6 Ways Facebook Can Help Propel Your Business’s Brand Awareness

[This article was written by Nick Veneris.]

Brand awareness is defined as the extent to which consumers are able to recognize certain facets of a company’s identity, including its product, logo, ads, and taglines. Undoubtedly, if we listed the top five brands in the world—Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Coca-Cola—you would be able to recall their relevant logos, colors, and products in a split second. That’s because these corporations understand the relationship between branding and recognition, and they have used it to their advantage since their inception.

One of the number-one tools for furthering brand awareness is a master in the realm itself—Facebook. The platform is the largest social media platform in the world, with 1.59 billion active daily users and more than 2.1 billion active monthly users. These users consume content and connect with friends in a variety of manners, through Facebook Groups, Ads, Stories, and beyond. It’s where consumers go to communicate with, talk about, and review their favorite companies. Naturally, this means businesses need to use it to their advantage in every way possible—but how? Let’s go over a few of the best ways.

1. Through Metrics: Brand Awareness Objective and Beyond – One of the biggest ways Facebook has changed the way we market is through analytics. Virtually every single piece of content a business posts—from a paid ad to a Facebook story—can be measured down to the single view. For boosting brand awareness specifically, there are a few important analytics tools you can use: 

• Brand Awareness Objective – When you’re working with paid ads on Facebook, take note of the Brand Awareness Objective or Brand Recall Estimate, which is a metric used to estimate ad recall lift, or how many people Facebook believes will remember your ad after two days.
• Brand Lift Study – Facebook Business also allows you to conduct what’s called a Brand Lift Test, which helps to measure your company’s brand awareness and understand how your Facebook ads are affecting it. These studies involve polling users to see how your ads affect their ad recall, messaging, and brand awareness.
• Organic Analytics—Pay close attention to the performance of your organic content, too. Make sure you’re measuring exactly how different types of content (photos, videos, etc.) are performing, and constantly adjust as needed. Note when and how your fans tend to interact. 

2. Through Ads: the Brand Awareness Ad – When you’re selecting which type of advertisement to use on Facebook, you can choose between brand awareness (designed to increase awareness among people who are most likely to be interested in it) and reach (designed to show your ad to the most possible people during the campaign).

In this case, you always want to select the brand awareness option if this is your unique marketing goal. Facebook will optimize views based on a more targeted niche or audience, ensuring that you get more views from people who are more likely to recall your ad later on.    

3. Through Influencers: Affiliate Marketing – All the most successful brands use Facebook for affiliate marketing. Why? People tend to use the platform to communicate with brands and promoters more often than other big social media players, and they spend more time there—up to 41 minutes per day—than they do on Instagram. Affiliate marketing involves working with affiliates—in this case, popular Facebook personalities—to promote your brand. The steady stream of visitors ensures that your product or service gets in front of a lot more users. 

4. Through Shares: Engaging Organic Content – Think of organic content as the O.G. method for boosting brand awareness on Facebook. Producing engaging, shareable content is still a great way to grow your business exponentially and to get it into the minds of your target consumer. Not only do you need to make Facebook-specific content—including regular timeline posts as well as stories—but you also need to cross-share any relevant content, including links to your blog posts or affiliate content, to your business profile. Obviously, the more shares, the more awareness you earn. 

5. Through Profiles: Connecting with the Community – Having a Facebook business page is right up there with having a listing on Google Maps—it legitimizes your business and is, therefore, a must-have. Unlike your Google Maps profile, your Facebook profile is used by consumers for more than gathering basic info like location and hours. Facebook users go to the profiles of their favorite companies to provide feedback, to track sales and promotions, and to contact the brand to get information. Your Facebook page needs to be actively monitored and engaged with its follower base. 

6. Through Groups: Identifying Your Consumer – Facebook Groups have grown from a small subset of the social media platform to a valuable tool leveraged by all the savviest businesses. You can use a wide variety of groups to identify, target, and communicate with your core consumer. Make sure to enter Facebook Groups managed by your company, as well as others, and use the search functionality to find out if people are seeking out information about your brand. If you can provide information, do so.

Mixing Organic and Paid Every Step of the Way

With Facebook, just like Google, Instagram, and YouTube, you have to consciously hybridize the paid and the organic. Paid ads can boost your brand awareness exponentially, whereas your organic content helps keep your consumers interested in your company for the long term and helps solidify your company’s identity. Mixing optimized ads with smart, tailored content is the best way to execute a forward-thinking Facebook marketing strategy.

Author Bio:

Nick is a digital strategist with over twelve years’ experience in planning and executing marketing plans for B2C/B2B brands. Currently, he’s the Marketing Manager for Refersion, the advanced affiliate marketing platform that helps brands manage, track, and grow their affiliate network.