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While some small business owners only see Facebook as something they have to prevent their employees from using at work, many have discovered the powerful selling ability of the popular social site. In fact, thousands of businesses are now successfully using Facebook as a marketing and promotional platform by keeping customers informed of news, sales and promotions from the company. Herein lies Facebook’s most advantageous feature: its ability to establish a personal, free line of communication with every interested customer or prospect who cares to hear from you. In this way, Facebook can be viewed as a cost-free form of targeted advertising, as only those who actively want to learn more about your products or services become a fan of your business. This empowers you to send your promotional messages to an audience that is almost guaranteed to take an interest in what you have to say.
Promoting a business on Facebook has become so popular that noted author Clara Shih has written an educational text on effective strategies for doing so. In an article published by The New York Times, Shih commented, “You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are… and with 300 million people on Facebook, and still growing, that’s increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services.” By analyzing demographic and market factors, and by implementing creative promotional strategies, you truly can realize a dramatic difference in sales through Facebook marketing.
First Things First: Signing Up For A Page
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Facebook allows new users to sign up for several different types of accounts, personal profiles, groups, and pages. As a business, you will want to establish a company “page,” not a personal profile. In fact, during the sign up process, Facebook will confirm with you that you are a “product,” not a person. When a business has a page, it does not gather and approve “friend requests.” Rather, Facebook users choose to become “fans” of your business, and once they do they are instantly apprised of your activity each time you update. This is useful as it eliminates the need to log in and manually approve hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of requests you might otherwise recieve with a personal page. Once you have registered your Facebook page, you will want to claim a vanity address, such a:
www.Facebook.com/YourCompanyName
This will allow your customers to easily locate your business and become a fan of its page. Next, become a fan of Facebook’s own marketing page located here. This page is intended to keep marketers abreast of new strategies, events, and news updates about issues concerning Facebook’s business community.
The Do’s of Facebook Marketing
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Do product research. Don’t look at Facebook only as a way to sell an existing product or service. Instead, understand that a network of interested customers at your fingertips allows you to perform powerful product and market research. The customers who chose to add your company on Facebook are typically more interested in your business than your average clientele and won’t hesitate to give you valuable feedback. Before investing the money in a new product, or making significant changes to an existing one, consider polling your Facebook following to see how your biggest fans feel about it. Not only will this provide insight into the direction your customers want to see your company move, it also lets your fans know that you care about their ideas and feelings too.
Do announce events. If your business has physical locations where events are frequently held, be sure to let your Facebook fans in on the details so that they have the chance to attend. This strategy is frequently employed by bars and nightclubs, since these establishments have weekly special events to promote to their local customer base. These sorts of businesses have an additional advantage in that all of their fans are likely to be local customers who have already been to their establishment, enjoyed their experience there, and have decided that they want to come back again.
Becoming a fan of the business on Facebook is their way of saying, “Hey I had a great time the other night! The next time you are having a similar event, let me know and I’ll come out.” This is how a business builds a loyal following and establishes itself as the place to be on any given night. Stop untargeted promotional efforts and start talking to those who want to be promoted to.
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Do offer electronic coupons. One popular way to get your Facebook fans buying your products online is to post online-only coupons to your wall. These coupons should offer discounts or bonus offers to anyone who orders exclusively from your company’s Facebook page. This strategy helps show your gratitude toward fans who went out of their way to follow your page, and they will certainly appreciate the savings you offer.
Do announce sales. Any time your business is having a sale, (either online and in store,) it is important to let your fans know about it. This is exactly the kind of information they signed up to hear when they clicked the “become a fan” button. Remember that is also a free way for you to promote your sales event to a large group of people. The more eager people who know about the sale, the more money your business is bound to make, and your business’ Facebook following is a great place to start.
Do announce news updates. Facebook can be used to create buzz surround a new project. Successful launches are all about creating a high amount of demand before your product is available. You can easily create this kind of response by updating your fans with enticing news, photos, screen shots, preview videos, or anything else you can use to get them excited for your upcoming product. When you eventually release it for sale, you will already have a hungry audience waiting to get their copy as soon as possible.
The Dont’s of Facebook Marketing.
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Don’t spam your fans. One of the quickest ways to lose a great deal of your fans is to excessively spam their walls with constant updates. The occasional once-daily post keeps your business in their mind and informs them about the important stuff, but repeated, hourly updates crowding their activity feed will send them running to delete your page. As with most forms of marketing, moderation is the key to success. Your fans have agreed to hear from you, but you don’t want to exploit their interest and push them away with unmitigated streams of announcements.
Don’t appear unreachable. Much of Facebook’s allure comes from the idea that users can easily keep up with each other and communicate using the service. It is therefore crucial that your business appears approachable and open to hearing from its customers. This doesn’t mean you have to chat about nonsense with everyone on your page, but it does mean that you should respond to all serious questions or intelligent comments posted to your wall. This lets your fans know that you care about their experience with your company and that you are doing all you can to keep them happy.
Don’t ‘set it and forget it’. Facebook marketing is an ongoing strategy that requires grabbing and holding your customers’ attention. If you make an effort to appropriately use all the techniques listed above, your will succeed in generating loyalty to your brand and predictable response to your launches and events. On the other hand, if you simply sign your business up for a page and then barely ever follow through, your fans will either lose interest and forget about you or remove you from their list. If you are going to get into Facebook marketing, make a commitment to doing it the right way.
Thumbnail image courtesy of Davey Nin
