business plan of facebook

• Main content

Mark Zuckerberg Just Revealed His Grand Vision For The Next 10 Years Of Facebook

Facebook posted strong third-quarter earnings on Tuesday evening.

The theme of the earnings call was Facebook's future and how the company can use its success to invest in long-term goals that will make it an even stronger company over the next decade.

Facebook's CFO, Dave Wehner, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg both said that next year Facebook would be making a series of aggressive talent and ad-tech investments that would set it up for a successful future.

But that could mean Facebook's expenses increase up to 70%.

Zuckerberg also outlined his three-, five-, and 10-year plan for the company.

In summary, he wants to have multiple Facebook products — WhatsApp, Messenger, Search, Video, NewsFeed, Oculus, and Instagram — each connect 1 billion users. Once those have reached mass scale, then he'll start to aggressively monetize them. 

He also wants to improve the advertising experience for brands, particularly on mobile. Facebook will be investing in ways to better target and measure campaigns through data. It wants to help brands measure online to offline sales conversions. Currently, advertisers spend only about 11% of their budgets on mobile, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, because the right tools aren't in place.

Finally, Facebook wants to build the next major computing platform, which Zuckerberg believes could be augmented reality and Oculus. He also wants to bring the internet to more people through Internet.org.

"We're going to prepare for the future by investing aggressively," Zuckerberg said. 

"The strength of the business today is putting us in a strong position to invest in the future," Wehner added.

Here's the transcript of Zuckerberg's plan, from Seeking Alpha :

On previous calls, you’ve heard me talk about our big company goals of connecting everyone, understanding the world and building the next generation of platforms. These goals are important for us and part of our foundation of our strategy for the next decade, but achieving these will involve many different efforts and steps along the way, some that will be achieved rapidly and others that are going to take longer.

So with that in mind, I’d like to run through our progress this quarter on the different efforts that we expect to deliver a lot of impact over the next three, five and 10 years.

Let's begin with our three-year goals. Over the next three years, our main goals are around continuing to grow and serve our existing communities and businesses and help them reach their full potential.

When you look at the size and engagement of our community, our progress remains very strong. 864 million use Facebook every day and across our core products, we continue to see huge engagement. For example around 700 million people now use Facebook Groups every month. Achieving this scale shows that we're delivering experiences for the way that people want to share and connect.

Another example is our progress on public content. Last quarter I talked about how we're working to connect people around important public moments and personalities on Facebook. This quarter we've continued to build on our results and there are now more than 1 billion interactions every week between public figures and their fans on Facebook.

The investments we have made in video have also played a big part here. This quarter we announced a new milestone for video on Facebook achieving 1 billion video views, a day of made of videos. During the summers the ice bucket challenge drew more than 10 billion video views by 440 million people which is a good sign of how far our video product has come.

Instagram has also made a lot of progress this quarter. In August, the Instagram team launched Hyperlapse, a standalone app for time lapse of videos on iOS. The team has also invested heavily in improving the speed and performance of Instagram on Android. This has helped drive Instagram's strong international growth which in some countries has achieved more than 100% year-over-year growth. Globally, people using Instagram now spend around 21 minutes a day on average using the app. This is a strong figure compared to the industry and a good sign that Instagram's strategy is on the right path. Our other big focus over the next three years is to continue to serving businesses well and creating a lot of value for marketers.

As our results show, our approach here is working. To continue delivering value for businesses, we work to improve the quality of ads and news feed by reducing low quality content and improving our targeting to show more timely and relevant content. We’ve also made some big advances in our ad tech, most importantly the launch of our new Atlas platform. Atlas offers marketers a lot of new capabilities to help reach people across devices, platforms and publishers as well as improving measurement in online campaign. We're very excited for the future of Atlas and Cheryl is going to talk more about this in a moment.

Next, let's talk about our strategy over the next five years. Over the next five years, our goals are around taking our next generation of services, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Search and helping them connect billions of people and become important businesses in their own right.

One big priority for us here is messaging. And continuing to build and grow Messenger and now WhatsApp as well as great services. This quarter we made an important change to our mobile messaging efforts by transitioning people to Messenger on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. We believe that this change allows us to offer a better and faster messaging experience on mobile, and our data shows that people who use Messenger, usually respond to messages about 20% faster.

This month we also completed our acquisition of WhatsApp. I'm excited to be working with this team and John to join our Board. WhatsApp continues to be on a path to connect more than 1 billion people around the world and we're going to be working into accelerate their efforts here. Another key part of our strategy is helping developers to build more great social experiences on our platform.

Over the next few years, our goal is to make Facebook a cross-platform platform that allows developers to build, grow and monetize their apps across every major mobile platform. We’ve continued to make good progress here. This quarter, we opened our audience networks to all developers and publishers, allowing over 1.5 million advertisers on Facebook to extend their campaigns across mobile and for developers to begin monetizing their apps.

We're also excited by the continued adoption of App Links, our deep-linking technology for mobile apps. App Links is now used by hundreds of apps across iOS, Android and Windows phone and in just the past six months, the developers have created links to more than 3 billion individual destinations in these apps.

Now let's talk about how we're approaching our goals over the next 10 years. For the next 10 years our focus is on driving the fundamental changes in the world that we need to achieve our mission, connecting the whole world, understanding a world with big leaps in AIs and developing the next generation of platforms, especially in computing.

This is a very big period, a very busy period for our efforts with Internet.org. In July we worked with Airtel to launch the Internet.org app in Zambia. This provides free data access to a set of basic internet services for health, education, employment and communication. The results from this are very encouraging. We've already heard a lot amazing stories about how people are using the internet to add value to their lives. We hope to bring the Internet.org app to many more countries soon.

Over the last few months, I've also travelled to several countries and met with policy makers, key distributors and people and communities that are coming online for the first time. Increasingly industry and governments are seeing expanding internet access as one of their core priorities. This is positive development for our work with Internet.org in our long-term goal of connecting everyone in the world.

Finally, let's talk for a minute about our progress of Oculus. As I've said before, with Oculus, we're making a long-term bet on the future of computing. Every 10 to 15 years, a new major computing platform arrives and we think that virtual and augmented reality are important parts of this upcoming next platform. This quarter, Oculus continued to make progress towards this vision.

In September, the first Oculus developer conference took place, where we announced a new prototype VR headset on the path of a consumer version of the Rift. We continue to see a lot of excitement in the developer community and we've now shipped more than 100,000 of Rift developer kit to over a 130 countries. It's still early for Oculus but we are encouraged to see the variety of apps and games being developed for this platform.

Internet.org and Oculus are just two of the huge opportunities ahead. Our efforts here will take longer to achieve their full impact, but we're going to continue preparing for the future by investing aggressively. So that’s how we’re approaching our strategy over the next three, five and 10 years, while focusing on our big goals of connecting everyone, understanding the world and building the next generation of platforms.

This has been a quarter with strong results. I want to thank the entire Facebook community, our employees, our partners and our stockholders for their continued support. Because of your contribution, Facebook continues to grow in strength and to create greater value in the world for people, partners and businesses. We have a long journey ahead, we’re on the right path and I'm excited about the progress that we’re making.

NOW WATCH:  Watch Mark Zuckerberg In China Surprise The Audience By Speaking Fluent Mandarin

On This Page

For the Facebook-Only Company

For the facebook supplemental company, general rules of facebook page engagement, how to build the perfect facebook page for your business.

Bailey Koharchick

5 min. read

Updated October 25, 2023

Social media is like a long-term relationship—the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. Fortunately, it won’t nag you about leaving your laundry everywhere and clogging the drain (working on it, sweetie). It’s estimated that about 80 percent of companies are on Facebook , but the defining factor is how you’re using it: Is Facebook your sole company site, or is it supplemental to your business website?

There’s no “right” answer to this, it just depends what stage your business is in. Regardless of where your business is at, you need to optimize your Facebook page accordingly. Read on for steps to ensure social media success for both the Facebook-Only and the Facebook Supplemental companies.

1) Make a good first impression

Customize the tabs on your home page. These are like little opportunity tokens. They give fans a variety of ways to engage with you. Some good tabs to feature include:

Photos (required)

Build several photo albums so that your followers can get a sense of your business and personality. They want to see your products (if you own a restaurant, photos of your dishes; if you own a hair salon, photos of your best cuts and colors), your place of business, any events you’ve held, and how hilarious/inspirational/innovative you are.

Having a large number of likes improves your credibility, and can make your business more desirable to customers. If you don’t have the likes you need yet, put some effort into building them. Use incentives to get fans to share your page, like giving discounts or special offers to followers who “check in” at your store. You can also run promotions for followers who share your page.

People often underestimate the power of video, but it’s an incredible way to showcase your company and products in less than 60 seconds. You could make mini-commercials for your business or product, you could film customer testimonials, or you could make videos profiling your employees or management team. Truly, the possibilities are endless!

The mother of all engagement, the Poll tab allows you to quiz your audience and get critical feedback that will help you adapt and grow. You can create polls to learn more about your customer service strengths and weaknesses, or your customers’ product experiences, or your can conduct a quick market analysis to determine who your customers are and what they need.

The Map tab is incredibly helpful to anyone on a smartphone who is trying to find your business, and the ratio of Facebook users on smartphones is skyrocketing. If you want to make yourself easy to find, use the Map tab. It can also be a fun way to increase some buzz—remember that one time you saw your friend check in at that cute shoe store? #envy

2) A picture is worth 1,000 words

If you’re a retail business, use the photo albums to showcase your products. Don’t forget to include all the information a person might need when deciding on whether or not to make a purchase:

Brought to you by

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

• Shipping info (if applicable)
• Other details or descriptions

3) Tell them what you’re all about

Facebook provides a pretty good space for you to share company information in the “Basic Info” section. This will be your equivalent to an “About Us” on a typical website. Take advantage of this space by sharing your products, awards, overview, and mission statement. It will give people a feel for the company’s background and provide credibility to the brand.

4) Give them your number

People are going to have questions. If you’re going to rely on Facebook to answer their questions, give them a few options for contacting you. A phone number, email (non-Facebook), an address (if applicable) and hours of operation are musts.

1) Form a connection

Your end goal is sales, so be sure to direct people that way. By linking to your website, you’ll allow fans to see your fun social side, then easily move on to conversion by simply clicking a button. You don’t want to take any chances of losing them in-between.

2) Flaunt your assets

Since you host your company information and products on your own site, you can use the “Basic Info” section of Facebook to showcase each of your products by simply including a direct link to each product page on your website. Minimalism is SO in.

3) Prevent a one-sided relationship

Strong relationships form when there’s effort from both sides. Using your Facebook page to promote your company website is great, but don’t forget to do it the other way around. Your company website is a prime place to gain a greater social following. Be sure to include a “Like us on Facebook” button on your site so you can turn your sales traffic into social traffic.

4) Share the love

Give your fans a little incentive to like and engage with your Facebook page. Mini contests are a simple and effective way to do this. Try giving 10 percent off a first purchase to anyone who likes your Facebook page, or a $20 gift card to the best answer to a question you post. Prizes are a sure way to boost engagement.

It’s time to commit

If you’re going to “do social media”, you may as well do it right. One post a week isn’t going to cut it. Posts fall to the bottom of a newsfeed in the blink of an eye, so it’s important to post relevant information and images to your audience so you don’t lose them. There are tools that will automatically post based on a scheduled queue, but I advise against them for long-term use because they allow you to disengage from the content. If you feed the beast, you never have to engage with fans, and then you’ve lost the whole point of social media.

Be reliable and show you care

One of the things people forget about social media is that the most successful brands aren’t megaphones, they’re telephones. It’s about creating a conversation between customers and your company. If someone sends you a message, respond. If you’ve got a high volume of comments and there’s no way you can personally respond to each individual, find a different way to acknowledge them.

First comes love, then comes… Engagement?

That’s right. Get engaged. Ask questions and listen to conversations that are trending. There is always an opportunity to grow your fanbase by engaging with people and discussing a relevant or trending topic. This is also a great way to form partnerships with other brands, just make sure you’re not sharing your competition’s content!

By following these steps you can increase your brand awareness and build your fanbase. Now, doesn’t that sound romantic?

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

I believe three key components power the world: Creativity, dedication and adaptation.

Related Articles

3 Min. Read

Can I Expense This? An Accountant Explains the World of Write-Offs

7 Min. Read

How to Think About (and Reduce) Risk When Starting Your Own Business

8 Min. Read

3 Ways to Measure the Brand Awareness of Your Small Business

2 Min. Read

The Top 5 Hidden Costs of Starting a Business

The LivePlan Newsletter

Become a smarter, more strategic entrepreneur.

Your first monthly newsetter will be delivered soon..

Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy .

Flash Sale. 40% Off the #1 rated business plan builder

Homepage H1 can go here

Facebook Marketing in 2023: A VERY Complete Guide

Potential customers are already looking for businesses like yours on Facebook. A smart Facebook marketing strategy is the only way to connect with them.

Here’s a status update for you: Facebook marketing is still a necessity in 2023.

With a staggering 2.93 billion daily active users, Facebook still stands tall (on a foundation of all those Minions memes your uncle posted) as the world’s most dominant social media platform.

For 54.9% of Facebook users , the platform serves as their primary hub for researching brands. In fact, a remarkable 66% of all Facebook users routinely explore local business Pages at least once each week .

Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.

What is Facebook marketing?

Facebook marketing is the strategic promotion of a business or brand using the Facebook platform.

Facebook marketing can enhance brand recognition, expand your online audience, capture potential leads, and boost sales of products or services.

Facebook marketing tactics for business can include:

• Organic text, photo, or video content
• Paid, or “boosted,” text, photo, or video content
• Facebook Stories and Reels
• Facebook ads
• Facebook Groups
• Contests and giveaways
• Facebook Messenger chatbots or auto-responders
• Influencer marketing campaigns
• Facebook Shops
• Facebook Live video streams

The deal won’t get any sweeter. Get an annual Hootsuite plan 60% off and save up to $1,793 now.

How to set up Facebook for business

There are plenty of advanced techniques and paid services you can incorporate into your Facebook business strategy, but before you get there, you need to have a Facebook Page for your brand.

Then, if you really want to take things to the next level from there, you can get your account verified and set up your Meta ad account… but let’s take this one step at a time.

Set up a Facebook Page for your business

1. Make sure you have a personal Facebook profile before you begin. Then, click on the Pages icon (flag) on the left-hand side of the site and click Create New Page.

2. Add your Page name and select the appropriate business category

3. Fill in your business bio information and click Create.

4. From here, you can fill in more details like contact and location; add profile and cover images; and edit the action button.

5. Invite your friends to follow your page, and click Next and then Done to publish your Page for all the world to see.

Find a more detailed breakdown of the Facebook Business Page creation process here.

Verify your Facebook Page for business

This is totally optional, but having a blue “verified badge” on your Facebook Business Page may be beneficial for your marketing strategy. Having a verified badge indicates that Facebook has confirmed that, yep, this page is the official, authentic Page representing your brand.

Seeing a verified badge can put customers and fans at ease; it exudes trust and authority (and helps stop imitators and scammers in their tracks)..

Before you apply for verification, make sure your Facebook Page meets all the requirements for a badge. Your Page must be…

• Authentic: Represent a real business.
• Unique: Make sure your business only has one Page operating because only one Business Page per brand may be verified (with the exception of language-specific versions).
• Complete: Fill out your About section and upload a Page photo. (Hot tip: You also should have at least one post on your Facebook Business Page before you apply for verification.)
• Notable: This one’s pretty subjective and tough to fulfill, but Meta basically needs to deem you… relevant! Is your business well-known? Does your brand have an existing reputation? If you’re a start-up with no other online presence or a long-running business that’s operated under the radar, you might have trouble convincing Meta that you need a verification badge.

All set? Just fill out this Verify Your Page form and then sit around with your fingers crossed, hoping the Meta overlords approve your request.

Dig deeper into the logistics of getting your business verified on Facebook here.

Start an ad account

While you can absolutely build a thriving Facebook presence with organic content alone , if you’re planning on spending a few bucks to boost posts or activate campaigns, you’ll need an ad account for your Facebook Page, too. Here’s how to set that up.

1. Go to Business Settings

2. Choose Accounts from the left-hand menu. Click Ad Accounts.

3. Click the Add dropdown menu (it’s blue), and pick “Create a new ad account.”

4. Follow the prompts from there!

You’ve also got the option to add an existing ad account or request access to an ad account. Once that’s good to go, check out this list of 22 inspiring Facebook ad examples for ideas for your own winning campaign.

Types of Facebook posts to use for marketing

While Facebook posts of yore used to be limited to a single, verb-oriented status update (remember those heady, “Trevor is….” days?), there are tons of different formats to experiment with for your Facebook business marketing.

Text posts still get a surprisingly high amount of engagement: 0.11%, according to this We Are Social study. (That may not seem very exciting, but the average engagement with any kind of Facebook Page post is a mere 0.07%.)

One theory: With everyone’s newsfeed so full of images and videos, text might be one way to actually stand out from the crowd. Keep it short and snappy for maximum impact. (A little humor doesn’t hurt, either.)

Photos are the most engaging type of post for Facebook Pages, so get snap happy, people.

A photo post can be any type of image: a picture, an infographic, or a piece of artwork. You can add multiple images to any photo post—up to 10, in fact. (If you want to group photos in a larger collection, consider making a Facebook album.)

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

Some ways businesses can share images include…

• Show off images of your latest product or collection
• Share process photos
• Give followers a peek behind the scenes
• Share a compelling infographic about the impact of your service
• Spark inspiration with lifestyle shots

Limited photography budget? Check out these free stock photo sites .

Videos are the bloodlife of social media in 2023, as TikTok has taught us. There are more than three billion internet users who consume video online daily—and yet video posts only make up 17.4% of all posts on Facebook Pages.

There’s no end to ideas for Facebook Page videos. Consider sharing:

• Interviews with experts
• Factory tours
• Product demos
• Explainer videos
• Event coverage
• Day-in-the-life videos

Give ‘em something to chew on, why don’t you?

Wondering what successful social media videos have in common? Check our tips for creating viral social videos .

When you post a link on Facebook, a preview image is auto-generated, so you’re going to get a real visual pop on your Page.

It’s also a great way to funnel your followers to what you really want them to do, whether that’s purchase a product, check out your blog post, visit your website, learn more about your improv show, watch your latest YouTube video, or participate in a survey.

While your presence on Instagram might be focused on building community and sharing content and information in-platform, Facebook is a helpful tool for directing your audience off of Facebook to where you actually want them to be.

Throw your weight behind a good cause with a fundraiser post . Maybe there’s a cause that aligns well with your organization; maybe you’ve got a formal partnership with a great local charity. Either way, Facebook Pages feature an option to post fundraisers.

It’s a way to share your values with your followers, build some goodwill vibes, and, of course, help generate cash for those in need.

Messenger prompt

Similar to the Fundraiser post option, the Messenger option allows you to add a “Send message” action button to your post. If you’re looking to spark direct engagement in private convos with your followers, this is a unique, intimate way to go.

But be warned: you’d better be fast to respond if you go this route. Social media users expect extremely quick responses for customer service chat .

You may want to consider setting up a customer service chatbot to help manage the influx of messages that might come after a post like this.

Find more Messenger marketing strategies here.

Live-stream

Whether you’re sharing breaking news, broadcasting a live performance, hosting an interactive Q&A, or producing a panel discussion, social media live streams are a powerful way to capture audience attention and drive engagement.

For instance: this authentic, intimate, in-real-time makeup tutorial got 2,500 views. Bonus: Facebook Live videos live on your Page once the broadcast is over, so you can keep collecting those eyeballs even once the director has yelled “cut.”

Here’s everything you need to know about going Live on Facebook.

Invite your followers to turn off their computers and join you in the real world… or turn on their computers, um, even harder to attend an online event you’re hosting.

Facebook Events are another form of post you can make with your Facebook Business Page as part of your marketing strategy to turn passive scrollers into active participants.

Just like Instagram Stories , Facebook Stories are fleeting images or videos designed to disappear after 24 hours.

After viewing a business’ Story, 58% of people say they’ve browsed a brand’s website , 50% say they’ve visited a website to buy a product or service, and 31% headed to a store to scope things out.

So while they may vaporize after a day, Facebook Stories may have a place in your social media strategy . (Plus, you can save them as highlights or turn them into Reels, so nothing ever has to be truly lost.)

Stories can be found above Facebook’s news feed, both on desktop and in the app. They can also be posted and watched on the Messenger app.

Learn more about Facebook Stories here.

Short-form video is unavoidable at this point. First came TikTok . Then came Instagram Reels . It was inevitable Facebook would get into the game too. (Don’t get us started on YouTube Shorts .)

Facebook Reels are short-form videos (under 30 seconds) enhanced with tools like music, audio clips, and effects. They’re often used by content creators and influencers… but they could also be a lot of fun for your Facebook marketing strategy.

Take advantage of the quick-and-dirty editing tools to make fun, fast content. The secret to Reels, ultimately, is not to overthink it. Quickly stitch together a few videos from an event, share the visual vibe of your product photoshoot, or lovingly prank a co-worker and set the humiliation to a trending song.

Read more about tips for making Facebook Reels that attract attention and engagement here .

How to create a Facebook marketing strategy in 7 easy steps

1. define your audience.

Before you do anything, you must first define who your ideal potential customer is and what they want on Facebook. Then, create a marketing and content strategy around that.

Every article about social media marketing says this.

…Because it’s true.

At minimum, you need to define your target audience by answering the following:

• What age range do they fall in?
• Where do they live?
• What types of jobs or job responsibilities do they have? (Most relevant for B2B brands.)
• What problem do they have with [your industry/product]? (And how are you the solution?)
• How and when do they use Facebook? (At work, home, doom scrolling before bed?)

Not sure where to start? If you already have followers on your Facebook Page, check out Audience Insights inside Meta Business Suite to see the demographics of your existing audience.

Does your data line up with the customers you want to attract? Perfect, keep up the good work. Not so much? Adjust your content strategy accordingly and watch your Insights to see what works for shifting your audience to the one you want.

This data is also valuable for ad targeting if you want to explore Facebook advertising.

Ready to dig deep? Here’s how to get all the nerdy info you want from Facebook Audience Insights .

2. Define your goals

Why do you want followers? What do you want them to do? For most companies, the answer is, “Buy something.”

But it’s not always about money. Other common goals for a Facebook Page are to:

• Build brand awareness
• Improve customer service
• Maintain a consistent brand image across social media
• Bring in traffic to a physical location

Your Facebook marketing goals will depend on your overall marketing strategy. (Need a refresh? We’ve got a free marketing plan template for ya.)

If you’re up for more no-BS advice, check out this post about setting social media goals and how to measure them.

3. Plan your content strategy

No need to overcomplicate this. Your content strategy is:

• What you’ll post
• When you’ll post it

What to post

Will you share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your process? Will you post exclusive discounts? Will you stick to business or include some fun and games?

Let your imagination run wild with ideas— Ha! Just kidding. You’re gonna post what your audience wants, right? From all that research you did in step 1, right?

Creativity is encouraged, though. Blend what you know about your target audience with what you think will perform well. (Psst—we’ve researched all the best social media trends , so you don’t have to.)

Think of your Facebook content strategy like buckets. Each bucket is a topic.

For example:

• Industry news
• Company news
• Tuesday Tips, where you share a short tutorial for your software
• Reviews/testimonials
• New products and promotions

You get the idea. And you know what makes everything, including creativity, more fun? Rules!

A few classic social media content strategy rules to consider:

• The rule of thirds : One-third of your content is your ideas/stories, one-third is direct interaction with your audience, and the last third is promotional content.
• The 80/20 rule: 80% of your content should inform, entertain, and educate, and the remaining 20% can be promotional.

When to post it

Once you’ve decided what to post, deciding when to post it is the last puzzle piece.

As mentioned earlier, Facebook Audience Insights can help here, although our research has found the best time to post on Facebook is between 8 a.m. and noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Though, of course, that’s a massive generalization. Like everything else in your strategy, experiment! Try different times and see when you get the most engagement.

It’s easy to stay on track with Hootsuite Planner . Everyone on your team can see upcoming posts, collaborate on drafts, and identify any gaps before you reach an oh-crap-I-need-a-post-right-now content emergency. (Hootsuite’s new OwlyWriter AI composer tool can even help you find the right words.)

The best part? Hootsuite’s powerful analytics will tell you when the best times to post are, based on your personalized data.

4. Optimize your Page

Whether you’ve just set up your Facebook business Page or have had one for a while, make sure you have:

• A profile photo—your logo works great—and a cover photo . (Check our social media image size guide for current specs.)
• A call to action button, such as Book Now.
• Contact information, including URL, phone number, and email address.
• A detailed About section.
• A pinned post with your latest promotion, offer, or FAQ.
• A custom Page URL. (For example: www.facebook.com/hootsuite )
• An accurate business category. (Ours is “Internet company.”)

If you have a physical business location, also ensure you’ve added a street address.

If you’re an ecommerce business, use Commerce Manager to display your products in the new Facebook Shop tab. Not sure how? Here’s how to set up a Facebook Shop .

5. Try other Facebook tools

1. create a facebook group.

Groups require a lot of moderation and attention to be successful, but they can earn powerful results.

More than 1.8 billion people say they use Facebook Groups every month. These opt-in communities offer businesses a great way to bypass the merciless Facebook news feed algorithm and connect with audiences where they are actually likely to see and interact with branded posts.

Learn more about creating a winning Facebook Group for your Business here.

2. Drive engagement with Hootsuite Inbox

Hootsuite Inbox allows you to respond to DMs and comments from all your social platforms in one place. Besides replying faster, it also enables your entire team to manage communications without duplicating work or missing anything.

See how much time you’ll save:

3. Try Facebook Marketplace for local sales

While you may think of Facebook Marketplace as simply the modern-day alternative to Craigslist, it’s actually a powerful business sales channel, too.

In 2022, Facebook Marketplace ads reached 562.1 million people . While most sellers are people cleaning out their basements, business listings are welcome , including in lucrative categories like car and real estate sales (where regional laws permit).

It’s free to create listings, making it a must-try for local businesses. If you sell nationally, consider promoting your shop website, too.

6. Install Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel)

Meta Pixel is a small piece of code installed on your website to allow tracking, testing, targeting, and analytics for Facebook and Instagram ads. You only have to set it up once per website. (And wait, you’ve already linked your Instagram account to your Facebook page , right?)

To install Meta Pixel:

1. Log in to Facebook Events Manager . In the left menu, click Connect data sources.

2. Choose Web as the data source and click Connect.

3. Name it and enter your website URL. Depending what your website runs on, there may be a one-click integration available. If not, follow the prompts to install the code manually .

4. Select Conversions API and Meta Pixel or Meta Pixel Only as your setup option and follow the prompts.

If that’s not enough guidance, we’ve got a more robust set of instructions for installing Meta Pixel here.

7. Try Facebook advertising

Facebook ads can skyrocket traffic and sales, but launching a campaign can be overwhelming.

You’re also probably wondering how much Facebook ads cost . (Spoiler: It varies. You’re welcome.)

Facebook ads reach the largest potential audience of any social platform, up to 2.96 billion people as of 2022. Put another way, that’s 36.9% of Earth’s entire population over age 13.

So if you want to begin social media advertising, Facebook is the best place to start for most businesses. There’s a lot to learn, but our step-by-step guide to creating your first Facebook ad campaign makes it easier.

But… are you actually ready?

When to start using Facebook ads

The day after creating your shiny new business Page isn’t the best time to try out Facebook ads. But, letting someone else arbitrarily tell you when you’re ready isn’t the answer, either. (He he he.)

Yep, as with most marketing things, there isn’t one correct answer or KPI that can tell you when to start experimenting with ads.

We’d argue you should have these things first:

• A complete Page (don’t forget to add that profile pic!)
• At least 100 Page Likes (followers)
• Meta Pixel set up
• At least 20 Page posts (ideally more)
• Multiple creative assets for each ad
• An A/B testing strategy

You also should make sure advertising on Facebook aligns with your Facebook marketing goals . Are you interested in extending your reach? Are you digital-advertising curious? Do you want to find new customers? Do you want access to in-depth insights about those customers?

If the answer’s yes to any of these, you’re ready to dive in. But do you want to do this the easy way…. or the hard way?

The easy way: Boost a post

“Boosting” a post is Facebook lingo for taking a regular Page post and turning it into an ad.

Boosting is the gateway ad those senior content marketers warned you about. Side effects of success include conversions, audience growth, and a newfound appreciation for digital advertising.

When you should consider it: If you’re completely new to Facebook advertising and want to test the waters. Boosted posts are relatively cheap since you specify your budget upfront. (But remember: Cheap isn’t effective if the ad isn’t accurately targeted.)

Ready to hit turbo mode? Here’s how to boost a Facebook post the right way.

The advanced method : Create your first Facebook ad campaign

Ad groups, creative options, launch dates, awareness ads, conversion ads, multiple formats, copy options… A full Facebook ad campaign is a lot of work.

But we’re here to tell you: it’s worth it. The combination of organic and paid Facebook content is the secret sauce to achieving all your social media ✨ dreams . ✨

When you should consider it: You want to build focused momentum for a product launch, event, or other promotion.

Paid campaigns can work with budgets of all sizes, but spend time honing your targeting skills first. Experimenting with boosted posts can help dial this in.

You know when you see an ad and think Wow, I’m the target market? Like when an ad for a Millennial-pink saucepan starring Carly Rae Jepsen drops in your Instagram feed? That’s how you want your ad’s viewers to feel: “This is for me.”

You can absolutely be successful at DIY-ing your Facebook ads, although plan to do a ton of research along the way. We have a few resources for you to start with:

• How to Advertise on Facebook: A Complete Guide
• Every Type of Facebook Ad You Should Be Using to Grow Your Business
• All the Facebook Ad Sizes You Need to Know in 2022
• 22 Facebook Ad Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

Consider hiring an agency or freelance consultant to help plan your first campaign. You’ll learn a lot and optimize your chances of success.

How much does it cost to market on Facebook?

The boring answer is: it depends.

To be clear, many aspects of Facebook marketing are free. You can create and post content all day long without spending a penny. All it might cost you to achieve successful reach and engagement is your time.

But there are absolutely ways to financially invest in your Facebook business marketing strategy, too, by paying to boost your content or creating an ad campaign. You set your own budget for this, so you could have a $5 ad campaign… or you could have a $50,000 ad campaign. It all depends on what type of ads you use and how far you want to reach. We get into all of the ad-price benchmarks here , but the TLDR is that your mileage may vary.

If you’re considering a collaboration with an influencer or creator, you might also want to budget for that too. But again, the amount you’d spend on that will vary wildly, depending on what you’re asking for, and who you’re working with.

Facebook marketing examples for inspiration

Eyewear company TIJN uses the power of humor when it creates Reels. I get a good look at these sweet hot-pink frames and have a laugh that someone has made a sponge into a puppet: win-win! Reels are the perfect medium for this sort of content: lo-fi and friendly, it’s the sort of video your friend might send you… which creates all sorts of feel-good warm fuzzies.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3255206307950663

Momofuku must’ve spent a fortune on Meta ads because I see this noodle promo six times a day… and dammit, it’s working. I’m not sure if they just literally put my name into the targeting section, but obviously someone put some serious thought into making sure this ad campaign reached only the laziest, carb-obsessiest foodies.

Society6 shares a seasonally appropriate print as a photo in this post but also prompts followers to share their Earth Day celebration plans: a great recipe for engagement.

Starbucks keeps it short and sweet with a text-based post. The sentiment is relatable and personal and taps into the nation’s obsession with pumpkin-spice season. The 95-character post generated 16,000 likes plus thousands of shares and comments.

Ikea prompts engagement here by asking followers to weigh in on which photo they like best. (For the record? I’m team B.) Just because photos are static doesn’t mean the post can’t be dynamic and interactive.

Swimwear brand Left on Friday uses Facebook Stories to showcase casual, intimate behind-the-scenes moments at a photo shoot. It’s how everyday people use this feature—your brand can too!

Facebook can be a great place to share links to your content, whether that’s a blog post or an in-depth YouTube video like Fable Home has done here.

6 Facebook marketing tools

1. Hootsuite

With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your Facebook marketing activities from one place. We hate marketing cliches, but it really is your, excuse us, one-stop shop for all things Facebook marketing.

Use Hootsuite to:

• Schedule all of your Facebook posts in advance
• Identify the best times to post (when your unique audience is active online and most likely to engage with your content)
• Review your performance and easily generate comprehensive reports
• Answer comments and private messages
• Boost posts
• Easily track what people are saying about you online
• Manage your Facebook Pages alongside all your other social profiles on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

2 . Facebook Ads Library

Sometimes a little inspiration is all you need. Facebook Ads Library is a searchable database of all the ads currently running on Facebook.

You can filter by location, type of ad, and keywords.

Get ideas for your next campaign, identify trending phrases or graphics, and check up on what your competitors are doing.

3 . Reputology

Reviews are one of the most important aspects of your Facebook Business Page (and elsewhere). Reputology tracks incoming reviews and allows you to respond inside Hootsuite.

User-generated content is awesome for 2 reasons:

• People are 2.4 times more likely to view it
• You don’t have to create it

Chute simplifies the often-daunting task of finding relevant content based on topic, location, or more. Save what you find into an organized content library you can access from Hootsuite Composer.

It also makes it easy to properly obtain usage rights and permission for legal compliance.

For brands with a Facebook Shop, the Magento integration is a super helpful tool in your toolkit. Easily upload your e-store products to Facebook and use Facebook dynamic ads to scale your ad creation and show relevant products. You can also schedule automated updates of your product catalog and set up multiple feeds for different stores and currencies.

Manage your Facebook presence alongside your other social media channels using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule posts, share video, engage your audience, and measure the impact of your efforts. Try it free today.

Get Started

Save 100s of dollars (and 1000s of hours ) with the best social media management tool. Offer ends soon!

Related Articles

How To Advertise on Facebook in 2023 [Complete Guide]

The times may be changing, but knowing how to advertise on Facebook is still an essential skill for most marketers.

How to Create a Facebook Business Page (and Grow It) in 2023

An optimized Facebook Business Page makes it easier for people to discover and interact with your brand online. Find out how to set one up.

How To Get More Likes on Facebook: 8 Easy Tips

Facebook likes tell the algorithm (and your audience) that your content is worth sharing. Here are 8 tips to get more likes on Facebook.

19 Facebook Tricks and Tips You Need To Know [2023]

Level up on social with these Facebook tricks that save you time, give you an edge on your competitors, and improve your overall performance.

Save 100s of dollars and 1000s of hours with the #1 social media management tool. Hurry, the offer ends soon!

Get the deal

• Gaza Hospital
• Biden-Xi Meeting
• Iceland Earthquakes
• Psychedelic-Assisted Healing
• CBS News Live
• Managing Your Money
• Newsletters

Watch CBS News

Facebook's new business plan: Locate more young people in the metaverse

By Irina Ivanova

October 26, 2021 / 7:43 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Mark Zuckerberg has a new remedy for what's ailing Facebook: Ditch older users and refocus the company on serving Generation-Z, while encouraging them to buy virtual items in the emerging "metaverse" .

"We are retooling our teams to make serving our young adults our North Star rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people," the Facebook CEO told investors in a call on Monday, defining young adults as those aged 18 to 29.

"Over the last decade, as the audience that uses our apps has expanded so much, we focused on serving everyone," he added. "Our services have gotten dialed to be the best for the most people who use them rather than specially for young adults."

Facebook has faced robust competition for young users from TikTok, which Zuckerberg called "one of the most effective competitors we have ever faced." 

At the same time, Facebook's advertising sales, which make up nearly all its revenue, have taken a dip thanks to Apple's latest operating system , which make it harder for third-party app developers to track Apple users. Facebook objected to Apple's changes and claimed that they would hurt small businesses while giving a leg up to Apple's own advertising systems. With most users of i-devices adopting the new software in late June, those changes were the biggest challenge for Facebook's revenue growth in the three months from July to September.

In that period, Facebook's most profitable users — those in the U.S., Canada and Europe — became slightly less profitable. The company's average revenue per user dropped by about 65 cents in North America, to $52.34, and by about 70 cents in Europe, to $16.50. To counter those changes, Facebook plans to rebuild its ad-targeting tools to work with less data, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Monday.

Facebook said its net income grew 17% between July and September to $9.2 billion, up from $7.8 billion, a year earlier. Revenue rose 35% to $29 billion, beating analyst expectations of $24.5 billion. Facebook shares added 1% on Wall Street Monday and rose another 1% to $332.43 in after-hours trading.

Despite fallout from the Facebook Papers showing that the social media giant sometimes ignored the adverse effects of its platform on users, Facebook remains a money-making machine for millions of small businesses that rely on it to advertise. Still, Facebook executives detailed plans to roll out new product lines that will bolster the company's ad dominance.

A $10 billion bet on the metaverse

Chief among those new product lines: The so-called metaverse, which Zuckerberg first discussed in July . Facebook said it plans to spend $10 billion to help develop a virtual-reality environment that it eventually plans to fill with virtual clothes, tools and other content.

"The metaverse is going to be the successor of the mobile internet," Zuckerberg said Monday, adding,"Delivering a sense of presence, like you're right there with another person — that's the holy grail of online and social experience."

"We hope that, by the end of the decade, we can help a billion people use the metaverse and support a digital economy worth hundreds of billions of dollars," he said.

As it seeks to remain current amid signs that young people have moved to other platforms, Facebook is also reportedly considering changing its name, according to  The Verge . For now, the company has declined to comment on what it called "rumors and speculation."

The company also plans to break out its Facebook Reality Labs as a separate segment beginning in the fourth quarter. This business line will include its augmented and virtual reality products along with related hardware, software and content. Facebook expects to spend roughly $10 billion on the segment this fiscal year, it said — an investment that will grow in future years.

"It's important to have a social experience that goes across all platforms," rather than just "a VR social network," Zuckerberg said. "It needs to work everywhere across our family of apps. It needs to work on the web, on the phone, on computers. There's a lot of infrastructure that needs to get built."

The Associated Press contributed reporting

More from CBS News

Hey there! Free trials are available for Standard and Essentials plans. Start for free today.

Creating a Facebook Marketing Strategy: 10 Tips for Success

Facebook can be a helpful marketing tool if you know how to leverage it. Learn a few different ways you can make your Facebook marketing strategy a success.

Building a Facebook page is a great place to begin when it comes to digital marketing with social media.

However, today, it is not enough to solely have a Facebook page to help with marketing your business or brand. Using Facebook is one of the most beneficial marketing tools available for those who are looking for engagement using word-of-mouth and keyword-specific campaigns.

With Facebook, you are not just limited to a traditional Facebook page to promote your business products and services. Some of the most notable benefits of using Facebook as a part of any digital marketing strategy include:

Word-of-mouth engagement: Spread information about a business or brand much faster once you have a thriving Facebook page and online presence.

Visibility: With Facebook, expand your online reach and overall visibility, which can help to attract new customers to your page.

Demographics: One of the best features of Facebook is the ability to hone in on specific demographics based on age, location, and even particular interests your target audience may be interested in.

Knowing how to put Facebook to work for you with various Facebook marketing tips can help you to achieve any digital marketing goals you have set in place.

With the right Facebook marketing strategy, discover how to outshine and outperform your top competitors while maximizing your ability to reach new prospective customers and followers yourself.

10 marketing strategies for Facebook pages

Developing marketing strategies for Facebook pages is highly recommended whether you are building a local business or expanding and scaling an international brand. Using the following strategies, learn how to best optimize any Facebook marketing campaign you launch without a hassle.

1. Set goals

Before you can begin marketing products or showcasing a new brand, it is important to set goals for your business page. When you begin using Facebook along with alternative social media platforms to grow your following, ask yourself these questions when getting started:

What is it that I am looking to gain from having my Facebook page? Am I interested in establishing an online presence for my brand or building a gigantic and massive online following of rabid customers?

How do I intend to use my Facebook page and marketing platform to appeal to the audience I intend to reach?

Am I interested in achieving a larger following, brand awareness, increased engagement, or more sales?

The more familiar you become with specific goals you have in mind for your brand while using Facebook, the easier it will be to manage active and future campaigns you have planned.

2. Track your data

With Facebook advertising , tracking the data you receive from active campaigns is easier than ever. In fact, Facebook provides in-depth an Audience Insights tool that includes demographics as well as specific interests or identifiers that can help you to get to know your audience on a much more personal level.

The data you are able to extract and collect from Facebook's Audience Insights can help you to formulate an even more targeted campaign strategy for future campaigns you launch.

3. Know and target your audience

The more you know your target audience, the easier it will be to genuinely resonate with them while promoting your business page and brand. When you are aware of the demographics you are trying to reach and you are using Facebook's Audience Insights tool, you will immediately gain access to useful information regarding your current followers and those who are most engaged with your Facebook page(s).

4. Create a Facebook content strategy

Developing a Facebook content strategy is also key to achieving success online and with the use of social media advertising. Consistency is essential when it comes to maximizing your reach and online visibility via Facebook (as well as many other social media platforms available today).

Create a content calendar to keep better track of your Facebook updates, content you intend to post, and even specific contests or giveaways you are planning to host for your followers.

Using a virtual or a physical content calendar is a way to remain focused and consistent with updates. A Facebook page that goes days, weeks, or even months without sharing an update is also much less likely to appear within the news feeds of followers, based on the current algorithm in place.

5. Use the social media content rules

Whether you are using guerilla marketing tactics or if you are working with a range of microinfluencers online, there are a few social media content rules to consider following. The rule of thirds in social media marketing indicates breaking up your time spent on social media in the following ways:

Listening to customers is essential to better gauge what it is that they actually want or need from your business.

Engaging with your customers can help to build a good rapport with those who wish to genuinely support your business.

Leading your customers to the content, products, or services you provide is also a part of the rule of thirds.

Another rule to keep in mind when it comes to social media marketing is the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule is essentially representative of 80% of a company's posts being educational or informative, while only 20% of a brand's updates are self-promotional in nature.

This ratio will help to minimize the risk of bombarding Facebook users with promotional material, which may help them to find your company more interesting and trustworthy.

6. Know the right time to post

Updating on Facebook is not always as simple as pressing "Post". In fact, many seasoned digital marketers understand the benefits of choosing the right time to update social media, including Facebook itself.

Best days: The best days to post updates for brands on Facebook include Tuesday-Friday, as these are the days on which individuals are most actively engaged on the platform.

Best times to post: The best times to post on Facebook include Mon-Friday at approximately 3 AM (Eastern) as well as on Tuesdays at both 10 AM (Eastern) and noon.

Avoid posting on: Avoid updating on Saturdays, as most people are less engaged on Facebook during all hours of Saturday.

7. Engage frequently

Consistency and engagement are key elements to running any successful Facebook page, regardless of the business or brand you represent. Facebook rewards those who engage with their personal and Facebook business page frequently, which means your posts are more likely to appear within the news feeds of followers if you are more engaged yourself.

Engaging and interacting with your followers is not only a way to help with Facebook's internal algorithm, but it is also one of the best ways to establish a positive rapport between you and your followers/customers online.

You can also use Facebook to create strategic partnerships between you and other relevant businesses or brands with similar followings. Using Facebook to connect with other popular pages can drastically increase the visibility and reach your own Facebook page receives without investing additional funds into your Facebook Ads campaigns.

8. Use Facebook advertising

Using Facebook Ads can help to drastically increase your online visibility to any target audience you have in mind.

When you edit photos professionally and use visual graphics that are appealing, you can maximize your reach with the use of Facebook Ads. Before using Facebook Ads, be sure to set a budget for each individual campaign to track your ROI.

9. Get your employees involved

In many cases, a company's employees are often its best advocates. Work together with your employees to promote your brand online with the use of Facebook as well as other social media platforms your employees use regularly.

10. Be mindful of reviews

Online reviews can make or break the success and potential of a business. If you receive negative reviews, be sure to be tactful and mindful in your responses.

Avoid providing personal, negative, or rude responses to less-than-flattering reviews. Always maintain a professional persona, especially if you are just establishing a new business or brand.

Facebook is one piece of the puzzle

With more than 2 billion active Facebook users , it is no wonder that Facebook is a major platform for most marketing efforts today. However, Facebook is just one piece of the puzzle, especially with the advent of numerous popular social media platforms today.

Knowing how to grow your TikTok page , share your Instagram, and use Twitter to appeal to your target audience can drastically increase the total following you have, both online and off.

Taking the time to flesh out your social media and online presence will go a long way with any short or long-term marketing strategy you launch.

Implementing the right marketing strategies for your Facebook business page (and other preferred digital platforms) can help you to achieve the following you desire or the number of sales you are looking to generate.

With the right marketing campaigns and strategies, grow your Facebook page, your website's traffic, your newsletter subscribers, and even your YouTube following in less time.

Related Topics

• Social Media Marketing
• Instagram Advertising
• Facebook Advertising
• Social Media Content Creation
• Create an Ad
• Schedule Social Media Posts