If you want to drive the maximum amount of free traffic from
Facebook then you need to avoid the mistakes that a lot of other marketers
make. A lot of people have a tendency to just jump right in where Facebook is
concerned and end up with no results or even having their accounts closed.
Facebook is not an
Advertising Platform
You cannot just setup a Facebook Page and then start
advertising your offers. This will be seen as spam and your account could be
closed very fast. Facebook is a social network so you need to follow the rules
to get the best results.
Your first job is to connect with your audience. Provide
value in your posts and offer some things for free. Getting your audience to
know, like and trust you is the most important thing. It is OK to make some
promotional posts but don’t do this all of the time. Facebook users will
quickly lose interest in you if you are all about self promotion.
People use Facebook to connect with their friends and family
and have fun. They do not tend to use the platform to buy stuff. So you need to
use the gentle art of persuasion to get them into your sales funnel. Provide
them with value first and then tell them about what you have to offer.
Don’t use Clickbait
Facebook is clamping down hard on clickbait posts. A few
years ago you could use clickbait to get lots of views to your posts but not
anymore. A clickbait post is one that deliberately misleads the user and often
has a high degree of sensationalism associated with it.
How would you feel if you read a post title that said
something like “the real secret to making money online” and then you clicked
through to the website only to find that it didn’t reveal the secret at all or
expected you to pay for this information? You wouldn’t feel good about this
would you, so don’t try these kinds of tactics on your audience.
Provide your users with helpful titles and descriptions in
your posts so that they can make their mind up if they want to click through or
not. Your audience will appreciate you doing this and so will Facebook. Avoid
using misleading, exaggerated or sensational headlines. People will stop
reading your posts if you do this.
Facebook doesn’t like users leaving its platform but it
knows that this is inevitable. If a user clicks on your link and then comes
straight back to Facebook then they will assume that something was wrong with
the information that you provided on your website.
By telling your audience what to expect when they click
through to your site it is more likely that they will spend more time there.
Facebook sees this as a good thing and will reward you with greater reach for
your posts.
Optimize your Website
You do not want Facebook users to click through to your site
and then have to wait ages for your pages to load. Your website needs to be as
fast as possible so fix any loading speed problems.
As most Facebook users have mobile devices they will not be
impressed if your website is not optimized for mobile. There are many ways that
you can fix this and you need to test it on your phone or use an online
emulator.
