As a novice who has just started off your small business journey, you cannot afford to ignore the power of social media, most importantly, Facebook. The use of web across the world by consumers continues to grow at alarming rate. A major use of this social platform by consumers is to search for local businesses. As of now, Facebook is among the biggest social networking platforms across the globe with more than one billion active users. The social media giant has responded to its users by rolling out a series of features that can help them search and access small businesses, while at the same time helping businesses connect with viable customers.
Marketing is the backbone of any business whether small or big. Companies rely on their marketing strategies to gain popularity among their consumers and bit the stiff competition while sustaining it at the same time. Therefore, various strategies have to be exploited to get clients for the business to grow.
What are Facebook Pages?
Facebook pages are public profiles created on the Facebook network specifically for brands, businesses, causes, celebrities, and other organizations. They should be differentiated from personal profiles created for individual purposes. Unlike personal profiles, Facebook Pages are not able to gain friends. However, they can only gain unlimited number of fans through the like option. With a Facebook Page, one you can easily update your users with things like photos, videos, links, and events. A small business owner for this case has an option of posting pictures of various items and giving specific sale details including contact with customers and delivery methods involved.
Social Media Fundamentals
Should not be treated as a Strategy: It should be clear to all users that social networking platforms are not a selling strategy. It is simply a tool that can be used by people to perform many things. It should be treated as an interaction with your clients. It forms a base for taping your market and making your brand public. Therefore, it must be integrated well with actionable strategies of the business.
Social Strategists are Necessary: This is an important fundamental factor for any small business. The use of media must have strategists who acts as a coach to the team involved to craft the actual strategy, offer specific guidelines, provide a useful technology, and offer a strong foundation. Therefore, if the media to be used is the only thing that will participate in the conversation, then very little or no effect will be realized.
The Changing Media: The use of social networks is changing so fast across the world. Therefore, you must be active as a small business operator to understand the specific trends and style preferences of social network for all of your target audience in order to achieve optimal results.
Correlation doesn’t translate to Causation: Most businesses will measure up the use of social network effectiveness as the cause of high sales. As a business minded person, do not be inclined to think that more customers buy your items because they liked your page. This does not necessarily create value for your brand.
Don’t Overdo: Do not oversell the social network. The simple ads on social platforms are not necessarily a selling technique. Publishing discount coupons excessively on social platforms is actually taking advantage and exploiting consumers to run promotions. Take your time to measure the actual value holistically and consider all costs including the efforts, cost of opportunity, and focus.
Using Facebook to Apply the Fundamentals
Facebook is equally an important selling tool for small business owners. However, you must observe all the fundamentals of social network marketing to achieve desired results. Here is what needs to be done to successfully promote your small business on Facebook.
Create Your Business Page
This will act as a home base for your business on the social networking site. This page will help your business interact with Facebook users who are the target market. Therefore, the page must be designed to truly reflect your brand and how you want public viewers to talk about it. Come up with a few snappy and captivating sentences to describe your brand in detail, and remember to choose a memorable web address. This may come in the form of www.facebook.com/brand.
Share!!
Having a Facebook Page isn’t enough for your business. You must develop a worthwhile and interesting content to rack up your followers. Facebook users who like your page will be able to see all the posts on their news feed.
The most influential Facebook posts are the ones that drive the users to comment, like, and share. They should be maintained to be short and visual for everyone that signs in. come up with ways that will add more visual elements to your posts. This could be in form of a short video clip, a stock art representing your brand, or a photo from inside your store.
The items being sold should also be posted not once but as many times as possible. They should keep appearing on the followers news feed on a regular basis for you to maintain your brand live. Customers need to see your items on a regular basis for them to spot what they like. Not all items posted will impress your Facebook followers. Keep your customers coming by constantly re-posting new items for them spot what they may like and make a purchase decision.
Growing Your Followers/Likes Through Well Thought Out Strategy
Link with Other Page Admins
In fact this is one of the most powerful techniques you could use to maintain and grow your followers. Go for page managers that have the similar demographics and you and bear a cross-promotion spirit. For instance, a pizza parlor might make a live connection with an ice cream store dealer within the same neighborhood. You may consider doing a Facebook cross-promotion deal where you might share each other’s posts to capture a bigger clientele space. The joint ventures will to some extent forge some meaningful connections.
Consistency of Interaction Is Key
One of the best ways to turn around a struggling Facebook page is to ensure consistent interaction with your followers. Perception and Availability are factors you must address for proper management of your page. Posting your graphics once per week is the same as opening up the business just once. In addition, Facebook posts that are made only once a week are likely to create an impression to potential customers that business is not thriving positively. Be available to your customers by making consistent posts and ads to ensure continuous flow and growth of your small business.
