Often we see local businesses starting Facebook pages because they’ve been told by their marketing agency or read online that it’s a good way to get new customers. But more often than not these pages are almost barren and have a handful of likes at most. Using Facebook to promote your local business is different in many ways to using it to promote a website or online service, but you can still use similar tactics.

Obviously the local factor means that the business is generally only targeting people within a particular area. This limits the effectiveness of some methods just as commenting on related groups, as many of them aren’t specific to a location. But it opens up others, such as partnering with other local businesses and running competitions.

One method that I’ve seen work well is for businesses that are related but not in the same niche to work together to cross promote each other both online and offline. For example; we might see that a taxi company can work with a nightclub or a bar. People need taxis to and from these places so both businesses can succeed. As the business owner or marketing agency you can reach out to local businesses and suggest that they post a link to your Facebook page and vice versa.

Pexels Nataliya Vaitkevich

Another thing that local companies can use successfully is local competitions. This could be in the form of a giveaway for those that like and share your page, or a gift for a random customer of the month. If you want to take it to the next level you can run the giveaway and then ask other local businesses to link to your giveaway post in return for you sharing their page.

As a local company you need to try and appeal to the population that your business operates in. If you are based in a low income area then sharing photos and creating content around social welfare may be more appropriate than if you operate in a higher income republican area. You as a business owner know your locale better than most so you should try and appeal to that. Another advantage is that you can use Facebook ads even more specifically, aiming ads only at those within your local area. This can reduce cost greatly in many cases and increase your return on investment. Just make sure that if you’re going to use Facebook to promote your business that you do it properly. It doesn’t have to take long, just a few minutes each day and you’ll be using Facebook better than the large majority of your competitors.