By Olivier Derbesy
Student of Brighton University – Digital Marketing Blog Post #2
Introduction
Facebook has been around for over 15 years now, and it has changed drastically! For a few years now, Facebook has become a platform used by not only consumers, but all types of businesses (Muk and Chung, 2014). Facebook itself, has adapted to better implement business pages and have provided many opportunities through their platform. Thus, it is important for any business, but especially small businesses, to utilise the Facebook platform to its best of its ability by growing its following, reaching more consumers/customers and all basically for free (Augar and Zeleznikov, 2014). Kang, Tang and Fiore, (2014) state that Facebook has even become a popular tool for marketing by small businesses. The following blog post will discuss the following of 
a facebook page. It is important for a page to have a following and not only likes on the page. Engagement is the key to having a following rather than just likes. Then, I will discuss a widely expressed tip for business or anyone trying to create a popping social media page. If you communicate and connect closely, on a regular basis, then Facebook can grow your community size, customer reach, network and so much more! (Image source)
Customer Engagement
There are so many ways of engaging people on a Facebook page but it is important to consider who your target market is, and what will attract them the most to not just like a post or picture but to also comment and even re-share on their page.
Unfortunately, Facebook engagement can also be negative, for example, the most common problems seen from business on facebook are complaints of the product and service quality, money issues, and social/environmental issues (Yang, Ren and Adomavicius, 2019). Feedback is the most effective way to make a customer or consumer on your facebook page engage with you (Kraus et al., 2019).
A very significant part to getting engagement on your businesses Facebook page is being able to display your businesses personality. This means showing what you are doing, why, and how, as well as what you want to do and how you plan to achieve it. By showing the consumers on facebook your mission, the people you attract will want to follow you and interact with your posts in the long-term. Another easy way of creating engagement is by asking questions and using pictures. Questions are great for getting your reader or consumer to think and get that idea into their heads. Similarly, pictures are also a powerful tool to attract attention and tell a story, or experience.
“Content is King” (Bill Gates, 1996)
Bill Gates said in 1996, that “content is king.” This was said at the time that this internet was rising, after TVs and broadcasts were being played. He said this because even at that time, he knew that the internet will be an entertainment platform just like TVs which content will be the king of. This is trying to say that if you have new, relevant, and interesting posts, pictures, videos, activities, etc. then post it on Facebook and grow your community. By focusing on building customer relationships through the Facebook page can result in high sales which would not have been achieved by just focusing on sales (Kraus et al., 2019).
Importance of a Facebook Community
Through your business’s Facebook page, the people that are following you are your community. Some will be customers, some will be followers and some will be just ‘likers’, but the bigger your Facebook community is, the bigger and faster it will get. This is due to many reasons such as your page’s reach and UGC (user generated content). The reach of a page is how many people are mutually connected. A Facebook page can be mutually connected through the friends of the people who follow the page, as well as hashtags and geolocations. Hashtags and geolocations allows consumers to search for your business through key words or through a location, this in term expands the reach of your Facebook page even more. Click here for information on how to insert hashtags and geolocations, as well as what it does. UGC is probably the most used social media page tool used by business in the world today (Yang, Ren and Adomavicius, 2019). UGC is essentially encouraging your followers to post content of themselves or their experience with your company and posting with it while tagging them. This creates posts on your own business page which shows your other customers peopler are enjoy their experience with you.
Conclusion
Overall, Facebook can be a great tool for business to grow their brand awareness, community, and business in general. Do not forget that a Facebook page needs to be up to date and requires regular maintenance. Although there are many benefits to a Facebook page for your business, problems will always arise so make sure to deal this them quickly and transparently. keep entertaining and informational content and people will be engaged and inclined to become a loyal customer.
References
Augar, N. and Zeleznikov, J. (2014). ‘I just saw this on Facebook, I need it now’: Exploring Small Business use of Facebook. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 18(3).
Kang, J., Tang, L. and Fiore, A. (2014). Enhancing consumer–brand relationships on restaurant Facebook fan pages: Maximizing consumer benefits and increasing active participation. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, pp.145-155.
Kraus, S., Gast, J., Schleich, M., Jones, P. and Ritter, M. (2019). Content is King: How SMEs Create Content for Social Media Marketing Under Limited Resources. Journal of Macromarketing, 39(4), pp.415-430.
Muk, A. and Chung, C. (2014). Driving Consumers to Become Fans of Brand Pages: A Theoretical Framework. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 14(1), pp.1-10.
Yang, M., Ren, Y. and Adomavicius, G. (2019). Understanding User-Generated Content and Customer Engagement on Facebook Business Pages. Information Systems Research, 30(3), pp.839-855.
