The Secret of Small Business Social Media – You Must be Present to Win
March 4th, 2010 by
One of the questions we hear from pretty much every client is “Should we be on Facebook?” “Do I need to Twitter? Tweet? Twit?” or, if they are already on it, they ask how they can make better use of Twitter or Facebook for business purposes.
For a small business to be successful using social media, a small business must be an active participant in and on that social media platform, whatever it may be. Since Facebook is the most widely used social media outlet with more than 400 million members, and has the greatest variety of uses, we’ll illustrate how you can use it to your advantage. It may seem we talk about Facebook a lot on here, but that’s because people are interested in it, and want to know how to approach it.
While a plethora of techniques and ways to approach social media exist today, no one business has time to implement them all, or, if they do, their “fans” may feel bombarded and are likely to remove their fan-ship.
First and foremost, what is important to know and always remember when deciding how to use Facebook for business is that it is a social media site. You want to avoid constant peddling of your goods and/or services and focus on offering your customers or potential customers useful and practical information in hopes that they will view you less as a company who is trying to pump up sales by taking advantage of the social platform and more as a company just talking about the things in which they and their customers are interested.
The idea is to make your fan page a must-see for Facebook users. You can even promote specials and your page through Facebook advertisements geared toward a target demographic. Facebook advertising’s demographic targeting is like none other. Not even Google can provide the niche targeting that Facebook can simply due to the nature of the site. Facebook users voluntarily offer up a plethora of information regarding interests, age, sex, and lifestyle, all which advertisers can use to perfectly target their ads to increase ROI.
Regularly post informational content including videos, tips, and general knowledge for the public. To increase credibility you can post links to useful articles- the information doesn’t even need to be specifically related to your business.
Once you’ve gathered together a wide variety of information to include on your page, you can then sprinkle in some specific product information to work to increase sales. If you have videos about your company, product, or service, post them to your Facebook, but spread them out. Post pictures that depict your product or service and in the captions you should include a call to action and link to your webpage with information about that specific offering. You can also connect your page to other social media outlets such as Twitter and your blog, which will pull any updates or posts onto the Facebook page. Also – don’t forget to post updates about sales and specials – that’s the information for which some fans may ultimately be looking.
Lastly, you should encourage your employees and fans to be active on the page, so that the page isn’t full of postings solely from the company. Ideally, you want current and past customers or clients to participate on the page as well! Facebook is a good social venue to use to maintain a previously cultivated relationship. The whole idea is to create a lasting relationship, and relationships start with friendly conversation.
Image Credits:
Eric Fisher -http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4228014090/
Tim Parkinson – http://www.flickr.com/photos/timparkinson/930660427/
