Your Business and Facebook
The Early Weeks
Why use Facebook;
It is simple really, it is the biggest social media network out there. An average of 6 billion posts a day, and as a business no one can really afford to ignore it. From the car boot part time sellers to huge business all should have a social media strategy involving Facebook.
While you join Facebook under your email, you do need to keep things separate on there between business and personal.
That is why Facebook pages are a must.
Facebook Pages.
Originally and still known by many as fan pages, Facebook realised early on they could make a lot of ground by allowing business pages on there. About the hardest thing on starting a page is finding the category it needs to go into. Everything is laid out and simple. This for many small business is their starting point to online promotion.
On the left hand side of your home page is the groups menu and right in their is a selection link to create group.
I do suggest before you start get your header picture ready and work out what you want to say on the page itself, don’t worry it is very easy to change once published but good to get a start. If you have gone with the ebid store get a tab ready so that you can copy the url. as you can put your website in. This works for all websites you want to redirect someone too.
Also there is a button menu, you can select things like learn more or shop etc. and clicking on it will send potential customers to your site. Facebook encourage this as it shows up well on their analytics.
Put together a long description of what you want the site to do, promote your blog, site or just pass info on, it’s there for you to input.
Trial and error will work on your page, and good news due to the ever changing progression of Facebook mistakes are not remembered and wont be held against you in the future.
Last part is the posts, no good having a page that is empty or one post a week etc. Unlike other media sites putting hundreds of posts on there is not always advisable, you can and there is a programme called FPtraffic that lets you put a set number of posts onto your page everyday at certain times. You do have to pay for it, some swear by it, others like myself don’t see too much value in it, but like all things social media what might work well for me, may not for you and vice versa.
What many marketers, online and real world, look for is the optimum time, hell if I had that answer I would be in New York earning millions. But on a small scale you can have a think when best to schedule posts you put on.
My social media page I post about 4 things during workers lunch breaks, every half hour or so, and mostly blogs about people getting away from the rat race to do their own thins. This was the time in the office when you just had a bite and felt god do I have to go back! Give people a dream.
Then I post just after 3, the afternoon tea break. Then around half 5, people have left work and are on public transport and going home, so a little uplifting note or blog about making things better. Then I post a link at 7 to this blog or to similar type. However on my comics page I post at different times. Different audience wanting different things.
What all Facebook gurus do recommend that the best times to post is between 9am and 7pm. Schedule your posts so that these times are covered, then if you have a post that gets more likes notices etc, focus a bit more to that same time.
One thing however don’t expect the earth to shake in the first few weeks of this, just set your posts and keep at it.
Engagement
This is the Facebook buzzword.
Without engagement it is impossible for your posts to be seen and thus marketed to your audience. Facebook does keep on changing the rules on this and to be honest the first few weeks you will feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall. Many people give up on Facebook as they focus tons of energy into it and to doesn’t yield as much as you hope.
It is hard to get the engagement you need, and you need to work at it. But once it works you will see a massive boost to your social media engagement.
4 starting tips on boosting your posts
1/ Join other niche groups: the one thing Facebook does have is that due to its’ size there will more than likely be a group covering the niche, no matter how unusual it is, and in most cases more than 1. Get onto these groups, sign up and join, but also check out there rules.
If you are selling or blogging also check out those groups as well, also look for relevant groups that are based in your area.
2/ Check out the members of the group and simply friend request, however don’t go insane and add everyone, stick to about 5 to 10 from each group you are in per day. Once you have done a few you will also get recommended people as well. Be patient with this, space it out through the day or Facebook could even hold or suspend you.
2.1/ On your page make sure you invite all your family and friends so that they will be the first boost. Lets face it would you be the first to like a page if you don't know the person.
2.2/ Then you can invite your friends you have made through the niche groups. It doesn’t really matter the relevance, if they are not interested they simply wont accept.
3/ Share others posts. From your timeline or from the group pages get used to sharing relevant posts to your page as well as like them, in fact like more than you share but in the beginning you should look to share others posts around maybe 5-1 of your own. Doing this will get your page name on popular posts which all helps.
4/ Share posts from your page not your timeline. Simple really it appears with your page name on the group board, this will get people to notice your post, and also far more likely to be shared which leads to far more views than you could get just from your own followers.
Network Linking
As mentioned in the last post, you can link your facebook posts to appear on twitter.
Open tab with your twitter feed so logged in.
Really simple to do, on your facebook page, timeline etc. just take out all the url after facebook/ then input twitter instead.
You will get asked to authorise the app, which you do then you can choose which facebook feeds or posts you want to appear on your twitter feed, and it's done.
Following these tips you should find that your page gets quite quickly to the 100 likes mark.
please check out my The Small Seller Facebook page and give it a like to get loads of hints and tips from bloggers and marketers
This should keep you busy for a couple of weeks as you find time to do it all. However once you find the best way of working it, scheduling for a week should only take you an hour and try to spend no longer than 10 minutes a day liking and following, however if you are like my misses whose thumbs think they have been cut off when she is not on facebook, use the time, do a bit while you enjoy your usual facebooking.
No comments:
Post a Comment