How to Promote Your Online Business with Facebook Apps

Many businesses are yet to fully leverage Facebook's potential as a marketing tool. Nowadays almost everybody has an account on Facebook and most of these folks log into their account at least once a day. That means any business that has a presence on Facebook gets an opportunity to reach potential customers on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, many businesses still haven’t launched an effective social media campaign. If you feel that your brand is yet to take advantage of the massive popularity of Facebook, the first thing you need to do is to launch a fan page for your business. The next step is to get people to like your pages. Businesses can consider offering discounts or special prizes to users who like their Facebook page. Post regular status updates. Your updates must be engaging enough for people to interact with them.  So for example, if you run a restaurant, you can post updates featuring the day's menus or specials. Of course, these are the most basic things. Building a commendable presence on Facebook takes a great deal of time and effort. Fortunately for us, plenty of apps are now available to make this job easier.

Why do you need Facebook apps?

Facebook apps can be a great way to create engagement with your fans. Apps can be used to promote online sales, incentives, competitions, and more. Since they create engaging content, they make sure that your users interact with your brand.

Small businesses don't have to create their own apps. Instead, they can choose some of the available apps. A successful app can go a long way in establishing and strengthening your social media presence. While selecting apps for your business, choose the ones that are simple, quick, and user-friendly.

Here is a list of some Facebook apps that you can use to promote your business:

If you run a restaurant, you should use Heyo. This Facebook app comes with mobile widgets that allow your customers to redeem gift coupons on their mobile phones.

North Social is another company that builds apps for Facebook. It offers apps for mobile promotions, contests, coupons, sweepstakes, and more. These apps allow businesses to launch limited-time promotions almost every day.

Woobox is another app popular with local retailers. It allows small stores to create and launch contests. The most popular feature of this app is its photo contest feature which allows users to upload their own photos and let other users vote the best. A clothing store can take advantage of this feature by encouraging its fans to post photos wearing their latest clothes for a discount or a prize.

If you offer a professional service, you can use an app like FaceItPages to improve your social media presence. This app creates ads that will only show up to users who might need a service like that.

Whatever may be your business needs, there are plenty of Facebook apps to make your job easier. Since the number of people who interact with your Facebook page is far more important than the number of people who like it, creating customer engagement should be your goal and apps make it possible.

Using Images to Make Sales on Facebook

If you’re using Facebook for sales promotion, we have a few suggestions regarding how you can increase revenues using graphics on Facebook. A lot of ecommerce brands are following these practices to boost sales online:

Why use images?

According to a study, image posts attract 53% more likes as compared to others, get 104% more comments and generate 120% more engagement.

Offer promotion codes for seasonal sales

Whether you’re offering a Thanksgiving discount, a 15% off discount or a Buy 1, Get 1 Free sale, consider the option of creating an interesting graphic to showcase this. An appealing graphic can draw greater attention than regular text.

Make sure you include a promo code because this will help track revenues generated. While posting the image on your Facebook timeline, make use of a clear action call in the post copy so that fans know the exact procedure for completing their purchase.

Offer rewards to fans who tell others

Craft an engaging graphic telling your fans that a special promo code will get unlocked if your image gets a particular number of shares. Since the updates on your page are seen mostly by people who already engage with it, you may want to get greater engagement using a promoted post. This kind of promotion can help increase organic engagement and you will not be required to pay for the promotion of your next offer!

Along with driving revenues, an additional benefit of such promotions is that there’s an increase in fan engagement and brand awareness is built within friends of fans.

Show off product specifications

“If you have it, flaunt it!” This perfectly applies to the arena of Facebook marketing. A Facebook page is an ideal place to showcase the outstanding features of all your products. Design a graphic that’s sure to capture the attention of your fans and highlight product features not visible at first glance. Posting the image with a direct call to action such as a link to your online store will make purchasing easy.

When it’s a brick-and-mortar store, the sales team can speak about the salient features of a product at length before potential customers. Its different online – state-of-the-art graphics should do all the talking and all the selling!

Offer free gifts with purchases

Though offering free gifts with purchases is one of the oldest promotional mantras, it’s still around because of its effectiveness as a revenue-generating tactic. Design an appealing graphic for offering a free gift relevant to your audience. If your fan base is big, use the various Facebook features to ensure that the correct people  know about your offer. Using the appropriate graphics is likely to make your gift offer stand apart.

Make use of countdown promos

Countdown promos keep fans hyper-engaged over extended periods of time. For example, you could design a graphic that shows a 24-hour sale of various popular products from your online store each day for a week. Excited fans are likely to visit your page every day to see the image of the day and you’ll have a boost in revenues for 7 days straight.

Promote a limited-period offer

A worst case scenario in the arena of Facebook promotions is when a fan says, “Oh, I’ll come back tomorrow." When an image promotes an exciting offer for a limited period, it creates a sense of urgency that’s required for immediate driving of sales.

In conclusion, combining the draw of a discount or sale with the power of image posts can result in a substantial increase in online revenues.