So you keep hearing that you need a Facebook fan page for your business but you haven’t quite bit the bullet yet. Or, maybe you have created a Facebook fan page for your business and sort of, well, forgot about it. I am here to tell you that yes, you really need to build your online presence using Facebook, like…really really.
If you aren’t quite ready to commit to it right now, then don’t do it. Starting a fan page and then not doing anything with it can be worse than not having one at all. You don’t want people searching for your page, finding that it is inactive, and then thinking you’re out of business. They’ll move on to the next business to meet their needs.
I am a big fan of using Facebook for free advertising, connecting and communicating with clients, and building an online presence. Did you know that in 2012, Facebook’s network surpassed 955-million users! That’s a crazy amount of potential customers that you can build a relationship with.
Did you know that the average Facebook user has 255 friends? That means, every time a fan interacts with a post on your page, you are potentially reaching an additional 255 people! A page that has 1,330 “Likes” can have more than 339,150 ‘friends of fans’ that you can be reaching! If you aren’t creating content that is relevant and interesting, you’ll lose potential customers. So let’s talk about why you need a presence on Facebook…
- Creates brand awareness.
- Making daily posts keeps your business at the forefront of your customer’s minds.
- Viral Marketing! Those fun daily posts that have nothing to do with your business? Fans will “Share” those posts and bring potential customers to your page!
- Builds a relationship with current customers, reaches new customers, and lets customers get to know your business on a more personal level; people love this!
- Improves customer service.
- Allows you to communicate with customers in a fun and interesting way.
- Increases search engine rankings and traffic to your website.
- But remember, this isn’t a personal Facebook page! You need to pay special attention to your information section, cover image, profile image, and custom tabs. Create a positive image for your business.
Facebook Tips:
- Use this awesome platform to connect with people, don’t be timid; take advantage of what Facebook offers…for FREE!
- If you have a second thought about how a post will come across to your fans, don’t post it! Always think about how your fans might interpret all posts.
- Take time to set up your page, make it easy for customers to understand what you do, what products or services you provide, to contact you, and to find your website.
- Make sure your posts always work to encourage interaction with fans and support what your business stands for. You want fans to like, commenting and share every post!
- Set aside at least one to two hours every day to manage your Facebook page. It is important to respond to fan comments and posts, comment on other pages’ posts and profiles, and let your fans know you are here to engage and connect with them. The bigger the fans base, the more time you need to set aside for the management of your page. Remember, this doesn’t have to be one big block of time, spread out your efforts throughout your workday.
- Keep in mind, your posts should always work towards increasing your Edgerank. Edgerank? What is Edgerank you say? This is an algorithm created by Facebook that determines what content you post will appear on your fan’s News Feed. No one can tell you what your Edgerank is and Facebook constantly changes its policies, but, you can do certain things to increase it so that your posts reach more people.
- -The more a specific fan interacts with your page by liking, commenting, and sharing posts, the more often your posts will appear on that fan’s page.
- Photos and videos carry more weight and are more likely to appear on fans News Feeds than text-only posts. Shares have more weight than comments, and comments have more weight than likes.
- Pages with fewer fans need to be making at least one daily post, pages with several hundred fans need to be making two to four posts a day, and pages with a few thousand fans or more need to be making at least four posts a day. Once you reach a thousand or so fans you’ll see your fan base steadily grow more regularly; this is exciting!
- Now that you know a little about Edgerank, you know that you must create relevant content and posts that encourage your fans to interact with you. If your fans aren’t interacting with your posts by liking, commenting, and sharing, and if you aren’t seeing a steady climb (sometimes at a crawl) in a fan base, then you need to rethink how you’re managing your Facebook page!
Posts You Need to be Making:
- Alternate between the following posts and never ONLY post promotional posts and posts specific to your services or product; fans get annoyed with this.
- Fun photos
- Quotes
- Articles relevant to your industry or fan base.
- Cross posts (share content that others in your industry are posting).
- Questions (ie. ‘What’s your favorite horse product? Please comment below…’)
- Testimonials, share posts by your fans!
- Fun and interesting information about your business that is not generally known by your customers. Are you involved in the community? Do you have fun staff meetings? Share these unique tidbits!
- Do you blog? Where did you feature in an article? On the news? At an event? Share this!
- Promotional and business posts; mix these in with your fun and more general posts.
There is so much more to know about Facebook management, but I hope that this helps you out a bit. Please don’t let this information scare you! Facebook is an awesome tool that you need to take advantage of.
Commit to it and you will see the results in your increased revenue and dedicated customer base! Remember to be patient if you are new to Facebook, it takes time to develop these relationships and build an online presence. Every successful business or organization needs an online presence.
If you’re too busy with the millions of other tasks involved with running a business let me know and we can get you started on a Facebook Management Service Plan. Let me take care of these things for you, it’s my job and I love it!