At last count, Facebook had over 350 million users, and this number is continuing to grow. It overtook MySpace as the Number One social networking website on the planet last year and is just behind Google when it comes to online traffic. Put your hand up if you aren’t using Facebook as part of your marketing strategy. Hopefully there aren’t too many hands.
In today’s world of social media you can’t afford not to have a business Facebook page. With the statistics I’ve just given you there really is no excuse. However, what I often hear people asking are how do I use it and what do I do?
Well one of the most important things to remember with any social media tool is they aren’t there for making blatant sales pitches. They are there to be used as a way to build relationships. That’s not to say you can’t sell your business via these mediums, but you need to be subtle in the way you go about it and there are a few different methods you can use:
- Interact with your followers. Chat with them. Offer solutions to their problems.
- Engage them by asking leading questions and getting them to enter discussions with you on topics related to your industry.
- Post links to interesting blogs or websites that could be useful or helpful to them.
The aim is to be helpful and genuine and build up a reputation as being an expert in your field. A full on sales pitch will turn people off and they may even give you bad reports elsewhere, so be careful when directly promoting your products and services. Try offering teasers to products or some free information – everyone loves to think they are getting something for free.
So what is a Facebook page and how do you use it? On its website Facebook describes Pages as “a public Profile that enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users.” The best feature of a Page is that users can become a Fan of your page when visiting. The advantage of this, of course, is that it updates their wall with the fact that they have become a fan, which in turn notifies all their friends on Facebook. The benefit of this to you is that this then becomes free marketing. On many occasions people will click on the links of things their friends have become fans of purely out of interest. What a great way to generate traffic to your page without costing you a cent. Remember though that you need to engage them in the first place. Give them a reason to become a fan.
Another great feature is the Event tab. If you’re offering a service of some description and you want to give people a ‘Try Before You Buy’ experience you could create an event on Facebook such as a webinar. This is an online meeting or presentation that anyone can join. Distance is no object and your attendees could be based anywhere in the world. Market this as a ‘Free to Attend Event’ and before you know it the event becomes viral and you’ve got yourself in front of a market you never even knew existed. Just make sure you advertise the World Time Zone you are located in beforehand.
Last but not least there is the option of Facebook advertising which works in a similar way to Google Adwords. You can choose to do PPC (pay per click) or CPM (by page impressions). The beauty of this is that you can be very targeted with where your advert appears. For our American Academy of Wedding and Event Planning Facebook Page we chose to advertise to females in the US. The criteria we chose were:
- Graduated from college
- Interested in weddings
- Looking to start their own business
This limits the number of clicks you have and targets your traffic accordingly. On top of this you can also set your own daily expenditure limit in the same way as you can with your Google Adwords campaign.
My final advice on using social media of any kind is to be strict with the amount of time you spend on it. Set yourself a specific time of the day when you will work on your Blog, Twitter or Facebook and stick to it. Otherwise you will find yourself whiling away hours of doing nothing, as all these mediums are very addictive.
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laikolosse)
Kylie Carlson has spent the last 15 years in business both in Australia and the UK, working around the world as director of the Australian Academy of Wedding and Event Planning. Her experience includes planning events for multi-national companies. She has guest lectured at several TAFEs and done many public speaking engagements under her pseudonym of 'A Mumpreneur'. She currently has offices in London, New York and Melbourne. www.amumpreneur.com.au and www.aawep.com.au
