With over 1 billion active members, Facebook is a goldmine for marketers looking to generate leads and get more customers without burning large amounts of ad dollars. SMBs can leverage social networks to drive traffic to their websites, improve brand awareness and generate qualified leads.

Are you using Facebook to reach your potential customers? Here are some tips that will help you get more customers through the social network.

Using Facebook to Get More Customers

Create and Optimize your Facebook page

Before you start Facebook marketing, determine where you would like prospects to interact with you. Would you like to interact with them on your personal page or a business page? Business owners running coaching or consulting businesses will find personal pages more appealing. On the other hand, businesses that offer products will do well with a business page.

Make sure your page is branded to represent your business. Use the Facebook cover page to highlight your services or products and upload your product images in the photo albums. Make sure your “About” section gives comprehensive information about what you do and how you help your market.

Find Relevant Prospects

After creating your Facebook page, it’s time to connect get more customers. Go after prospects that are interested in your services of products. These are prospects that may be looking for the solution that you provide. Some of the ways of finding targeted prospects include:

a) Join groups that are relevant in your niche. Look for groups that are active by checking the questions and comments posted. Before you start advertising your business, offer value to the group members by answering their questions and posting relevant content.

b) Share great content on your Facebook page. The content should be helpful or educative. At the same time, keep the content interesting. Most people are on social media to have fun and sharing content that will give them a good laugh is likely to get you more followers.

c) Integrate your Facebook page Like button on your website. If your blog or website is getting good traffic, you want the visitors to join your Facebook page to keep up with your updates. At the same time, you should indicate your Facebook page link on your email content, forum signatures, business cards and other marketing materials.

d) Place Ads on Facebook

You can also use pay per click (PPC) to get prospects to connect with you on your Facebook page. Facebook has its own PPC network that enables you to target your prospects based on different demographics.

Turn Prospects Into Customers

Having gotten followers on your Facebook page, it’s time to educate them, build trust and nurture them to become customers. You need to engage with the prospects by sharing compelling and educative content that is relevant to them.

Share different types of content on your Facebook page. Use a mix of text, photos and videos to keep the audience engaged. Regardless of the content that you are sharing, you should keep your end goal in mind. This is, the content should either entertain or educate your audience on how your offer will help them.

Strike conversations with your Facebook followers by answering their questions, sharing content from your website and education them about your products or services. Send them to relevant pages on your website and encourage them to subscribe to your email newsletters. You can also offer customer support and general information that your followers may need.

Strive to provide value to your prospects before you start pushing for sales. Providing value consistently will make prospects trust you and warms them up for future sales. Using these techniques should put you on the right track to get more customers using Facebook.