OK, so you’ve heard loads about how Facebook is a must if you own or run a business, but what exactly do you need it for? How can you make it work for your business? How do i get fans and traffic to the page? We get asked these questions all the time, so we have decided to pool our knowledge and put together an article that will hopefully answer all your questions!
Why do i require a Facebook Page?
Facebook is a wonderful marketing tool that you can make use of to spread the word of your business, it is simply word of mouth marketing, but on a HUGE scale. If you think buy a facebook account with friends about most of your current customer base will have a Facebook account, if you don’t have a Facebook account you’re missing out on to be able to communicate with them. Not just to sell to them but ask them questions about services and products you offer.
Word of mouth
So we all know word of mouth marketing is good for your business, but did you know that Facebook is simply word of mouth marketing but on a huge scale. Them can tell their friends about you without even meeting them! If they ‘like’ your business page then all of their friends are told this on their news feed.
If you don’t have a Facebook presence your word of mouth marketing will be very hard to manage, you don’t know what them say about you and who they’re telling. For example if a possible client has a question to ask they could send you a contact, this means only you and the sender are aware of the interaction. If however the possible client asks a question on your timeline you, all your fans and all the senders friends might find the interaction and you could win even more customer from this simple interaction. So we recommend you encourage them or potential customers to ask questions or leave testimonials via your Facebook timeline
What is Places?
This is where customers ‘check-in’ to your location, and update all of their friends where they’ve been and what they did there. People may already be doing this for your business but you are not aware of it.
How can i Get more Check-in?
A tried and tested way to get individuals to scan through your neighborhood is to offer rewards. Rewards can range from a tangible product or a competition entry, the latter is the most popular with your clients.
For example, if you own a coffee shop you can put up some signs, and ask for individuals to check in; in return you offer them 20% off their order. So if you have a hundred and fifty people in your coffee shop over a weekend and 25% of men and women check in, that means about 40 people have told their friends about your business. An average of people have about 200 friends this means your business has been come across about 8000 people in one weekend!
Advertising campaigns
If your objective is with Facebook to win new clients, then Facebook Ads has to be part of your marketing mix. You can literally, within minutes, reach your ideal customers, with highly relevant ads, which are typically considerably cheaper than traditional forms of marketing, such as leaflets and billboards.
The biggest problem with traditional marketing techniques is that you aren’t showing your target market the advertising campaigns, your showing everyone! So for example with a billboard the only people that see the advertisement are the people that drive past, you are paying to advertise to people who don’t even are interested your service or product! With Facebook advertising campaigns you can tiny target your potential client base so only they see your advertisement, this means you merely pay for the right individuals to see your advertisement.
So let’s look at an example, if you’re a golf-club based near Manchester and you want to get more visitors playing on your course. You can set up an ad campaign that targets only males, aged between 35-45, that like golf and live within 25 miles of Manchester, only people who fall into that market might find your advertising campaigns.
Good Communication
Them are likely using Facebook every day, so it kind of makes sense to talk to them right? But you need to communicate correctly, most businesses make the mistake of selling to their group of fans all the time. This doesn’t achieve anything it just means they will get frustrated and unlike you!
Too many businesses promote their deals like, “20% coffee if you buy a meal deal” and just keep copying it again and again. This is simply spam so people will just ignore it so you do not get any exposure, for best results you must be creative, always remember Facebook is a two way conversation, ask questions (who’s ready for a coffee? ) this will get people getting together with your business timeline and their friends might find it!