Do you have a Facebook page for your business? If not, why not? It’s an easy marketing tool to implement and
the cost to you is the cost of maintaining it (posting and responding to
posts). Think of it as an alternative to
expensive print or television advertisements.
Facebook has more than 850 million users as of 2012. If you just tap into a small percentage of
those users and get them interested in your business, think what it could mean
for your business. Currently, I am
reading a book entitled Likeable
Social Media by Dave Kerpen. It
is a great little book about how to use social media for your business.
Kerpen discusses the fact that most companies use their
Facebook page to spout at their customers rather than engaging their customers
in conversation. He suggests engaging
them in conversation about almost anything whether related to your business or
not. The idea is to make them post on
your website in an authentic way because as they do, it shows up on their news
feed and their friends (potential new friends for your company). The more often your business name shows up,
the more likely it is to be remembered. Showing up in people’s news feed also
provides you an opportunity to convert them to “friends” by liking your page. Once they are friends and if you can get them
to talk to you, your business name is spread further (on their news feed) when
they communicate with you.
So, how do you engage your Facebook friends as a
business? Say you had a home-cleaning business,
you might post cleaning or organizing tips.
Take advantage of holidays for making suggestions. Or, you might ask about their favorite
activities once they have all their cleaning chores done. The point is to get them to post on your page
and build an online community so they respond to you and talk to one
another.
Build the number of friends you have by asking people to
like your page on all of your print materials, by posting a friendly sign on
your front counter if your customers frequent your establishment that asks them
to “like” you (your business) on Facebook, and in every electronic
communication (email, blog posting, etc.).
Hold contests to increase the number of “friends” you have on
Facebook. Kerpen gives a great example
of a restaurant who did this by offering a free appetizer to anyone who shared
its Facebook page with their friends and asked them to like the restaurant’s
page and if the restaurant’s friend total reached a goal of ______ number of
friends, all of the friends would get a free appetizer. This contest resulted in an increase in
patronage to the restaurant as “friends” came to take advantage of their free
appetizer but they also ordered additional food and beverages.
Don’t be afraid of negative comments but do respond to them
quickly. Apologize, if possible, and
tell them you will communicate with them off-line through personal email and
then do so. Take steps to follow up and
correct the problem.
Check out Kerpen’s book.
It has some great tips, and get going with building your own Facebook
community.
