As the oldest and most used social network, Facebook is widely used to promote Boca Raton businesses, brands, and companies. You’d be hard pressed to find a company that isn’t on Facebook in some capacity, and local businesses are getting their footing when it comes to utilizing Facebook to gain a local following.

While local Boca Raton businesses and small companies might not have the same amount of content as bigger brands, Facebook can still be an asset. It can help build brand loyalty and create a better sense of community with your followers.

You should take a look at what other local Boca Raton businesses are doing on Facebook and how the community is responding. This can give you an idea of what works, and alternately, what doesn’t work.

Focus on posting content that is going to appeal to your audience the most. This can vary depending on the type of company you have, but quality content works no matter what the platform. Colorful photos and anything interactive tends to be engaged with the most, and posing questions and starting conversations can have great results too. Think of it this way, if you would scroll past it, chances are your followers will too.

Hand in hand with this, you want to understand your audience and their interests. This way, you can speak their language and tailor your posts to them. You can also post interest stories that you think they would find interesting. For example, if you have a clothing company that focuses on recycled materials, posting a recent article about conservation would appeal to your audience. Posting about bigger box brand would leave a sour taste in their mouths.

Make sure your profile is 100% completed. We’ve all had that frustrating moment when we visit a company’s Facebook page for information and what we were looking for isn’t there. A restaurant, for example, might post the specials each day, but if they post after the lunch hour, eventually they wouldn’t see as much traffic.

Paid advertising is also a consideration if your budget allows for it. Facebook has a fairly budget friendly way to advertise, all while targeting to specific interests and demographics, which includes location. This would give you the ability to be seen by more potential local customers, and that could result in extra followers who then might engage with your page, and hopefully visit your Boca Raton business and become a customer.

Targeting Facebook Posts

Facebook has proven to be an indispensable tool for businesses. It’s provided companies with a way to not only engage with their customers on a more personal level, but also drive traffic to their website and improve their SEO. We already know that when you create a post on your company’s page, it is seen in the news feeds of your followers. Before December, it was broad, being targeted to everyone who follows your page. In a seemingly unnoticed move, Facebook now allows you to target your posts to your followers’ interests.

This can be a very valuable tool, and even though it was launched back in December, it’s starting to gain momentum in the social media world. This is a pretty big deal, because when you just post to your general audience, that doesn’t always mean that everyone will see it, much less click or interact with it. With this new tool, you have the ability to get your posts directly to those in your audience who will care about it the most.

While you might not utilize this tool for every single post, it can have merit for specialized posts. For example, if you are a news organization and are posting an article about your local sports team, it would be useful to target that post to the members of your audience who are fans of that sports team, or whose interests include sports. There’s a good chance your other followers would scroll past that post, so not presenting it to them probably wouldn’t hurt you.

Although these posts will be reaching a smaller subset of your audience, they have a tendency to perform better because they are reaching those who are more interested. These targeted posts generate more likes, comments, and shares.

The New York Times is utilizing this tool and is seeing positive results. By targeting a post about Ariana Grande, they saw 40 times more engagement than when they post to their entire audience, and 40% of the story’s traffic came from Facebook.

Do you ever get comments reflecting disinterest on any of your posts? Chances are you’ve gotten comments like, “who cares” or “who is this person?” By targeting, you’ll avoid this dead-end type of engagement.

Using targeting also allows you to post more frequently without worrying about bogging down your followers’ news feeds, which in any other circumstance could result in losing followers. Using this new tool avoids that problem altogether.

Not sure where to start?