Boost the Facebook page of your marketplace
In 2020 there are no shortages of social networks and platforms you can use to promote your marketplaces such as Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Tumblr, and Pinterest, to name a few.
Once again this year, Facebook has been named the number one social network in the world. With 2.2 billion active users per month around the globe, it is the most popular social network on the web today, and has nearly 38 million users in France alone.
For companies it provides access to tools that allow them to promote their services!
The recommendations presented in this article will focus on service marketplaces, online booking sites, appointment scheduling sites, etc. We deliberately exclude Facebook Ads from this list because they will be the subject of a specific article!
To get off to a good start
Before designing your marketing plan on Facebook, it is important to determine your objectives. You must do this in order to select the best tools offered by Facebook, adapt the type of content distributed, and above all optimize your allocated budget.
The first question you should ask yourself: why do you want to be on this social network?
Do you want to generate leads, improve customer service, recruit more service providers?
If you manage a service marketplace, an online appointment scheduling site or an online booking site, you should ask yourself how Facebook is going to be useful to you.
It is important that your objectives are clearly established and implemented in order to create editorial and communicative consistency.
To this end, we recommend using the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting method. This method will help you set up a sustainable, effective and monitored strategy.
S : Specific
M : Measurable
A : Achievable
R : Realistic
T : Timely
In regard to service marketplaces, we have identified for you the objectives that we believe are most relevant.
→ Present your services / make yourself known
→ Generating leads
→ Reaching a new audience
→ Working on e-reputation
The tools that we are about to present to you will assist you in achieving the four objectives stated above.
Learning how to use the tools at your disposal
Facebook provides you with a set of tools that allows you to create a strong relationship with your community giving you the opportunity to disseminate and create quality content.
It is important to keep in mind that a successful Facebook page needs to be worked on and maintained on a very regular basis, as well as with a long-term perspective.
Create and format the Facebook page of my marketplace
- Your page: focus on the professional-type page! It is essential to have access to the advantages offered for company pages. (However, it is also necessary to have a personal account to manage your pro page).
- Add a profile photo: your logo! This is the main visual element and it allows you to identify yourself. It will also appear in searches, as well as for various publications. (Recommended dimensions: 180/180 px).
- Your cover photo: this is an important and imposing visual element of your page. It is advisable to change this photo monthly. This can serve as an occasion to present new products in your marketplace, promotions, and news. Don’t forget to add a link that will redirect people directly to your site.
- Your description : a fundamental part that should not be rushed! There are too many companies with incomplete descriptions. Your Facebook page must be able to efficiently provide key information about your marketplace: description of your mainspring, site link, email contact, phone contact, geolocation, and links from various social networks. The more information you provide your visitors, the more fluid and useful their visit will be!
Marketing tools:
If you need to master a marketing tool, Facebook Analytics is what you should use. Facebook Analytics is a free tool that allows you to measure the different performance keys of your Facebook page. This tool analyzes your audience results which are the number of likes, views, and shares according to your different publications.
In short, Facebook Analytics will allow you to identify your targets, boost your notoriety on the network, generate leads, and work on your e-reputation!
Facebook Analytics is very easy to access from the home page. Click on Insights on the top horizontal bar. From there, you can access your dashboard with a summary of your overall performance:
Your likes: section mentions my likes
—> Who likes what and why
- Total mentions
- Mentions I like
- Source of your mentions
For boosted activity, visit this section
—> Interactions related to your business
- Page and tab visits: counts the number of times each tab has been visited.
- External references: Counts the number of times visitors reach your Page from sites outside of Facebook. Tip: This section also provides access to the main sites that redirect visitors to your Page.
Cover Section
- Access to my likes, comments, share your publications
- Access to hidden and undesirable posts, mention I don’t like anymore: “negative balance” of your posts.
- Total Coverage: Number of Facebook users who have accessed your content, or content about you.
This section allows you to link your posts to your activity and popularity on your Facebook Page. This allows you to have more information about your coverage at a given time. Tip: go to the part of the graph that interests you!
Your posts: Publications section
Three things will tell you about your publications:
- The type of publication: performance indicator of your publications according to their type, taking into account average coverage and audience interaction.
- When your fans are online: you are informed of the status of your followers and whether they are viewing your posts.
- An eye on the competition: access to interaction data of the competing pages you follow.
Your video content: Video section
The video section allows you to measure how much interest there is in your videos. In a society where videos are a leading and increasingly appreciated communication tool, it is important to master the aspects of video. Here are the indicators you will find in this section :
- The total number of viewings
- The number of viewings that lasted more than 30 seconds.
- Your most popular videos.
Your community: People section
All of your actions must serve one main purpose: to create a strong community. In order to accomplish this, the people section provides you with some information about your initial community as well as your future fans. Here is the information you will find that will assist you:
- Your fans: information about people who liked you: gender, age, location, language.
- People Affected : for the last 28 days you have collected information about the people that have had your page appear on their screen.
- People who interacted: for the last 28 days you know who interacted positively with your page (like, share, comment)
This section helps you identify your targets. This step is decisive in developing your marketing strategy, adapting it, and implementing a relevant Facebook advertising campaign.
Taking care of its contents
Once your service marketplace facebook page is created and ready to conquer the web, it’s time to start distributing content.
Be cautious, the publication of content must be organized, careful and above all regular! We advise you to create publication agendas that have been prepared in advance. This will allow you to have an overview of your Facebook page, and to make changes if necessary (ie. after studying your statistics).
Here are a few indications concerning the creation and publication of your content in terms of form and content.
1. The form
Studies have shown that some types of posts generate more interaction and interest than others. Although each page must fit within the editorial line and strategy set, here are the formats that are preferred, in order of relevance.
Video and live
According to a study conducted by Buzzsumo, videos are unsurprisingly at the top of the podium. The video format is highly appreciated by users with 59% more interaction than other formats.
It is preferable to favor short formats, meaning those less than 3 minutes. After exceeding this time, attention declines sharply. Moreover, Facebook is a platform on which the vast majority of users wish to discover new things, not to get in-depth information.
For your service marketplace, online booking site, online appointment booking site, video is a useful and adequate tool. Here are a few suggestions:
- Simple and effective presentation of your concept: your mainspring, your services, and how your online platform works. The advantage : factual and visual information.
- Presentation of its stakeholders: founders, stakeholders, customers. The advantage : necessary human dimension.
- Focus on your sector of activity: are you offering to rent gardening equipment? Focus on this environment, its actors, its new stakes. The advantage: Show the meaning you give to your project.
The Live
On Facebook, live is a live video format that allows you to communicate in real time with your community. It allows you to offer various types of content like report type shows, interviews, and discoveries.
According to the social network, live videos are watched 3 times longer than “normal” videos. Additionally, they have the advantage of generating much more interaction thanks to the live comments.
The Story
Using story is an ideal way to broadcast ephemeral and punctual content, as well as to mark your presence on the network. These few seconds of appearing on the screens allow you to maintain an almost daily link with your community, which allows you to stay in the public eye. To put it briefly, they are a great tool for cultivating your link and polishing your image!
Do you have a news item on your marketplace? A promotion? A new configuration? Using the story is the ideal solution for sharing information that doesn’t need to be published on your feed.
Photo
This format is appreciated because the information is easy and quick to access. Using photos offers you significant communicative freedom and allows you to adapt to current trends, such as the poll. In 2019 the poll had seen its popularity explode, generating an above-average number of interactions.
Articles
Essential for more complete communication, articles will allow you to deal with subjects about your goals or other subjects on which your marketplace wishes to express itself.
Important: it is essential that each of your publications, regardless of the format used, allows the Facebook user to be redirected via a link to your online service marketplace. The objective is to generate leads.
2. The background
Regarding the “substance” of your shared content, it is important to develop a strategy beforehand.
The texts published through your posts are opportunities to achieve your goals, generate leads, make your online service platform known, expand your audience, or improve your online reputation.
Our recommendations:
- Get involved!
→ To establish and take care of your community. There is nothing like a community that recognizes itself through your goals. Facebook users should not feel that they are only seen through their wallet. If he or she is interested in your online service marketplace, it is not only because they agree with your offer, but also with the values you stand for.
As often as possible, your publications should remind you of the meaning you give to your initiative. Objective: to be authentic and human.
- Boost the Search Engine Optimization (SEO)!
→ The first step is to request a simple Facebook URL containing the same keywords as the URL of your site.
→ Don’t skimp on keywords and hashtags in order to improve your SEO on Facebook and on the internet. (They must be present in your description and publications). The name of your online service platform should be your first keyword!
→ Add a redirection link to your Facebook page from your website.
Other useful marketing tools
There are other tools to help you make your Facebook page more efficient, generate more leads, expand your community, and make yourself known. Below is a non-exhaustive list of marketing tools that will help you make your Facebook page and your marketplace more efficient.
Buffer is a tool that allows you to prepare and schedule your publications.
- It schedules the date and time of your publications weeks in advance.
- Everything is managed from a single platform, and it allows you to schedule publications for multiple networks.
This tool is your right hand man for boosting your SEO.
- Its primary function is to find long tail keywords from a single keyword. This tool proves to be very effective in the process of improving the positioning of its content in search engines.
Example: if you search for “marketplace”, you will find in result :
- marketplace facebook
- marketplace warframe
- marketplace asos
- Another strength of this tool is that it allows you to brainstorm content ideas by suggesting articles that incorporate the keyword.
- Ubersuggest also gives you the ability to accurately analyze competitors’ domains. You can find the number of organic keywords that generate traffic; the monthly organic traffic, the domain score, total number of backlinks, etc.
Like Ubersuggest, Semrush allows users to see the keywords, traffic, backlines and most visited pages of the competition. However its possibilities don’t stop there.
- Semrush also allows you to know what the paid ads of your competitors on Google are, the display and search network.
- You can see your competitors’ ads, keywords, and visuals that they have paid for are, which generate them traffic.
- The “Social Media Tracker” function gives a social dimension to this tool. It allows you to compare the commitment and the number of subscribers you have compared to the competition.
- The “Top content” section allows you to know which publications have generated the most interactions or engagement over a given period of time.