Facebook is an outstanding platform when it comes to building awareness around a specific product, promoting unique product attributes, differentiating the product from its competition, pointing out product functionality, and helping raise a product’s overall profile.
How can you use Facebook to really make an impact? Here are a few simple ways to reach out and educate your audience.
Visuals: Don’t Just Tell Me… SHOW Me.
Consider getting creative with a grouping of select, high-impact images. Facebook and its users love, love engaging photos— just make sure the images do not contain more than 20% text. You can double check your image with Facebook’s handy grid tool. Sure, this rule mostly applies to ads, but follow it to avoid looking spammy and you may choose to turn a simple Facebook Page photo post into a promoted post. So really, following the 20% rule can save you from ad rejection frustration in the future.
Visuals allow stories to be told in a quickly digestible fashion. I love when brands take a complex product and break its use down via a series of photos or a short video clip. Seriously, seeing how a product can solve a problem or banish a daily annoyance is refreshing.
I recently had a freakout over a video showing an infant carseat that could transform into a stroller. I was mesmerized. The short clip soon surfaced on a mothers’ group I belong to on Facebook. That brand certainly hit a nerve and sparked a ton of discussion via Facebook. Kudos to them!
Whether you opt to use a collection of striking photos or go a step further and create a snazzy video, harnessing strong visuals is a smart move. Be sure to check out the resources you already have available before creating these items from scratch. Dig around a bit to see if you can locate any existing elements that can be easily utilized. Seriously, creep around. A co-worker of yours may have taken some cool, artsy photos of themselves with your product out in the real world. Ask around and you may be surprised by what’s already at your fingertips.
Speaking of visuals, if you have design skills or access to a graphic designer— think about producing an infographic. They are an appealing way to display information and are share-worthy on Facebook. This avenue allows you to hit upon themes, insert diagrams, stats, etc. without becoming a snore-fest. Just make sure your infographic displays well on Facebook or choose to make a link post if the infographic proves too detailed or unreadable as a picture post.
Fun with Factoids.
Sometimes cutting the cute and serving up straight facts is what’s needed. Facebook users do appreciate seeing short snippets of interesting information from brands. Think about sharing “Did you know?” or “Quick Tip” type info. Don’t write a novel or make users work too hard to get your point. If you really need to share more info, provide a link to additional details hosted on your website/blog. Providing short quips allows for you to make an impact quickly and also allows you to recycle past content you have already spent time creating.
You can choose to relay these educational and informative facts via purely text posts or, even better, pair the facts with an appropriate visual element.
ex. Let’s say your brand has a pretty neat history. You can post a little tidbit such as, “Did you know that XYZ Co. was founded by a set of identical twins in 1904?” Then accompany the text with a noteworthy picture of the subjects.
Or
Let’s say you’re trying to tip people off to an overlooked aspect of an item your brand sells. “Did you know that you’re supposed to remove the clear plastic shield on your earring backs?!” Then provide a pic of a before/after shot of a pair of your brand’s earrings. You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t know about that…
As you can imagine, there are countless opportunities and methods to really reach out and educate consumers via Facebook. Even products that lack the ‘new’ factor can jump into the game. Just think about all the ways common and familiar items are misunderstood and misused each day… Knowledge is power and can spark some really valuable product buzz.
Be sure to add this exciting route to your current Facebook strategy roadmap!
What is Social Rank?
SocialRank is a proprietary algorithm built on top of the our content platform that gives a holistic view of all social engagement (such as likes, comments, and shares) for published content across the web.