How To Grow eCom Business with the Facebook Family of Apps

Mari Smith is known as the premier Facebook marketing expert globally and is often referred to as “the Queen of Facebook.” Forbes magazine says, “Even Facebook asks for her help.” Facebook hired Mari to teach businesses and to help create the Blueprint certification programs.

The Facebook family of apps is an essential part of modern eCom marketing. Using these apps correctly can boost your sales significantly. At Billo Summit 2021, Mari Smith went over the best ways to optimize your use of the Facebook family of apps. 

Organic reach is still on the decline. The average reach for a Facebook post is down to 5.2% from 5.5% in 2019 and 7,2% in 2018. There are many ways to reach your audience, both organically and through paid advertisements. A key rule to remember is not to get caught up in proxy metrics. Proxy metrics are reach and impressions. On the Engagement-side proxy metrics are views, comments, shares, likes, clicks, saves, and reactions. 

Business metrics, on the other hand, should demonstrably move the needle to grow your business. The three business metrics are traffic, leads, and sales.  

Success Formula by Mari Smith

Mari Smith’s 3 part success formula for family of apps CEC=R works no matter what. The formula is content + engagement + conversion = results. This formula works no matter the product or service provided. Whether paid or organic, content types will predominantly be video, live, photo, and stories on the Facebook side. For Instagram, the content will include reels, carousel, live, stories, IGTV (with preview), photo(feed), and video(feed).  

Organic reach on Facebook is not dead. Facebook Live is the best-performing content type for Facebook. It has 3 to 6 times more engagement than any other type of content on Facebook. The most crucial part of success on Facebook Live is consistency. You can’t just do one or two lives; you have to do them consistently over an extended period of time to see results. 

There are 2 types of Calls to Action (CTA):

1. Drive to a lead magnet. You can do this by integrating a chatbot;
2. Monetization – Drive to and offer paid partnerships.

Deploy the ‘Mari Method’:

1. Publish a Great Piece of Content

Ideally, a video – make sure it is a native video or Facebook live. Do not use YouTube links. Let it sit for 24 hours to get organic views. After 24 hours, add a little budget to add a CTA button, which could be a ‘Shop Now’ button or a ‘Send Message’ button to gather paid ad views. 

2. Retarget and Expand

Create custom audiences using a video manager with the people that have watched your videos. You should also create website custom audiences and upload segmented customer lists. Run CTA ads to these audiences. Create Lookalike audiences based on your custom audiences. 

While implementing the ‘Mari Method’ to one of the “family of apps” app, remember this key quote – “Content is King, but engagement is Queen, and she rules the house.” – Mari Smith. Engaging with customers will create loyalty. Try to respond to your customers as much as you can. 

Facebook vs. Instagram

Instagram tends to have a more extensive audience base and more engagement than Facebook, yet most brands still post twice as much on Facebook. This may be because it is an all-mobile app. Using apps like Business Suite to schedule your stories and posts can help with consistency.  

Mark Zuckerberg said the future is private and implemented this in his apps with Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram Direct Messages. You can also make stories available to a specific audience. Facebook family of apps allow you to curate your audience.

One of the most important things to do for your brand is to use stories regularly. Remember that top of feed = top of mind. People have short attention spans, and this is a great way to create micro-content. You can have your content seen by more of your audience. Stories can increase your reach significantly. 

On Instagram, the swipe-up feature to attach web links requires you to have 10k followers, but you can link to IGTV no matter how many followers you have. This is a great way to get your content out there and to get more followers. 

Make sure to deselect automatic placements on the Facebook Ads manager. Facebook and Instagram stories ads can be 1-120 seconds long. 

Key Takeaway

Facebook news feed still delivers the best click-through rate out of the Facebook family of apps. 

60% of Facebook ad spend is spent on the feed as it gets the best click-through rate. 

A typical cell phone user touches their phone 2617 times a day. A power user touches their phone 5400 times a day. People love to touch their phones, so give them a reason!