Do you use social media platforms like Facebook to connect with friends and family? It turns out that social media can also be a great place to connect with clients!
You can promote your animation business and find new clients all from the social media platforms you most likely already use. Is it really effective, though?
When it comes to marketing, any social platform like Facebook can turn into a consistent source of income. With more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the perfect place to find animation clients, as long as you market your animation services strategically.
This all sounds amazing to anyone looking to grow their client base, but you might not know where to start. If that sounds like you, keep reading this blog post.
We put together 9 effective ways to get Facebook animation clients for free.
1) Optimise Your Facebook Page
Image by Austin Distel via Unsplash
To get animation clients from Facebook, you need to start with the basics.
Your Facebook profile photo, cover image, and bio are what will give clients their first impression of your business. Once you have those sorted out, make sure to add links to your website and other social media channels.
Next, let people know of your presence on Facebook by linking your Facebook page to your email signature, portfolio, website, and social media accounts.
2) Promote Your Facebook Page Using Your Personal Account
If you want to get attention on your business page, start by hacking your own audience! Take advantage of your personal Facebook account by promoting your business’ page on your timeline and asking friends to share your post.
One of the most effective ways to immediately increase your Facebook page reach, likes, and comments is to share your Facebook Page post on your personal account.
Your Facebook friends are more likely to share, react to, and comment on your Facebook page post, which will organically increase followers and engagement.
You can also get right to the point by inviting your Facebook friends to like and follow your business’ page. The bigger your friends list, the greater the visibility of your page and your posts.
3) Post Valuable Content
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This might go without saying, but: you need to post valuable content if you want people to actually follow your business page.
Your goal here is to post consistent, high quality content that your followers will be inclined to like, share, and comment on.
Posting legitimate content will connect you more with your audience and let them see you as a good person to know in the industry. If you want to shake it up, you can also post some interesting news, quotes, statistics, videos of your own animations.
Remember to add calls-to-action to your posts to encourage your audience to engage with you and do something that will benefit your animation business.
4) Share Emotional Images and Videos
Popular Facebook pages share a lot of visual content like images, videos, and graphics along with text-heavy posts.
For example, take a look at Adobe’s Facebook page. Adobe is an American multinational computer software company, but they are able to make relatable and appealing posts that their followers can actually connect with.
By posting illustration tips, inspiring quotes, amazing artists and their work, online courses, and more, they are giving their followers a reason to keep following them.
Another page to emulate is L.L. Bean, an American retail company for outdoor clothing. They post about their events and share interesting photos and videos of their products.
They mix their product promotions with their non-promotional content so well that it makes their online L.L. Bean community look and feel authentic. If you want to build relationships with your followers on Facebook, the best way to do that is to provide more value than just promotional content.
Usually, visual content mixed that plays on your audience’s emotions will get you more engagements and followers.Whenever you post or repost something, make sure it’s amusing, surprising, heartwarming, or inspiring.
5) Join Facebook Groups
GIF by Kim’s Convenience via GIPHY
According to digital marketing master Melyssa Griffin, a killer way to widen your reach and find clients is to join Facebook groups where your ideal client goes online. For example, if you want to make animated videos for restaurants, you might want to join Facebook groups for food business owners.
Rather than promoting your animation business every day, it’s better to become a friendly presence in these groups by commenting or answering members’ questions in the group.
This will show group members your knowledge and skills in animation and might get them to check out your profile or page.
You can also add links to your website and portfolio at the end of your comments.
According to Nesha Woolery, Facebook groups made it easy and fun to find her target clients and connect with them. The more she contributed to the conversations, the more people got in touch and recommended her to others. Engagement breeds engagement!
6) Post Regularly at the Best Times
GIF by Comedy Central via GIPHY
Having a consistent online presence on Facebook is important. Even if you post a simple quote of a statistic about animation, your followers and Facebook friends will still see your brand name and logo, keeping you at the top of their minds, and the algorithm favors regular posters
Impact says that the best times to post on Facebook are on Wednesdays from 11am-2pm, suggesting that users tend to check Facebook during their lunch breaks. Weekends have the lowest engagement rate. Periods before 7am and 5pm have the least amount of engagement every day.
7) Pin Facebook Posts
A pinned post is a post that you “pin” on the top of your Facebook page. It’s the first post people will see whenever they visit your page. You can change your pinned post whenever you like.
Important news and interesting articles related to animation, your website’s blog posts, and a showcase of a recent animated video you created for a client are all great candidates for becoming your pinned post.
8) Use a Facebook Messenger Chatbot
Wish you could speak directly to potential clients and tell them why you’re the best? You can! Simply use your business page to create a messenger conversation with anyone you think might like to know about your services.
According to Review42, there are more than 1.3 billion Messenger users and more than 300,000 active bots worldwide.
You’ll want to stay on top of this, though. Don’t simply start a conversation and then dip out! Research shows that Facebook users expect businesses to respond immediately after they message them.
9) Get Insights From Facebook Analytics
Image by NeONBRAND via Unsplash
Analytics are your BFF! To get more animation clients, you will need to use Facebook Analytics to track and measure your posts’ performance. This will help you see what worked, what didn’t, and how you can improve the kind of content that you put out.
Facebook Analytics will help you measure likes, reach, engagement, and more. It will also keep track over time so that you can compare numbers and notice trends in your engagement and other areas of measure.
Wrapping It Up
If you want to widen your reach and get more animation clients online for free, Facebook is a great place to start. Trust us; if it weren’t effective, brands and businesses wouldn’t be using it!
To reach and get animation clients from Facebook, make sure you post valuable and engaging content, post at the best times of the week and the day, and offer help as much as you can to potential clients both on and off your own page.
It may seem time-consuming, but if you put effort into your Facebook marketing, you will surely gain success in getting animation clients and start earning in no-time.
If you’d like to read more about managing your freelance animation career and learning about the business of animation, make sure you sign up for our free masterclass and our free marketing handbook.