What is Facebook Marketing?
Facebook marketing is simple in concept, but quite difficult in execution. The idea is to use the social connections presented to you by the platform to reach out to customers and promote your company. While at one time it might have been easy to purchase ads on the sidebar and let it do it’s thing, the atmosphere has changed. Nowadays, Facebook marketing means creating a business page, keeping in touch with your current customers and clients, connecting with other related businesses and opening up to new customers.
Facebook is an excellent tool for marketing because of how direct the connection between business and customer is. However, therein lies the risk. One wrong move, one offensive post or misstep can cost your business its reputation and consumer base. There are rules that should be followed. A business page on Facebook shouldn’t be treated like a personal page, but it still needs to have a personal connection. After all, if people didn’t care about the personal, social touch a Facebook page offers, they’d bookmark your company site or blog and read that instead.
Why use Facebook for Marketing?
Facebook marketing opens up broad new avenues for your business, no matter what it is. Whether you’re selling a product or service, your potential customers are almost guaranteed to be on Facebook. Through the power of social networking you can encourage your customers to recommend you to their friends, and help broaden your network and influence. Done right, a Facebook page for your business can drastically increase revenues, productivity and success.
Tips for Facebook Marketing Expand your network.
- You can create a Facebook page and let it sit, but that won’t do you much good. It’s better to reach out to people and network with them. Actively seek out new potential customers and clients. Ask for likes and support. Your fans are your lifeline, so always seek out ways to entice more of them to become Facebook friends.
- Don’t forget about media. Your wall is an excellent place to post short bits of text and links, but it’s better to use Facebook’s own system for pictures and video rather than posting them on your own wall. Don’t forget to fill out all the extra info tabs either! Your profile needs to be fleshed out with keyword-rich but non-spammy information, both for search indexing and for an atmosphere of effort and competence.
- Reward your fans. Whether it’s as simple as a special landing page, or as valuable as prize offerings, giving your customers a reason to ‘like’ your page and support your site is invaluable. Many people will do nothing without incentive, so give them that incentive.
- Encourage community interaction. Ask questions, and invite your customers to share their answers.
- Give prizes or don’t, the important part is that you’re asking. Just don’t stray too far. Keep your posts at least somewhat related to your brand, product or service.
- Celebrate when you reach certain milestones. Again, you can offer rewards if they help, but at least acknowledge your fans when you reach a thousand, or ten thousand of them. Make them feel appreciated and they will in turn appreciate you. Even if it’s just a message thanking them for their support, it’s better than nothing.
- Don’t just rack up your fans, put them to use. Once you have your audience you need to do something with them. Encourage them to purchase products or services. Invite them to events you host. The applications are endless, once you have your fans gathered together.
- The first major mistake you need to avoid is what professionals call ‘broadcasting.’ Broadcasting is when your posts tend to be more advertisement than social connection. The benefit of Facebook is the direct connection to your customers.It’s an opportunity to interact with them. If all you ever do is post impersonal advertisements and links to your products/blog/site/whatever, you’re wasting the benefit of the platform.
- Secondly, you need to take your time. As with any project, effective use of time can make or break your success. Facebook is not a platform where you can throw up a short post once a week and forget about it. Again, it’s all about the social interaction. If you don’t spend the time interacting with your customers, you’ll find your page losing support. No one likes to feel ignored.
- Violating Facebook’s terms of service is also a quick way to get your page shut down, and your customer base ruined. Facebook has rules about tagging people, running contests, and even the type of page you use to network. Make sure you use a business page rather than a personal page, don’t tag people without their permission, and keep an eye on the terms of service.
Facebook marketing is a powerful tool when used correctly. As long as you avoid the common pitfalls, it can be an amazing asset. Just put the time into it and reap the rewards.
What’s New in Facebook?
In March 2012, Facebook overhauled its pages, these are the pages that feature information about your company, or organization. The new look allows you to add a unique cover photograph to brand your page. This is, in effect, a banner image that lies behind your profile photograph. Although it cannot be used as an advertisement, it can be used to give a look and feel to your page that plays to your branding.
When there is a post you want to highlight, for instance when someone is saying something wonderful about your company, you can now star it, making it expand across the page. This will draw attention to it.
You can also “pin” new posts to the top of your page each week. This will allow you to highlight important things you want your “friends” to take note of.
Milestones allow you to point people to major events in the history of your company and highlight them in a similar way to starring them.
The new Facebook pages offer a great way to connect with your customers, and potential customers, check them out at www.facebook.com/about/pages.
SM4SB-%20Social-Media-for-Small-Business%20-Book-2.pdf
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