Here’s a little unpaid social media marketing strategy I found using Facebook. It involves firstly setting up your Facebook profile with an obvious “plug” for your business. You can see many people using this kind of strategy throughout Facebook. When someone comes to their profile on the platform, they immediately can see what you are offering. Here’s an example from my own Facebook profile. As you can see, it’s immediately obvious from the tag under my name what I’m offering.
The picture could perhaps be a little more of a professional image of course, but you get the idea!
You can also add a giveaway product to your bio. Here you can see I’ve added my ebook which is accessible through a link in the image (under the “add hobbies” tab). Also add links to your website or websites.
I also post my articles to my Facebook page too, for greater exposure and to help with SEO (search engine optimisation) of my website content. See my other free marketing strategies in this article: get traffic to your website free, and 22 ways to promote affiliate products.
Unpaid Social Media Marketing – Facebook
Once you have set up your bio you will need to find potential customers who might be interested in your giveaways and website content. You can do this by joining various groups in your niche. So, for example if your target audience is interested in self development and self help topics, that’s where you should start.
Knowing your target audience is pretty important before you start. If you get to understand who your customers are, you’ll have a better idea of where to find them. See How to know your target market.
Find the search tab at the top of your Facebook profile and type in your main keyword. So if your keyword is “self help” use that as a search term.
Scroll down and you should see there are various options to use with your search term. Choose “groups”. This will bring up all the groups which relate to this search term.
Apply to join these groups answering the questions in order to satisfy the admins that you’re not going to spam them! Spamming in groups is a big problem, and that’s not what you’re going to do!
Click on the groups you want to join and click on the join button. You will usually have to answer some questions and occasionally they will ask for your email. Of course here’s another marketing idea too – set up your own group and attract potential customers through it!
It can take a few days to be allowed into a group, if you are allowed to join. So it’s worth applying to several groups at a time where you believe you will find your target audience. See why is target market important?
You don’t want to spend time hanging out in groups where your perfect customer doesn’t hang out! So you need to get clear on exactly the kind of person who you want to attract to your business. Knowing their age, interests, location and other details will help you build a profile on your perfect “customer avatar”.
Making Friends In A Group
Most groups don’t want spammers coming in a pasting their lousy links all over the place! Some groups allow this, but the good groups are more of discussion oriented communities. This strategy involves spending time looking through posts and posting comments. You should get involved in the chat to give value and connect. Don’t overtly promote yourself or your website. Instead, just get involved in the chat.
So for the above image question “what are the best habits for success”, you might chip in with some ideas you’ve found to keep you motivated, for example.
You can also like other people’s comments and some groups will allow you to post your own questions. Just start by getting familiar with the groups you join and start interacting with the dialogue. You’re not trying to sell anything here. You’re giving value and connecting with others in that group.
Logging Your Activity
It’s a good idea to log your activity using a spreadsheet. You should spend an hour or so each day interacting, commenting and liking questions and answers. As your “digital trail” grows you will find some people looking at your Facebook profile. If you can’t afford to spend a few hours each day, just spend half an hour consistently every day. But consistency is important and you won’t necessarily see results immediately with this strategy. What does matter is the quality of your commenting and your digital trail! Over time this grows and you should find that people will interact with your profile and find your website/affiliate links/business.
Over time, if you are persistent with this strategy, you’ll find people will click through your profile pictures and links, and visit your website to see what you have on offer. This is why it is very important to show a clear and concise message as to what it is you offer. When someone sees your profile, they should immediately know whether you offer something they are interested in or not!
You can also click on other people’s names within the comments sections to browse their profiles. This can be useful in getting an idea about how to set up your own profile. Many profiles are not used in this way, but often you will find other people who are using their Facebook profiles as a business tool, in a similar way to this strategy.
Unpaid Social Media Marketing – Summary
So there you have it! That’s an unpaid social media marketing strategy I’ve used on Facebook. It works – but you need to make sure you have the right target audience and that you put in the hours. Over time, you’ll build up a “digital footprint” of all the answers and comments you have posted. This can take some time to build traction, but the key is to be consistent and find topics you want to communicate in.
Use a spreadsheet or diary to write down your time spent each day on this activity. Don’t expect huge results immediately but if you’re consistent and stay for the long term, it’s a great little marketing strategy. You might find too that other group members connect with you and add you as a friend. You can also do the same of course.
Once friends, you can also use the Messenger app to communicate directly with other people on Facebook. Some marketers have this down to a fine art and have a “sales patter” they use to get people directly off Facebook and onto their courses!
I learned this strategy from a member of the community I belong to as part of the training offered there. If you want to know more about it, access a free video series here.