Top 10 Tips for Marketing on Facebook

Almost 700 million people worldwide have a facebook account today. It's no wonder that businesses have turned to the social networking site en masse as a means to market themselves.

However, Facebook users aren't a captive audience in the traditional sense. Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg famously stated that "adverts aren't cool", and his users agreed. They aren't there to be sold to.

In fact, as soon as you start to spam fans and followers with irritating adverts about your products, it's as easy as clicking 'unlike' to make you disappear.

So if Facebook marketing isn't about raising awareness of your brand and products, what is it about?

Answer: Engagement.

Here's our top 10 tips for engaging your facebook audience, and stimulating more activity on your fan page.


#1 Be open and transparent.
Allow others to make comments and interact with the brand, and show your consumers that you care what they have to say.

#2 Be human.
Show your fans the people behind the business, and make it clear that consumers are interacting with those people.

#3 Give more insight.
Allow fans access to more behind-the-scenes style information than they can find on your site. They want new perspectives and a reason to be your fan.

#4 Don’t sell to your fans.
I can't iterate this enough. Nobody wants their feed to be full of your latest range or product announcements....they will feel used. Are you using your fans?

#5 Post outside of normal business hours.
If you've got news and updates, try as far as possible to post them before 9am or after 5pm for maximum engagement. Remember, your fans have to study and work all day too!

#6 Create ambassadors.
If you use Facebook correctly, you can make customers feel part of the community. Giving people a sense that they have a say will help you to create brand ambassadors, who will do your marketing for you.

#7 Join the Conversation.
Build a content strategy around topical issues and events. Is father's day just around the corner? Has something significant happened? Then share something topical. Tap into what your fans are already talking about.

#8 Make use of Facebook Questions.
The new Facebook questions feature can be used to gauge consumer opinions on things, and to even guide product development. We recently asked people what they like for breakfast. Why? We just wanted to talk.

#9 Keep a close tab on comments and posts.
Check your wall regularly. Responding to activity promptly helps to stimulate further activity. It’s not a once a day job.

#10 Hold your hands up when it comes to complaints or disputes.
It requires particular skill to neutralise negativity in a public sphere, but simply deleting negative comments is not the answer. Hold your hands up and admit when you're wrong and then respond in a way that comforts the consumer and shows others that you’re committed to customer satisfaction.


Stick to these points and you'll be well placed to grab as many of those 700 million users as is possible.

(If you've got any other pointers that you think we've missed, feel free to let us know in the comments.)

Richard Heathcote
Matador of Marketing
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