Facebook Marketing for Doulas and Birth Professionals

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Social media for your business takes time and energy. Many birth pros will find that their ideal clients spend a lot of time on Facebook. However, it's not easy to crack the code of Facebook marketing. Although the following changes are not necessarily quick and easy, making an effort to implement them will help you streamline your process and save you time, not only on Facebook, but on your other marketing platforms too. It will take consistent action on your part, but I hope you find these social media marketing strategies helpful to build an online community that helps you earn more business.

Before you begin defining your Facebook marketing strategies, here are some points to consider:

As with other types of marketing, you want people to get to know, like and trust you. To do that, focus on your audience’s needs; when it comes to working with you, what’s in it for them?
Identify your ideal client – create a picture of who you want to work with. What do they want to know? What problems are they facing? What other interests do they have?
Place most of your focus on one social media platform at a time – the one your ideal client uses most. For most people, it will likely be Facebook.
Social media can help you position yourself as a go-to person in your community and familiarize people with your brand.
Social media is not about broadcasting what you’re selling; the goal is to connect with people and to give a lot more than you take. Remember, people need to know, like and trust you before they will want to buy from you.

With these ideas in mind here are 11 ways to build engagement, save time, and take consistent action on Facebook:

Determine your ideal social media sharing ratio

Many people go to social media for news and information. Become a reliable source of valuable information that speaks to your ideal client. If the majority of your social media updates say, "Sign up for my upcoming class," you're not going to attract many new followers. Instead, make your Facebook page a place where women can find out what's happening in their community, read funny memes, moving birth stories or thought-provoking quotes, watch impactful videos, and find information that directly benefits their experience during pregnancy, birth and beyond. So, before you begin creating or looking for content to share with your audience, decide on an ideal sharing ratio for posting other people's articles (curated content), your own blog posts and promotions. Your Facebook sharing ratio may be different from someone else's but a good rule of thumb is to share more curated content than your own. Buffer wrote a great article about ideal ratios and shared methods suggested by different social media pros. I like the 30/60/10 rule – 30% of my content, 60% curated content, and 10% promotional content. Try a couple methods to see what works best for you.

Create a social media plan for sharing content

When you've decided on an ideal sharing ratio, the next step is to create a plan of what you're going to post and when. Use a variety – Facebook videos (rather than YouTube), images or memes, links, and text-only posts such as questions or personal updates. Mix in your own blog posts to share so you are letting people know about your own content.

Decide how many times per day to send updates and what to post each day. If you create a master social media plan that tells you what kind of content to post on which day and what time, you will find it is faster to plan a week worth of posts. For example, you might share one article about pregnancy, one about comfort measures during labor, and meme with a birth affirmation. Map out the themes you want to focus on, and that will help you know what to search for. If you want to collect links throughout the week and post everything at the same time, create a social media editorial calendar in Excel and organize by date and time according to your planner. You can write your descriptions at the same time you add the links or come back later and write them in batches.

Easily find content to share on Facebook

For curating content, use Facebook as your page and like relevant pages. Find pages of complementary practitioners and colleagues in your community in addition to pages of people who share good links, videos, images, and memes that are relevant to your audience. Once you have liked several pages, you can then view your Facebook page’s newsfeed to find content to share. Definitely share links that have generated a lot of shares and likes for others (if those posts are a good fit for your audience). Also go ahead and tag the pages you have shared from, especially if you are sharing content from local businesses. They will see you have shared their page and will likely check out your page too.

Three more places to easily find content to share

More on curating content – subscribe to your favorite blog’s RSS feeds through Feedly to access new posts all in one place. If you use Twitter, sign up with Nuzzel to receive digests via email with all the links the people you’re following are sharing. A third source of great content is Pinterest.

Connect with other local businesses and become referral partners

Collaborate and coordinate events together, and share each other’s events, promotions, and encourage your audience to like your referral partners. If you participate in baby fairs and other community events, share the Facebook pages of the organizers or the event. If you are starting out and are unsure about how to connect with local businesses, one way to get on some companies' radar, jump on Facebook and look for ones you want to connect with. Like them, share content of theirs that your target market would like, and comment on their pages and tag them.

Schedule your Facebook posts in advance

Use Facebook’s scheduler or a service like Buffer. A benefit of using Buffer is that you can schedule the same article to post on your other social media channels too. There is a limit to the number of posts you can schedule with Buffer’s free version, but there is a $10/month service that opens up more social media networks and increases the number of posts you can schedule.

If you blog and want to continually share your blog posts, a scheduler like SmarterQueue can do what Buffer does as well as re-share your blog posts automatically.

Use Facebook ads

Understand that only a small percentage of people will actually see what you post on your Facebook page, and that’s especially true for your own blog posts and promotions. To see more reach for your own content, consider setting up a paid Facebook ad or occasionally boosting a post. Be sure to target people in your immediate community, with your ideal client’s age range and interests. Set a budget, even if it’s $3-5 per week. Experiment and adjust.

Track your social media analytics

Consistently monitor your Facebook insights and Google Analytics to see what’s working and what’s not. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments as needed. Continue to read up on best practices to improve your marketing.

Respond, appreciate and interact with your audience

Schedule a block of time each day to respond to comments and questions from your audience on your Facebook page. To keep you on task so you don't get sucked down the rabbit hole, use a timer so you can get on, do your thing, then get off. I like using a Pomodoro Timer, where I do tasks in batches and take short breaks in between. You may also want to create a Facebook group for moms in your area, to help moms connect and to be a resource to them. You can start a group by inviting people from your Facebook page, your email list, your current and past clients, and your professional referral network.

Interact with the birth community on Facebook

Schedule another block of time a few times a week to connect with other birth professionals on Facebook. Use Facebook as your page and browse your page's newsfeed. Comment and like posts as your page, and you may find more visitors to your own page.

Let people know where they can connect with you online

Make sure links to your social media platforms are on your website, brochures, business cards and in your email signature. In your email newsletters, tell your readers to connect with you on social media, and give them links to follow. Mention your Facebook page and link to it in your blog posts. Be sure you have social media buttons on your website.

Do you have tips to share on Facebook (or other social media) marketing? Join me and the members of the Inspired Birth Pros group on Facebook and jump in on the discussion.

Additional Resources to Help with Social Media

Free Social Media Planning Calendar – A simple calendar you can use to plan out what you're going to post on social media.

Birth Pro Blogger Business Bestie Brainstorm – Another free resource. This workbook is tremendously helpful for anyone thinking about blogging for their birth business, but it is also helpful for anyone who wants to get to know their business best friend (BBF) and needs help with figuring out what kind of content to share on their Facebook pages.

Design Your Social Media Plan – Here's a more extensive product to help you plan your social media editorial calendar.

Savvy Doula Content & Promotion Planner – This planner encompasses more than just social media. Distill your monthly and weekly content for social media, blogging, live streaming and email with this planner.