7 Ways to Market on Facebook Organically

Organic has become a popular word over the past decade and you will often stumble across organic farms, organic markets and of course organic foods.

The connotation is that organic is good because it is natural and healthy. In the pursuit of health we sometimes take the time to visit health food stores that of course supply organic food and vitamins though I must admit that when I do venture into those places that promise so much health that the clients do tend to look very anaemic and malnourished.. and frankly it is not a good marketing tactic to let people like that grace the aisles as it is not good for branding.

Organic Marketing

The ‘organic’ term is not tossed into the marketing lexicon very often but one phrase that is often used is “word of mouth” and from that phrase has evolved the social media favourite “world of mouth”. These organic drivers of powerful marketing are elements that together contribute to the healthiest marketing campaigns known to commerce and drag another term into the marketers dictionary that is idolized and much sort after and that is the over used term ‘viral’.

Facebook’s Word of Mouth Stories

Facebook thrives on organic marketing and mobilizes and synergizes the best marketing there is, “word of mouth’ with its promise of trust and high engagement. Facebook offers several different paid ways to further drive the organic conversations on the web.

Facebook ‘Ads’, the often talked about social media marketing tactic are targeted at demographics whereas the Facebook ‘Sponsored Stories‘ target ‘Fans’ and ‘Friends of Fans’ and are driven by the organic activity of likes, shares and friends interactions on Facebook.

How Do Facebook Sponsored Stories Work?

Here’s how they work:

Someone likes your Page, interacts with your application, or checks-in to one of your locations
A story about this activity is generated on their friends’ News Feeds, which may or may not be seen
Sponsored Stories increase visibility of these stories by surfacing them on the right column of Facebook pages

What is important to further facilitate this activity is to create an engaging Facebook page and embed ‘Share’ ,’Like’ and ‘Subscribe’ buttons across all your on-line properties.

How Many Types of Facebook Stories are There?

There are seven different types that facilitate various activities of interaction depending what your marketing goals are.

You will notice that six of the seven can target friends of fans and as discussed in a previous post “Is this the Holy Grail of Facebook Marketing” this can be a very powerful channel to drive conversations.

What Can Sponsored Stories Achieve?

These are some of the goals that Facebook’s sponsored stories will help you achieve

Acquire more fans

Run Page Like Stories to amplify the action of someone liking your Page

Engage with more of your fans

Run Page Post Stories, which automatically insert your posts into a sponsored story that is shown to a wider base of your fans

Drive in-store traffic

Use Check-in Stories, which are shown to people when their friends check-in to your business’s location

Increase App engagement

Boost the action of people’s friends using your app or playing your game with App Shared & Game Played Stories

How to Set up your Facebook Stories

The way to set it up Facebook Sponsored Stories is very similar to Facebook Ads and is done on the same page you just select whether you want to run it or a Facebook Ad.

The sponsored story can be capped and further targeted just like a Facebook Ad.

So do you dare try some organic marketing. It maybe worth testing and comparing it to a Facebook Ad and supercharging your earned social media marketing.

Look forward to hearing your stories!

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Image by IvanWalsh.com