How to Get Clients on Facebook: Manual Outreach, Networking, and Paid Ads

If you’re a freelancer looking for new opportunities, finding clients on Facebook is definitely something worth exploring. To find potential clients on the platform, you have two practical options: 1) manual outreach via Facebook groups and networking and 2) paid ads. Just like with anything good in life, both require time and effort but can bring fruitful results when approached with consistency and creativity. 

P.S. We have a Facebook ad expert joining us today, stay tuned! 

Facebook groups and networking

Finding clients manually via Facebook groups can be a good way to start, especially when you’re not ready to invest money in paid ads yet. You need to know which groups to join, how to find them, and what to do when you’re in. I’m going to guide you through the process with an example. Let’s say you’re a web developer searching for gigs. Here’s what you can do. 

1. Understand your target audience. A common mistake many freelancers make is joining groups like “Copywriters, Content Writers, & Content Marketers” or “Web Designers” — communities with large numbers of people from your industry. Sure, there will be job postings there. But are you willing to be a part of cut-throat competition for a potential gig? 

‍It’s important to ask yourself, “Who am I trying to reach, and who would be interested in my services?” As a web designer, the answer would probably be entrepreneurs and business owners. 

Generally, you don’t want to join communities that are public — chances are, there will be tons of scammers, junk, and self-promotion publications. This is not where your target audience spends their time. When it comes to finding clients on Facebook organically, just like with LinkedIn, it’s all about networking. So, how do you find the right groups to start building meaningful relationships? 

2. Separate the wheat from the chaff. Prepare to get your hands dirty because you’ll need to join many-many groups from which you’ll eventually pick about 5-10 good ones. Think about the keywords relevant for your search.  

If I were a web developer, I’d search by using keywords like “small business owners,” “etsy sellers,” “startup founders, ” etc. If you’re looking for local customers, type in keyword + state/city/country. Here are some of the groups I would join to test the waters: 

• Small Business Owners
• Small Business Owners New Zealand
• The Founders Exchange ~ Startup Founder | Co-founder | Angel Investors
• Modern E-Commerce Shopify Help & Support

3. You’re in, what’s next? The process of discovering the right groups can take a while. You might end up realising the groups you’ve chosen are not a good fit. In that case, I’d recommend using Facebook recommendations on top of the simple search for more options. 

‍If you’ve found the right communities, now is your chance to get to know your target audience better. It makes sense to simply check the groups you’ve joined for a week or two. See how the members interact with each other, what they typically post and comment, and what kinds of publications get the most engagement. By following the activity in your test groups, you can identify the problems your potential customers encounter.

4. Now, how do you find clients? First off, please, read group rules before posting anything. Some don’t allow direct promotion and, to be fair, it’s not the best tactic anyways. 

What you want to do is build an expert image within the community and network. Do that by consistently adding value to other people’s posts — help solve other members’ problems by giving advice and sharing your experience. 

Join meaningful conversations in the comments first. Remember, you don’t want to sell anything directly. Ideally, clients will come to you after seeing your expert comments or receiving advice and help from you — it takes time to get there, though. 

5. Create a referral network. Word of mouth still works best. Connect with professionals from other industries so you can refer to each other. For example, as a web developer, you can have a wide network consisting of graphic designers, software engineers, digital marketing professionals, copywriters, social media managers and more. Those could be people from your previous projects, ex-classmates, ex-colleagues, etc. You can tag and recommend each other whenever you see the right opportunity — on Facebook and beyond. Besides, you should always mention you’re open to new projects whenever you offboard a happy client. 

6. Review your Facebook profile. This one is pretty obvious — make sure your profile looks professional. Delete/make private anything that may potentially look bad from a client’s perspective, switch to professional mode, or create a brand new profile even. The beauty of Facebook is that there is no expiration date on the things you post on your page. You don’t have to constantly stay active and publish every day, unlike on Instagram or TikTok. There is also almost no risk of people unfriending you because you haven’t posted in a while. In fact, the amount of friends you have on Facebook is irrelevant. Your posts should reflect your professionalism and be on brand, whatever it is — when you’re active in your target Facebook groups, colleagues and prospects may want to check out your profile. Your page expert content can be a factor contributing to getting clients on Facebook. 

If you want to go a step further and optimize your client search, it can be a good idea to try out paid ads. In the next chapter, Anna and I will cover how to make your ad investments worthwhile.  

Finding new clients with Facebook ads 

With Facebook Ads, your targeting is more precise, helping you reach your ideal audience faster. Unlike manual outreach, ads require significantly less time. You set them up once and optimize based on performance and insights. Running ads from a business page looks more professional, adding credibility to your image. It all sounds great, but Facebook ads come with many nuances. It’s easy to get lost in all the different settings and ad types the platform has to offer. I’ve invited Anna Markowska, a Digital Marketing Manager at Agreena, to share her Facebook ads insights. Anna has over 9 years of hands-on industry experience, running large campaigns across platforms, including Facebook.According to Anna, there are four major points to consider before starting:

1. Is your target audience active on Facebook? Facebook demographics have been shifting, so research whether your potential customers are still using the platform. Besides, it’s important to know who your potential clients are so that you can set up your ad targeting accordingly.

2. There are many ways to convert users with Meta, but websites and landing pages still are the best practice.

Make sure you have Meta Pixel in place, which is a piece of code you put on your website. It allows you to track what your target audience does after clicking your Facebook ad. Not only does it provide invaluable insights on your campaign performance, it also allows the Facebook algorithm to learn from data received and achieve better marketing results for you.There are many resources on the Internet to dive deeper into the topic; you can start with this video, for instance. 

{{Anna Markowska}}

3. Determine how much you can realistically spend and set a daily budget cap so you don’t accidentally spend way over what you can afford. It also gives you the flexibility to adjust as you go based on performance. 

4. Keep it simple. The main recommendation for beginners would be to start small and build up from there as you gain more experience. Avoid automated features like "Magic Audience" — manual setup is the most insightful. 

Manual setup tips

So, what settings should you use to start a Facebook campaign? Well, it depends. Here’s a breakdown of the key features you should focus on: 

1. Campaign objective. There are six of them on Facebook: awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion, and sales. I’m not going to cover them all today, but for a small business, it makes sense to stick to leads and sales. 
2. Performance goals. Each campaign objective has their sets of performance goals. You can read more about it here. 

3. Budget & schedule. With Facebook ads, you can go as low as $1 per day. There are many ways to set a budget in Meta ads. You can have a daily cap, campaign cap and many more options. The budget can be dictated by the audience size once the targeting is in place. You can look up industry standard cost per conversion to also predict what spend is relevant for your business. 

 As you run a campaign, the Facebook algorithm collects tons of data, which is beneficial to store in one campaign. Opt for a daily budget instead of a lifetime budget. When you select a daily budget, you can run your campaign basically forever, adjusting and optimizing based on the outcomes.

{{Anna Markowska}}

‍An example of a three-step Facebook ad campaign

Let’s say you have a shoe store. Here’s how Anna would approach Facebook ads in that case:

1. Research the target audience and set your budget. Do several rounds of ads. Start with an awareness campaign. The goal is to get exposure aka reach and impressions. Blast those shoes everywhere all over potential clients’ feed so they see it as much as possible for at least a month.

2. Next step: retarget that audience and create a consideration campaign. These customers are a bit more warmed up and potentially more likely to buy. Analyze what’s stopping them from buying those shoes — speak to your customers, hire a test group and interview them, and do a survey. They might think the shoes are nice but they’re too expensive. You create a campaign and answer the pain point by setting the prices for those who saw your ads 20% lower. The goal of the consideration campaign is to get engagement and traffic to your shop. 

3. Finally, you retarget that group with a conversion campaign. Normally, you would have a tracking setup in place to monitor which potential customer clicked which shoes on your website. Based on the website analytics, you then retarget them by showing them the exact shoes they clicked and offering an even bigger discount or showing them a well-known relevant influencer wearing those shoes, something that will really tip them over that "Buy now" button. 

4. You measure campaign success by the amount of shoes bought. In other cases, it could be, for example, the amount of customers who purchased your services/filled in a form on your website/etc.

How to make potential clients click on your ad

Using the example with a freelance web developer, here are some ideas for your first Facebook campaign. 

1. Don’t sell — offer value instead. Instead of directly promoting your work with the first round of ads, try creating a lead magnet — a valuable piece of content/free service to attract prospects in exchange for their contact information, typically email address. 

2. Decide on the lead magnet format. Remember it has to be relevant to your target audience and easy to consume. 

• Free website audit 
• Professional HTML web page template 
• Short free consultation 
• Personalized video review of the potential client’s website
• Free mini-course on website creation

Quality lead magnets that solve your target audience’s pain points can boost your professional image and bring in leads. 

3. Work on nurturing leads. Use marketing automation platforms like Mailchimp, Drip or Kit (formerly ConvertKit) to collect and manage emails. You can both retarget prospects via Facebook and send email newsletters with useful content, case studies and offers. 

As you can see, it all comes down to building trust and meaningful relationships with your target audience. Once potential clients know you’re an expert, they will be more likely to place an order with you.

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That was it for today. Whether you decide to approach client search manually via Facebook groups and networking or utilising Facebook ads, remember to stay consistent, track your progress and make flexible adjustments. Build trust and offer value to stand out in the crowd. Good luck!