05
MayHelping Small Businesses Succeed in a Mobile World

Published by: Facebook South Africa April 10th 2017
Furniturespot, an online platform that connects local furniture makers to sell bespoke furniture, also uses Facebook to advertise. "Three quarter of our website traffic comes from Facebook, delivering 65% growth month-on-month,” says owner, Wouter van Bockel. "Facebook is a powerful tool for building a community.”
Helping Small Businesses Succeed in a
Mobile World
Facebook has reached the milestone of more than 5 million
advertisers, with more and more small businesses worldwide and in South Africa
turning to Facebook and Instagram to help them grow. In addition, Facebook now
has more 65 million businesses using Facebook Pages and 8 million with
Profiles on Instagram.
"We need to invest in the future of small businesses because they
are the engine of economic growth in South Africa,” says Abi Williams,
Facebook’s Sales Manager for Small and Medium Businesses in Middle East, Turkey
and Africa. "Our Future of Business Survey shows small businesses want to
create new jobs in the next six months. Giving them the ability to take mobile,
personalised marketing to our global community will help them unlock their
potential and reach new markets.”
With Facebook and Instagram, small businesses can:
SAVE TIME AND SEE WHAT’S WORKING
With the Ads Manager App, small businesses can manage ads and get
insights in just a few taps. They can see at a glance how their ads for Pages
are performing, or see a snapshot of how their ad account performed this week
compared to the previous week. Improved navigation allows them easily switch
between their accounts and Pages. They can even select up to five ads and
compare them side by side.
The app now recommends actions advertisers can take
to increase ad performance—and makes it easy for them to do so in one
click. For example, Facebook will notify the advertiser when a high performing
ad is about to end and offer one-click option to extend the schedule for
another one, three or seven days.
GET CREATIVE
Facebook’s Mobile Studio is a new way
to show businesses how easy it is to create great ads using only a mobile
device. All businesses can improve their creative, and ultimately, the efficacy
of their ads with mobile apps and tools—and with Mobile Studio, they’ll learn
to do them things in minutes. These important tips to help bring
businesses to life without eating up time, energy or resources.
LEARN NEW SKILLS
Blueprint eLearning courses give
businesses the power to learn best practices for advertising on Facebook's
family of apps and services at their own pace. The online education platform is
available in ten languages and today more than 1 million unique
users, half being small businesses, use Blueprint.
Some top courses include, Facebook Terminology, A/B Testing, and
Successful Campaigns Best Practices. In fact, almost 2.5 million eLearning
courses have been taken by people across more than 150 countries, and 50%
of total course enrolments are taken by small or medium business owners
and employees.
COMMUNICATE WITH CUSTOMERS
Responding to customers quickly is key to delivering good customer
service but it can be hard for small businesses to keep up with the volume of
communications. In November 2016, Facebook announced (https://www.facebook.com/business...) a single inbox to
manage communications across Facebook, Messenger and Instagram within the Pages
Manager App. It is expanding these capabilities to desktop.
FIND NEW CUSTOMERS, NEAR AND FAR
Facebook has made it easier to run global campaigns from anywhere,
with new solutions that help businesses connect with new customers:
- International
Lookalikes can help businesses find new people that look like
their best customers in other countries.
- Worldwide/Global
Region targeting can help businesses set up
a global campaign and find efficient conversions.
- Country
Snapshots and Insights Playbook can help
businesses create customised campaigns in each country.
Natural hair treatments company, Afro Botanics, is one example of
a small South African business that is enjoying strong return on investment
from Facebook advertising. "Facebook is only social channel we use to
build traffic and grow our fan base,” says founder, Ntombenhle Khathwane. "Our
video engagements on Facebook have really helped us to grow our business and
attract new customers.”
Furniturespot, an online platform that connects local furniture
makers to sell bespoke furniture, also uses Facebook to advertise. "Three
quarter of our website traffic comes from Facebook, delivering 65% growth
month-on-month,” says owner, Wouter van Bockel. "Facebook is a powerful tool
for building a community.”
ENDS.
Published on:
IT NEWS AFRICA
Helping small
businesses succeed in a mobile world
· Republished IT News
Africa: The African Info;
DIGITAL STREET SA
Helping Small Businesses
Succeed in a Mobile World
· Republished Digital
Street SA : South Africa News
Today
BIZCOMMUNITY
Facebook helps
SMMEs to unlock potential, grow
· Republished
Bizcommunity: Mobile World Mag
BUSINESS REPORT
Facebook boasts 5
million advertisers
· Republished
Reuters: Business Day; New Age North
West; New Age Business; New Age Free
State; Pretoria News
Business Report; The Mercury
Business Report; The Star Business
Report; Cape Times
Business Report;