Social media, primarily Facebook, is where many people now ‘reside’ when they go on the net. Activity within Facebook is now similar to Google search!
From a business perspective, you need to be where your customers are. Although online search and your website are major drivers of new sales for small business, close behind are Facebook and Youtube… For those businesses with walk-in traffic, looking to build a community and get interaction with their customers, Facebook is the clear leader.
Facebook for Business
Being on Facebook has multiple small business benefits. It provides a highly interactive page that few traditionally designed websites can offer as well as referrals. Critically, just having a Facebook page can help your Google ranking too, meaning more sales leads. Some have seen a 15-20% improvement!
How do you setup a Facebook page? Debbie Mayo Smith shows you in this video.
Checkout Debbies’ small business ‘how to’ booklet, Make your Database Your Gold Mine. (click below)
Social media is for the consumer
Don’t believe everything you hear about facebook from marketing or online ‘gurus’. Facebook is not strictly a business marketing platform. Facebook is a consumer platform, largely replacing the less powerful community forums and blog commenting used a few years back. Facebook is where teenagers in Melbourne, customers in Auckland, and prospective buyers in Christchurch all have the same opportunity to voice their opinions, ask questions, and share experiences. Consumers are in control of the message.
Facebook Advertising
However like Google, Facebook offer Advertising too, which you have some control over.
According to recent studies, Facebook Ads in some sectors is more effective than Google Adwords – And both many times more cost-effective than Yellow pages, print or radio ads. It’s just that 99% of small businesses don’t know it’s an option.
As outlined in the short video, left, Facebook also has demographic profiles of its users. This makes it quite different from Google. As in any advertising channel, we suggest you try both Google Adwords and Facebook ads and see what works best. Most likely you’ll end up using both in the same way people in the past would advertise in local newspapers as well as industry magazines. Each has its own audience.
Facebook Apps
Facebook also has a huge number of add-ons, enhancements and ability for developers and talented individuals write their own ‘apps’ to alter the look or functionality of your own Facebook page. For example, the ability to integrate email signup forms, even mini shopping carts! We’ll be introducing these as new Ezimarketing services later this year.
Where Facebook fits
Here’s some interesting background – Surveys show that people generally fan Facebook pages they are already customers of, and usually for discounts. The same research shows that few people are interested in joining a page to become part of a community.
Consider Facebook as a tool in your ‘referral engine’ – if your Fans are happy customers, Facebook makes it easy for them to recommend you to friends and to provide your business with ‘social proof’ i.e. people saying nice things about you. This is where you have the opportunity to organically grow your audience, powered by happy customers. Good reviews on your Facebook page will send people to your website to make a final purchase decision or to seek more information.
We suggest that you use Facebook to connect with your existing customers AFTER they’ve already bought from you – rather than trying to use Facebook to mine for leads, which is what traditional marketers seem to do, simply because they [incorrectly] see Facebook as just another marketing channel, not a consumer-driven ‘chatroom’.
This connection after the purchase is obviously the path of least resistance. Since they already know you, they are more likely to interact with your page – crucial for organic growth on Facebook, and sales…