Are you still fighting the social media bandwagon? Not very entrepreneurial of you… get on board my friend or be left behind!
Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google, ads, Facebook Ads, Yelp, Angie’s list, internet forums, micro blogging, podcasts, wikis, email, instant messaging, video , websites … what a list eh?
It’s a lot to take in if you are not already integrated into the social world! I coach face book… how crazy is that? The site I began playing with so I could keep track of my kids is now paying bills! I love it, it’s fun and it changes daily. I am also having a lot of fun running different pages for other businesses besides my own. It keeps things exciting! Just when I have the hang of it facebook changes the rules again! I love a challenge!
I thought I would blog a bit this week on facebook as I have many followers on my fan page that follow me for my marketing and I am witnessing a lot of hard work that could use some tweaking. Here is a bit of advice from my experience.
The first and most important thing you have to understand is that facebook is a relationship. What you post should encourage interaction. Think of your page as a human form of your brand. Express yourself in your brand image. One of the things I see a lot of is random statements about the business — let me put it into relationship perspective for you. If you were conversing with a friend, would you just make a statement and walk away? If you choose to do this, then make sure at least one of your other posts during your day are
- Entertaining and worthy of sharing
- A question that requires feedback
- Education that your client (remember you are not your client) will find value in.
- ALWAYS respond in a timely manner (again with the relationship… if you call a friend and they don’t return your call, do you keep coming back? Or lose interest?)
Use these rules of thumb to develop a marketing plan – yes, a marketing plan for face book! Develop a daily posting schedule that is consistent. In the very beginning, when you are building this relationship, it is a good idea to export your posts to excel. This can be done through the insights page. If you do this you can make sure you are not repeating yourself and also see how viral your posts are. Anything below 3% (this is on the insights page) and you really should take a look at your posts, in my opinion. You are either boring people… or have yet to reach the engagement stage of your page.
IF you tweet as well as facebook – I caution you to not tweet to your face book page. I have stopped following several this week. It’s annoying spam — who wants to open their page and get 10 consecutive posts that basically say the same thing? I don’t! It certainly does not encourage one to interact. Keep these separate – now I DO tweet my face book statuses. I have been instructed by a twitter expert NOT to do this, but my thought process here is a little different. I’m not using twitter as twitter is designed to be used. (here is where my twitter expert is shaking her head at me) Most of my followers on twitter are there for my business page, they are not tied to my fan page or people that are not on the computer all the time. My followers will see a post that they like and then jump on my page. That is the way I want it. You might choose to do what the experts tell you. I am not a twitter expert! Maybe one day, but face book is my social media mode for the moment. Consistency is the key to success in all social media platforms!
My best advice for you to succeed with this marketing platform is to stop throwing things on a wall and expecting it to stick with no glue… YOU are the glue! Interact, respond, visit, and let them get to know YOU (your business)! People are sponges for a relationship … build it and they will come.