Facebook for business: learn from experts

An event series in partnership with The Purposeful Project

Earlier this year, we partnered with The Purposeful Project to create a series of live events to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses through social media. This guest blog post by The Purposeful Project includes the speakers’ main takeaways and the webinar recording of the 6th and last episode of our series.

Facebook for business: learn from experts

Facebook was the start of a social network revolution! In this webinar, three Facebook fanatics tell us how to use it for business and how it can also be a growth tool as well as a platform to catch up with family and friends.

You will learn:

💻 Why Facebook is still a great platform despite other social networks

💻 What features you should be using 

💻 How to choose between Pages Vs. Groups

💻 What building a community is about

💻 How to engage with your audience

Natanya Bravo is our first guest. She is a business and mindset coach and the founder of The Bravo Life.

Natanya will share with you:

⭐ Her experience with Facebook

⭐ How to create a strong community

⭐ Why you should put people first

Natanya was in the entertainment and media industry for 10 years working with hugely popular consumer brands like Coca-Cola, BMW and Adidas. 

She said she “got tired of making billion-dollar businesses richer” and decided to follow her own plan, starting her business. Natanya provides coaching and resources to support coaches and consultants through strategy, messaging, marketing and social media.

The place where people relax

“Facebook is where people connect on their ‘off time’ because it’s more family and friends orientated as opposed to LinkedIn, where people go for business.”

As Natanya points out, Facebook is a place where you can have more personal relationships, and this is how she started her business. It started off by creating a community and Facebook was a great way to do that.

The more personal connections you build, the more likely it will lead to engagement. So, lead with value and build a community before money.

Get to know people, nurture them and give value

Be a human. “People buy from people they like, know, and trust,” Natanya said. Your audience wants to know your why. 

The more personal connections you build, the more likely it will lead to engagement. So, lead with value and build a community before money.

How to build a community on Facebook

Natanya said that Facebook Groups are the best way to create an actual community as people are opting in to learn and connect with you. 

Natanya explained that she for instance set up a Group for paying clients and another separate Group to share her free content. The group of paying clients will have a closed environment with private tips and videos. 

Taking things further Natanya suggests that “Your Facebook Page will take it a bit further and maybe you could share more than what you share with everyone in the Group,”.

Don’t just build the community, get involved!

Don’t just stop at creating a community, be a part of it and interact with your audience. Get to know them better and ask what content they want, this will keep them interested and satisfied if you are giving them exactly what they ask for!

💡 Natanya’s top tip: Most people forget about the power of their real voice. Posting videos is great, but hearing someone’s voice in real time is even better! Utilise the voice-note tool to show how much you care about your clients. 

Natanya said that this has been very effective when talking to potential paying clients and won some of them over!

Our next speaker is George Kao. He shares with us that he actually “stumbled into social media marketing” after admittedly quitting his job at the wrong time. 

He ended up helping friends out with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for their professional profiles and found out that he could start charging to teach people about it.

George will cover:

⭐ Why it’s okay to experiment

⭐ How to make an impact

⭐ Facebook Ads 101

Find out what works for you

“Mainstream marketing is not always right for everyone,” George said, and that’s okay. 

Effective marketing is finding which sites, networks and styles work for you. So in light of this, play around with your messaging and see what other people are doing.

If you want to see some of George’s real-time content, scroll down to watch the event recording where he screen shares his most recent content and how it’s performing!

Creating a strong community may take time, but being consistent will make a huge difference.

Show up 

If you want to get things done, you’ve got to show up and make time to create, schedule and publish your Facebook posts.

If you don’t show up or put in the effort to be present, your Facebook will most likely turn into an afterthought. 

Creating a strong community may take time, but being consistent will make a huge difference.

What Ads should I use?

George showed us in the session just how powerful Facebook Ads can be – take a look at the full video to see how he filters his audience and gets a targeted result when boosting his own posts!

There are so many different types of ads for Facebook such as video, image, or even just ‘plain-text’ ads, but George suggests just making sure to give value in whatever format and it will fly.

💡 George’s insight: George said that whenever he posts an ad, he makes sure that people can learn something from it, even if it’s just a ‘plain-text’ ad that requires people to click the ‘show more’ button. He says the key is to get them hooked on the content they can see at first glance to entice them to look at the whole piece of content.

Our last guest is Kandy Robertson. 

She helps people build generational wealth and supports small businesses through social media marketing.

Kandy will help you understand:

⭐ The importance of Facebook features

⭐ Why you should be checking your Facebook reels

⭐ How your page can set you apart from your competition

Use the features

If there are engaging features available, use them! Kandy says that Facebook ‘Lives’ are a great way to gain attention from your audience, whether it’s in a closed Group or for the whole page. 

Facebook has created these features for a reason, so find out what works best for your audience and use it to your advantage.

💡 TOP TIP: If you actively ask your community what they want, you will be able to prepare content around their requests and the features they like engaging with most. Interacting with your community can save you so much time and if you’re looking to engage paying clients, it will show them how dedicated you are to customer service.

Don’t ignore Facebook reels

Just because they’re on Instagram, it doesn’t mean that Facebook reels are entirely the same. Even though it’s a very similar format to Instagram and Tik Tok, Kandy said that Facebook reels are actually brilliant for the algorithm.

We know video content is brilliant for engagement and because Facebook is a more family and friends-orientated network, it’s argued that users share a lot more posts and reels than on other social networks.

Try creating reels on Facebook and see how it affects your engagement – it could be your community’s new favourite type of content!

Get personal

When it comes to business on Facebook, “we forget as business owners that we are also consumers”, says Kandy. Once again, people want to be connected to other humans, so get to know the audience, get personal and be yourself.

Let your Facebook page speak for your business

“Facebook pages have become the Yellow Pages,” said Kandy. You can tell a lot about a business from their Facebook, so make sure your page provides valuable content that reflects what your business does with testimonials and ratings if possible. 

This may be the key difference between your business and a competitor.

Thank you to all the experts who showed up as their authentic selves and shared some insightful points about the OG social network, and how to create connections and communities.

Here are our key takeaways from the webinar:

💻 Set up a Facebook Business Page and add all the information about your business in the “about us” section and enable reviews

💻 Build a community around your page by creating Groups for your different audiences & content

💻 Interact with your community – the more personal connections you build, the more likely it will lead to engagement

💻 Make time to create, schedule and publish your Facebook posts – being consistent will make a huge difference

💻 Create ads that provide value and entice people to look at the whole piece of content

💻 Use Facebook features like Lives and Reels

You can play the video below if you want to watch the whole session! Plus see extra questions answered by our experts.

Top tip: If this post has inspired you to harness the power of social media for your business, then check out the Tide Small Business Tips Blog for some great advice, including A beginner’s guide to TikTok marketing and knowing the best time to post on Instagram.