to remind them of start times. To get everyone engaged and looking forward to the party, post on the event page asking the guests how they know the host and maybe for a short anecdote. This will allow you to build your relationship further with the host and discuss potential future hosts and recruits.
What to post during the event
Don’t forget that you’re hosting a party and it should feel like one! Make sure to keep posts fun and exciting. Ideally, the party should last about 30 minutes with 10 posts. For maximum engagement, try posting interesting pictures of the products and consider including some videos as well. You can find some brilliant pictures and videos on the FM World website for inspiration. Ask questions and get party attendees to comment and interact with these posts; this could be as simple including a CTA of some sort on each post e.g. ‘message me to order this amazing item for just £… now!”.
A great way to get people even more engaged is by offering points. A points system can get people to ask questions about your FM business, answer quiz-style posts or even book parties of their own. Tell guests to total up their points and post their results on the page the following morning. This gives them a chance to get extra points by booking etc and also saves you time in adding them up yourself!
At the end of the party
When your party is coming to a close, you should express that you hope to see some familiar faces in the future and the dates you are free for parties of their own. Getting feedback from your party guests is a great way to ensure you only get better results next time so encourage them to message you with their thoughts.
Also, ensure you share your social media platforms so your relationship with them can continue – remember to nurture your connections, they may have loved it so much that they want to find out more about selling FM and do it themselves!
After the party
This is when you can find out how many of the host’s wishlist products they can receive; also stress that the party total can still increase if they show catalogues to people who either couldn’t attend or are offline and orders are placed (until a deadline you determine). This is a great factor in selling FM on social media as the deadlines don’t need to be definitive to the party.
It’s good to keep in mind that some parties will get cancelled, just like offline. You shouldn’t get discouraged by this as you can reschedule to a later date. However, some things to consider when arranging parties to avoid cancellations are:
- Amount of potential attendees (more attendees the better)
- Host is not replying
- Host is not helpful/forthcoming with information
Online parties should not replace everything else you do. They should be in addition to things like home parties, earning testimonials, selling to offices, fundraising etc, after all, you want your income to grow as much as possible with the best span of experience in all areas.
Give it a Go Yourself!
Facebook is a great tool and place to be if you have a business you wish to grow, whether that be in terms of your revenue or your team. We strongly suggest that you utilise this social media platform for your success and hope that you now have some great interactive post ideas and know how to be engaging on Facebook.
Don’t forget to check out our other social media related blog posts for even more insight into the power of these platforms!