15 Ways to Promote Your Subscription Company with Facebook

Cover photos, interactive posts, sponsored posts and more

Social media marketing is a great way to market your subscription or subscription box company. Earlier this month we showed you ways to use Twitter and Instagram to promote your business. This week we’re going to give you tips and ideas for marketing your subscription company using Facebook.

The Popularity of Facebook

First, let’s consider why Facebook is a key social media platform to target. Take a look at these statistics:

Facebook Login Page–      1.65 billion monthly active Facebook users as of March 31, 2016

–      1.51 billion monthly mobile active Facebook users as of March 31, 2016

–      167 million daily active users in the U.S. and Canada

–      40 million active small business pages as of April 2015

–      66.1 percent of monthly Facebook users visit the site daily

–      The average user spends 20+ minutes on Facebook each day.

–      91 percent of millennials (15-34 year olds) use Facebook.

Put simply, Facebook isn’t just for news feeds, cute cat pictures, Throwback Thursday (#TBT) and catching up with old classmates. More than 40 million small businesses use Facebook as a marketing tool, including subscription and subscription box companies. It is a powerful way to reach your target audience.

 

Subscription Companies on Facebook

The statistics above are impressive, but they don’t tell the full story. Let’s look at subscription companies on Facebook to see how they’re doing:

 

Subscription Company

Number of Likes on Facebook Page

PlayStation

37.9 million

Vogue magazine

7.6 million

Wall Street Journal

4.7 million

BarkBox

2.1 million

MLB Network

1.2 million

SiriusXM

994,259

Match.com

827,330

Salesforce

567,568

Scribd

429,161

Kidpik

351,166

OneDrive

340,562

Angie’s List

200,410

 

This brief list represents a tiny fraction of the subscription companies on Facebook, including streaming video and music services, newspapers and magazines, SaaS, dating services, sports networks, subscription box companies, and much more.

 

Count the Ways

ThumbHere are examples of how subscription companies and subscription box businesses are using the Facebook social media platform to promote their products and services and to serve their subscribers and members.

 

1. Engage your audience with interesting, interactive content. One of the most popular ways to do that is through a quiz. Here is a fun one posted by SiriusXM encouraging fans to test their one-hit wonder knowledge by drawing them back to their blog. 297 people reacted to the post, and 29 people shared it.

Sirius FB Ad

Here’s a similar example from BarkBox. Do you live in a dog-friendly city? 980 people wanted to know.

BarkBox FB 

 

2. Promote your subscription or membership offerings. In this brief post, Eleven James, a watch subscription service, says a lot with only a few lines of text, a handful of hashtags (we recommend you stick to 2 or 3) and some great images of their product.

Eleven James

 

 

Or a simple “ask” with a promo code.

Discount FB

 

3. Provide examples of how your service can improve the lives of your members and subscribers. In this example, Angie’s List offers very practical advice, while driving you back to their website for more info.

 Angies List Service

 

 4. Use Facebook to share customer testimonials, like Match has done with Megan and Brett. Who doesn’t love a happy ending?

 Match Testimonial

 

 

5. Post a branded informational video to show how easy your product is to use. Here Microsoft shows how OneDrive can be used to access data stored in the cloud.

OneDrive Video 

 

6. Announce the launch of your subscription service or new additions to your subscription offerings. Keep it short and sweet, brand the post, and lead fans back to your website or mobile app where they’ll be able to sign up or learn more.

Postmates launch

 

7. Share media coverage award your subscription company, including articles written and awards won. Yes, it is OK to “humble brag” occasionally, as long as you balance that with content that is useful and non-promotional. We like the 80/20 rule – 80 percent information and 20 percent promotion. Too much boasting will get you unfollowed.

Salesforce Media Coverage

 

 

8. Post simple, branded messages like this quote. Use relevant hashtags like #EarthDay so your post will appear in Facebook’s search results.

OneDrive Branding

 

 

 

9. Hitch your wagon to pop culture references to entice fans to read more and to share with their Facebook friends. Just be sure you are following the legal guidelines for fair use and the proper use of a celebrity image (attend our free webinar May 24 to learn more on those topics).

Vogue Ad

 

10. Use Facebook to share important news about your subscription company. Salesforce, for example, posted a brief video to share its amazing first quarter 2016 results. This is a lot more interesting than a straight press release or financial statement, right?

Salesforce News

 

11. Post teasers and trailers early to gauge the interest of fans and subscribers. CBS is remaking the cult classic “Star Trek,” available starting January 2017 only to CBS All Access subscribers. This post went live 22 hours ago, and it has been viewed 463,000 times and had 5,800 reactions from fans. Multimedia posts, in particular, are much more likely to be shared. The only thing we would have done differently is add appropriate hashtags #CBSAllAccess #StarTrek2017 #trailer.

CBS Teaser

 

12. Invest in a sponsored post to help you drill down to a very specific audience with specific attributes: geographic, demographic, keyword, interests, etc. Here are two examples of sponsored posts from subscription companies. Did you know through the power editor, you can target facebook members based on an uploaded list or by visitors to OTHER facebook pages and groups?  

     Sponsored Post  

Martha S

 

 

13. For large subscription companies with distinct audiences, consider creating a separate Facebook page. For example, Washington Post has created a separate page for politics, a smart idea in a presidential election year. This particular page has 338,126 fans; their main Washington Post page has 4,095,296. The L.A. Times has a separate sports page on Facebook for sports fans who may not want breaking news alerts found on their regular page.

Separate Accounts

 

14. Brand your subscription company through your cover photo. The cover photo is a good opportunity to put your best products or services forward visually. We recommend changing the cover periodically, especially if your subscription company is product-based. A word of caution: be sure to follow Facebook’s guidelines for cover photos and business pages, as well as FTC guidelines for fair advertising practices.

Cover Photo

 

15. Customize the Facebook menu (Timeline, About, Call to Action, etc.) below the cover photo to better serve your subscribers. Here Ilbox has added a “Show Now” button as well as a link to their Instagram feed and a sign-up button for their newsletter. Easy to find, easy to use.

Facebook Menu

 

 

Sources:

 Facebook, Company Info., http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/

 By the Numbers: 200+ Amazing Facebook Statistics, April 2016, Expanded Ramblings, http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-17-amazing-facebook-stats/.

 TechCrunch, “Facebook Says There Are Now 40M Active Small Business Pages,” April, 29, 2015, http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/29/facebook-40-million/

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