3 Ways to Turn Your Facebook Page Into an Epic Sales Machine

I’m sure you’ve heard the tale of the “Elephant and the Blind Men.”  It’s a simple story of six blind men being led to an elephant and describing their encounters.

The first one touched the leg and said the elephant is pillar, the second touched his tail and said the elephant is a rope, the third the branch of a tree after touching his trunk, the fourth thought the elephant was a fan after feeling his ear … and you get the point.

Sometimes by focusing on one area of one thing or even being up too close, we’re not able to get the full picture. That means we’re missing something and often that something is a huge money-making opportunity.

That’s true even when it comes to your Facebook Page. 

So when thinking about ways to make your Facebook Page more effective, take a step back and consider the goals you have for your page.  Is to drive traffic to your website? Interact with current and potential customers?  Sell products directly from your Facebook Page? Or all of the above? 

Keep your goals in mind as you read the 3 tips below to help you increase engagement and generate more sales from your Facebook Page.

CONTENT:

Posting content on a consistent basis is key to keeping your audience engaged. While the life of a Facebook Post is longer than a tweet, it’s still important to post 2-3 times a day to stay in front of your audience.

Be sure to post photos and videos of your products, videos from happy customers, and pictures of you in action. It “opens the doors” of your business and gives your audience a look inside to learn more about you and how your business operates.

If you see posts that are receiving a large number of Likes, Shares, or Comments consider investing in promoting this content to further market it. Not everything you post will be well received, however of those posts that perform well, take note and invest to further the reach of this content.

KEEP TRACK:

Social marketing isn’t easy and it takes a lot of time. In order to understand what works well, be sure to track your efforts so you can constantly improve results, build a bigger audience, and drive more sales from your Facebook Page. ClearStats is a great service that allows you to see which posts generate the highest engagement (clicks, Likes for the post, and Likes for your page) and view stats to see how this engagement is turning into sales for your business.

You may also want to learn more about EdgeRank is Facebook’s algorithm that determines what is displayed and how high a post appears on a newsfeed.

EdgeRank takes into account three elements: Affinity, Weight, and Time Decay. An “Edge” is any action that takes place on Facebook including a comment, Like, Share, or status update.

• Affinity looks at things like how often a user has commented, Liked, or Shared a brand’s post.
• Weight looks at the types of interactions a user has had with you and places a value on those interactions. For instance, a comment carries more weight than a Like, so Facebook deems a comment as a more valuable interaction when weighing how a user has interacted with you or your brand.
• Time Decay, as the name suggests, looks at how long ago the action/Edge took place. An action could be a comment, Like, Share, or a status update.

INTERACTION:

It sounds so simple, but interact with your audience on Facebook. It’s not enough to simply post messages, photos, and videos to Facebook. Be sure to get involved in the conversation if your audience is commenting on a post or asking questions. Be genuine and work to connect with your audience.

Promotions, contests, and sweepstakes are a great way to increase engagement and drive more sales for your business. You can incorporate a viral component into your promotions, contests, and/or sweepstakes by asking your audience to Like or Share a post, or Like your Facebook Page, in order to participate.

Just because you’re linking to your website from a Facebook Page doesn’t mean you have to link to your homepage or even to a product page on your website. Set up a separate landing page for your website or a product and test various elements to see how it performs. As you learn what converts well from your social traffic, incorporate elements from these tests across your website. Try using a tool like Unbounce to easily create and test landing pages.

BONUS:

Include a call-to-action at the bottom of each post or in the right column of your blog to be seen by each visitor. Do you want this traffic to sign up for your email updates? Would you like for visitors to sign up for a trial? Perhaps a demo? Whatever the goal may be, make sure you're giving proper instructions on what to do next.

I hope these 3 tips (plus a bonus) help you increase engagement and drive more sales from your Facebook Page. I’d like to hear how you used them or please share if you have others that we can add to the list.