7 Mistakes to Avoid When Promoting Your Business on Facebook

When done right a Facebook page can drive traffic, increase sales, and raise brand awareness. When done wrong it can do the exact opposite. As shocking as it sounds it is still possible to promote your business on Facebook for free!

No, you don’t have to be a marketing expert either. Before you walk away from Facebook altogether here are mistakes to avoid when promoting your business on Facebook.

*Affiliate Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.
.

Table of Contents

1) Spamming Your wall with Promotional Posts

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see businesses making on their FB page. They publish nothing but posts promoting their products/services. I am not saying you shouldn’t ever publish promotional posts.

However, doing it too much is a big mistake. People hate being sold to. They want to feel like they are part of a community. Being too pushy with your products and services will turn them away.

Marketo has a good rule for this it’s called the 4-1-1 rule. They state that for every 4 educational or entertaining posts you post a soft/midlevel promotion.

Another good tip is to see how your competitors promote themselves on their Facebook page.

Find out how often they publish promotional posts and when. It’s all about striking a good balance between promoting and posting relevant content.

Experiment with your audience to see what their tolerance level is for promoting your products/services.

2) Not Posting Consistently

Another common mistake businesses make on Facebook. They don’t have a consistent posting schedule. Here is the reality. Your business is competing with other businesses on Facebook.

You are competing for attention, customers, clients, sales, etc. As a result, Facebook users see tons of posts on a regular basis. If you don’t post enough it is easy for them to forget about your business.

To stay at the forefront of their minds you have to post consistently to Facebook. That means coming up with a posting schedule.

How frequently you should post varies from business to business. For some posting 3 times, a week is enough. For others, it is once daily.

The best way to find out the right frequency and timing is by studying your competition and others in your industry. Once you find your sweet spot stick with it. The key is consistency.

3) Not Engaging

You have to engage with your audience. This means replying to comments or comments left in threads on your page. If your audience feels like they aren’t being heard they won’t return to your page.

After all, they are people too. Everyone has the need and the right to be heard.

They need to know that you care enough to listen to them. Pages that connect with their fans are more successful than the ones that don’t. Don’t ignore complaints either.

Remember that when people check your page they will see complaints too. Responding to them leaves a better impression. It prevents it from getting worse.

Many businesses faced the wrath of FB users by handling complaints poorly.

Related Resource: Where to Get Done for You Social Media Graphics for Your Online Business

4) Not Using Facebook Page Insights

Facebook page insights are there for a reason. Many businesses think they have to pay for expensive FB analytics tools. It doesn’t make sense considering they can use FB page insights for free!

All the tools you need to analyze your FB page is there under the insights tab.

You can see which posts your audience likes the best, and the top posts from competitors. You can see how far your reach was for each post.

Facebook page insights show you when your fans are online, where they liked your page and demographics. It will reveal the gender, age, language and location of people who like your page.

5) Just Using Text for Posts

You don’t want to bore your audience with your posts. The sooner your audience clicks away from your posts the sooner it gets buried underneath others.

Your goal is to get their attention! Just having boring plain text post won’t cut it.

It’s important to have a good variety of content. Post memes, videos, relevant and appealing images, share informative content and ask your audience a question.

When using text keep it short. If your text is too lengthy your audience will lose interest. People are more drawn to images, and videos than just plain text. Tools like Canva, Easil, or Visme have a variety of graphics for you to use.

If you don’t know what to post share a post from another Facebook page. That way you don’t have to create images all the time.

6) Not Using Facebook Ads

A lot of businesses think that Facebook ad promotion is too expensive or complicated. So they just stay away from it. This is completely false.

Thanks to Facebook’s algorithm getting organic reach, and likes are really hard. Even if your page has let’s say 100,000 likes or more only a small percentage will see your posts organically.

One of the reasons for this is that Facebook wanted its users to see family and friends’ posts first. If you want your post to be at the top of their newsfeed you have to pay to play. In other words, you need to boost your posts. This isn’t expensive either. It’s around $5 to boost a post.

To create an ad that drives traffic to your Facebook page isn’t expensive either. You can create a campaign for as little as $5-$10 a day. You can limit how long it runs too. If you only want it to run for a day you can do that. Facebook even walks you through the entire process.

Facebook offers a detailed audience targeting for your ads. Let’s say you have a coffee selling business. FB allows you to target people who love coffee. If you have a local business you can target a specific area.

7) Not Using Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are one of the best ways to promote your business on Facebook. It’s also one of the best ways to promote your Facebook page. They’re free to join, and most have promotional threads. Usually, there is at least one thread each week that allows you to promote your FB page.

Facebook will even suggest groups for you to join. You can even create your own group. You can even create it as an incentive for people to join your list. For example, give people exclusive access to your group when they take your course or join your email list.

I was able to grow my FB page thanks to promotional threads in FB groups. If it wasn’t for FB groups I would’ve had to boost my posts on a regular basis to grow my page. Some FB groups even have promotional threads that allow you to promote your products or services.

Share this Image On Your Site

Please include attribution to helpfulonlinemarketer.com with this graphic. <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dbV6kCVKrzw/YE-OQgLhYhI/AAAAAAAAVlU/5n6wALdnZNocNvfxYFp93SDOcUmvEs2VgCLcBGAsYHQ/w203-h508/Facebook%2Bgroups%2Bfor%2Bbusiness.png" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer sponsored"><img class="lazyload jetpack-lazy-image" decoding="async" src="image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-src="https://www.helpfulonlinemarketer.com/2018/07/mistakes-to-avoid-when-promoting-your.html" alt="The Best Facebook Groups for Business Owners" width="800 PX" border="0" data-lazy-src="https://image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7?is-pending-load=1" srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"><noscript><img data-lazy-fallback="1" class="lazyload" decoding="async" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-src="https://www.helpfulonlinemarketer.com/2018/07/mistakes-to-avoid-when-promoting-your.html" alt="The Best Facebook Groups for Business Owners" width="800 PX" border="0" /></noscript><noscript><img class="lazyload jetpack-lazy-image" decoding="async" src="https://www.helpfulonlinemarketer.com/2018/07/mistakes-to-avoid-when-promoting-your.html" alt="The Best Facebook Groups for Business Owners" width="800 PX" border="0" data-lazy-src="https://www.helpfulonlinemarketer.com/2018/07/mistakes-to-avoid-when-promoting-your.html?is-pending-load=1" srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"><noscript><img data-lazy-fallback="1" class="lazyload" decoding="async" src="https://www.helpfulonlinemarketer.com/2018/07/mistakes-to-avoid-when-promoting-your.html" alt="The Best Facebook Groups for Business Owners" width="800 PX" border="0" /></noscript></noscript></a>

Other Resources You May Be Interested in

Tools and Resources for Bloggers and Entrepreneurs

10 Amazing Free Digital Marketing Courses to Help You be Successful

Conclusion

Take advantage of everything Facebook has to offer. The average user spends 35 mins a day on the platform. When done right Facebook will help you to grow your business. Just avoid the mistakes that businesses tend to make and you will be set to go.

What mistakes did you make when promoting your business on Facebook? Let us know in the comments below! If you like my post please share it on social media!

Until next time take care!