More and more small businesses are turning to Facebook to market their products. Maybe you would like to promote your small business via Facebook. Here are some tips that may help.
1. Separate professional from personal
Your clients don’t need to see the latest pictures of your pets, or hear about your latest haircut. Keep your personal information on your personal profile, and establish a separate page for your business. If you like, you can hire someone else to be a sort of proxy for you who can represent your brand. This might be helpful if you already have a significant personal presence on Facebook.
However, you might also use your personal networking to your advantage. When you set up your business page, you can incorporate those friends who share your interests into your target market. Still, your personal profile and business pages should be separate.
2. Your page name
This is important, because you can’t change it later. You will have to shut down your page and build a new one, and that can mess with your client base. So consider key words when you develop your page name, and make it a good one. Put lots of thought into it.
3. Your landing page
This is like the “home page” of a website. It needs to have a compelling image and good information (wall posts) right off the bat so that visitors will be inspired to click the “Like” button.
4. Tabs
You use custom applications (basically HTML webpage embedded into your page and which look and feel like your website/brand), which are visible as clickable boxes under the cover image on your page. There are also many built in applications like Twitter, Networked Blogs, Events, and YouTube just to name a few. These, especially the custom apps really help promote your business as they give visitors and fans a chance to interact and connect with you and your business.
5. The value of personal communication
One of the appealing things about Facebook is the personal interaction it encourages. In a world of automation, customers appreciate a “live human” at the other end of the keyboard, mobile device, or computer screen! The telephone used to provide this, but with more and more businesses resorting to automated customer service, Facebook gives your business an edge. So try to communicate with your fans and followers regularly, and on an individual basis as often as possible. Happy fans then tell their friends.
If your business grows to the point that you can’t handle all the individual contact, contact us and let us take care of it for you.
Still have questions or just not sure your current page is effective? Contact the OSP today and get a social media critique for free. We will look over your Facebook profile and give you an easy to understand list of tweaks and changes that will take your profile from ho-hum to Oh Wow!
