With an active user base rivaling the population of China, the most populous country in the world, if you haven’t incorporated Facebook into your digital marketing strategies... It’s about time you did.

However, as you embark on this journey to master the master of all social media, don’t be fooled into thinking there is some secret potion for success.

Let us build you a Facebook audience

To get you started, we’re going to fill you in on six steps to Facebook success. They aren’t simple. They aren’t hard. The only secret about them is that you just have to follow them. So let’s begin.

Complete your personal profile page. Just like your CV, this should be filled with your work experience to date, as well as any educational background you feel is still relevant.

Don’t sell anything

What? Don’t sell anything? Isn’t that the purpose of your business – to sell stuff to people and make money? Yes. That’s exactly the purpose of your business, but that’s not how you create a Facebook audience. You need to engage people.

So if you’re not selling something what are you doing? It’s simple. You provide value. You help people.

If you want a person to not just click your like button, but actually pay attention to what you are doing – provide them something to pay attention to. Give them something interesting or useful. They want tips they can share or stories and articles that inform them. You’d be surprised how viral value is.

People want interesting stuff to come across their newsfeed.

Be consistent

If you want your audience to be responsive and actually respond to a call to action, there is no better tool to build that relationship than consistency.

The more valuable content, the more reason a person has to follow you. And besides that, with every post, you increase your probability of someone liking and sharing what you have to say. Have you ever heard the term, “kill ‘em with kindness”? Well, we prefer to say, “kill ‘em with consistency”! If you are constant enough, even the staunchest will eventually break down and give in.

Post every day to your Facebook page. Better yet, post throughout your day to your Facebook page.

Tap into what you have

Do you have an email list? If you’ve already put the work into developing a list, there’s no reason to recreate the wheel. You can upload this to Facebook to create a custom audience (click “create audience” under Ads Manager). Do you have a website? Let’s work on that next.

Add a like button to your website. Or even better create custom ads for your website that direct visitors to your Facebook page.

We cover the use of Facebook Advertising in another guide.

Next, how about we hit up your other social media

sites. YouTube, Twitter, or whatever it may be, make the connection so if they like you there, they can like you here. Don’t have those? Add your page to your personal profiles.

They say it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And when it comes to generating likes, there has never been

a truer statement. Reach out to the movers and shakers in your industry. See if they can assist in building your presence.

Even starting with friends and colleagues that browse your LinkedIn profile can add to your Facebook audience, and they are about as targeted as you can get because they know you and like the subject of your page.

Network

They say it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And when it comes to generating likes, there has never been a truer statement. Reach out to the movers and shakers in your industry. See if they can assist in building your presence.

Find out who the influencers are and focus on building that relationship.

It can be in your industry or in a similar domain. The important thing to remember is networking is key.

Invest in Facebook ads

There are many great options when it comes to advertising on Facebook. And if you’re trying to build a Facebook presence, why not go right to the source.

Whether it is page promotion, sponsored stories, or other more advanced options, Facebook will allow you to dial in and target your ideal customer.

It will allow you to match demographics and interests ensuring you aren’t getting massive exposure, but what you really want: targeted exposure. We cover Facebook advertising in more detail in another guide.

Measure and act

Where do most people falter and fail? They don’t take the time to measure each of their marketing strategies independently and understand the results. As you experiment with each method, make sure to do it ONE AT A TIME. By doing this, you can see the results of each tactic or campaign. This will allow you to weed out the bad ideas, and laser focus on what is actually providing results.

As you can see, building a targeted Facebook audience isn’t rocket science. You don’t have to be a genius. There is no secret formula. It simply takes time, persistence, and a common-sense approach.