According to Statista, Facebook had 1.94 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2017. With this many users, you need to be leveraging Facebook marketing strategies for your pet business. Just having people ‘like’ your page isn’t good enough anymore with Facebook’s algorithm making organic reach more difficult. We know that boosting posts and paying for ads is a way to increase engagement. However, some other ways don’t cost money, but instead, take time and patience. Implementing the below strategies on Facebook are a few ways to help increase your organic reach.
Maximize Your Real Estate
Facebook is a free marketing tool for your pet business, so be sure to take advantage of it. Make sure your Facebook page catches the user’s attention by using a free tool like Canva to design a professional looking cover photo (or a cover video). The cover photo is a potential customer’s first impression of your business; therefore a professional photo of you running your business would be ideal. Add a high-resolution square logo as the profile photo, pin an introduction video the top of your page and make sure your entire profile is completed to ensure maximum searchability and impact.
Share Great Content
As a professional pet business owner, you probably don’t have the time to create as much content as you would like. Instead, try curating great content to share with your fans to keep them entertained and engaged. When posting curated content, be sure to tag them in the post to give them credit. Of course, you want to make sure you keep original content in the mix as this will help keep your social media audience active and engaged. When creating content for your pet business use empathy to communicate that you understand your customers. Using empathy is a great marketing strategy to show your fans that you care.
Behind the Scenes
What better way to gain the trust of potential clients than by sharing behind the scenes footage of your pet business. People will be more likely to relate to your brand when you share personal posts. Plus, this is an excellent way to engage with your fans! Potential customers will be more likely to gain confidence in your services if they can see the effort you are putting into caring for the pets. Share updates, videos, tours of your boarding kennel, photos of your staff and anything else that will instill peace of mind in your pet business.
Focus on Local
As a professional pet business owner, it is important to leverage content that will attract the attention of local pet owners. Therefore, share relevant content to establish your local brand instead of sharing random photos or generic posts, to garner the interest of local buyers. Consider creating a Facebook Group to link your page to and build your local community of pet owners on Facebook. If your pet business includes a brick-and-mortar setup, use Facebook to create local campaigns to attract those in the vicinity. Encourage them to stop by and check-in when they visit your doggy daycare or retail store.
Get Your Facebook Fans Talking
Now, this is the tricky part. You spend all your time creating and curating content to share on Facebook, only to hear crickets. We know Facebook’s algorithm limits the visibility of posts from your Facebook page, so it is important to be proactive to get people engaged. The more engagement you get on Facebook, the more people will see your posts in their newsfeed. Try to ask compelling questions to your audience, run interesting polls, share funny videos or create intriguing contests. Keep your target customer in mind when posting on social media and monitor your analytics to see which content gets the most engagement and when for future reference.
Be Responsive
One of the most important Facebook marketing strategies is, be responsive. When a potential customer comments on a post or sends a private message, respond as soon as possible! If you can’t, be sure to set up an automated response. Fans expect a quick response time. If you don’t respond quickly, they may already be in contact and booking services with a competitor before you know it. Facebook also boosts posts on the feeds of fans that you have direct conversations with on Facebook. Therefore, being responsive helps increase engagement and post visibility.
Implementing the right Facebook marketing strategies and creating entertaining content can help increase your brand awareness, improve customer engagement and increase sales. It is important to perform trial and error to determine the best strategy for your pet business.
Erika Godwin is the President of Barketing Solutions and the Co-Founder and CMO of ProPet Software, an industry-leading kennel management software. Erika has over 8 years of experience with WordPress and graduated from Elmira College in 2009 with a BS, Business Administration- Marketing and Management. View Erika’s Full Bio.
