Advertising on Facebook - for free

Ok, I said I was going to rattle my own cage in the new year – sort of a new year’s resolution reference to my goal: learn how to use facebook to attract new customers.

I can happily report that I did it! And I’m just as happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised at the results – very modest effort for decent results. It wasn’t a giant effort, but it was my first!

To make a long story short: with just two organic posts (one on Monday night March 1 and one on the following morning, March 2), I got 7 (seven) people who visited my website and signed up for the course using the interest form I created on my website, and I got 34 Likes on my new business facebook page! Yahoo!

Here’s the longer story with the details:

1. I created a business facebook page on February 19, 2016.

2. Uploaded a profile image

3. Uploaded a banner image (logo)

4. Filled out the About page

5. Made my first posts:

6. January 25:

7. My first post - a copy of my first blog post from my website, with a link to it

8. My profile image and cover image got posted automatically when I uploaded them into my facebook page

9. A post promoting the Fields Corner Business Lab and complimenting their work

10. Posted an article from Search Engine Land on local SEO for local customers

11. Then I invited ‘friends’ to Like my business page using the icon on my wall page.

12. Although a business page cannot Like another page, people can Like your business page. Once they do that, your posts will show up in their newsfeeds.

13. I got 34 Likes in one day!!! Wow! And since I sent the requests to Friends who were involved somehow with small businesses (the focus of my facebook page), they were valuable Likes (not just friends who were being supportive).

1. And even BETTER, five people signed up for my course within 48 hours. Some of those Likes made that happen, because a post that shows up on their page can show up on their friends’ pages, especially if my friends Liked or Shared my post about my marketing course (see next line).

2. And then I posted a post to my wall (twice) announcing the Web Marketing course that I was going to be teaching from March 15-May 3.

3. First time: Monday, February 29, at 5:09pm

4. Secon time: Tuesday, March 1 at 8:30am

1. March 1, 11:00am – I posted that I was going to “Courage of the Verb”, a workshop for small businesses on public speaking and art-based businesses.

2. March 1, 12:40 – I posted that I was going to the “Growth Hacking Breakfast”, a seminar for small businesses on how to be creative in growing your business.

3. But since that date, I haven’t posted on my business facebook page at all.

4. No surprise, I guess, that no one has signed up for my course or sent me an “I’m interested” form submission from my website since March 2.

5. Because some of the people that signed up wanted the summer course or fall course, and because a couple others dropped off the list because they needed to take a basic computer course first, my course is not enrolled at capacity. I’m only at 5 enrolled participants – class started last night and they showed up.

6. So, I’m going to post an announcement on facebook again and see if I can fill up the course.

I’ll let you know the results in my next blog post.

Meanwhile, here are 19 tips on how to maximize your facebook marketing as a small business , courtesy of Hubspot (it was published July 9, 2015). You might consider subscribing to Hubspot’s newsletter - they provide lots of decent tips on how to maximize your online marketing, especially about how to get found when a potential unknown customer is searching for a product or service you offer but isn’t aware of your business.