Building an Engaged Audience for Your Business

From coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants to plumbers, wedding planners, fitness instructors, and graphic designers, businesses of all sizes create jobs and growth in every country. Small and medium-sized businesses have been affected exceptionally hard during this economic crisis and face great challenges to keep their business afloat.

Last week, Facebook launched the ability for businesses, creators, educators, and media publishers to monetize online events on Facebook. Page owners can now create an online event, establish a price, promote the event, collect payment, and host the event all in one place. By combining marketing, payment, and live video, paid online events meet the end-to-end needs for businesses, explains Fidji Simo Vice President and Head of Facebook App. “Pages can host events on Facebook Live to reach broad audiences, and we’re testing paid events with Messenger Rooms for more personal and interactive gatherings. In testing, we’ve seen businesses use Facebook to host expert talks, trivia events, podcast recordings, boxing matches, cooking classes, intimate meet-and-greets, fitness classes and more.”

Social networks enable users to connect with consumers across geographical, political, and economic borders. Approximately 2 billion internet users are using social networks and these figures are still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction. The most popular social networks usually display a high monthly active users (MAU) and strong user engagement. Market leader Facebook is the first social network to surpass 1 billion monthly active users. That’s over 1/8 of all humans on Earth.

In addition, consumer and B2B businesses that host special events or time-sensitive activities can also leverage promotion channels like paid search and social advertising to gain a bigger audience. Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers; speaking directly to the audience through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest can be very impactful. Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and drive many more leads.

Paid online events help businesses connect and engage with customers, generate more revenue, reach a broader audience that is not limited by location, and connect with new customers that may not have been able to connect offline or in-store. Nurturing relationships with prospects and customers through engaging content also creates an opportunity to measure how customer behavior is shifting and adjust accordingly. Now is a great time to review how your business engages with its customers outside of direct transactions.

Many of us have become accustomed to working remotely, attending virtual work meetings and events. Facebook’s Paid Online Events program offers businesses a streamlined new way to provide services and events online, earn income, and connect with consumers in a meaningful way. Businesses need to leverage new tools like this in their digital strategy to stay engaged with their customers and pave the path to a more successful comeback.