Facebook Business Basics (Lesson 3): How You Can Use Facebook to Advertise Your Business Without Spamming
November 18, 2011 by Lisa Santos · Leave a Comment
It’s time for your third lesson in the Facebook Business Basics Crash Course. Today let’s talk about how you can use Facebook to advertise your business without spamming.
Using Facebook as the means for free advertising is probably one of the wisest moves any business person can make in this competitive marketing age. As we have been discussing Facebook offers plenty of opportunities for the business owners to launch develop and grow through its influential social network.
Through Facebook, you can actually choose who to target just as easily as a paid system such as Google Ads does. Through Facebook, you can choose the location, interests, relationship status, gender, age and location of your target market. What a convenient way to start your marketing strategy online!
The best part is that it can actually be free if you want it to be. Facebook gives you the option of running free or paid promotions. The paid aspect is through Facebook’s formal ads.
Now, how do you run free promotions?
Why, through your personal network, of course, or through your fan page. If you’re launching a product, service or brand, it is recommended to have a formal fan page. Nevertheless, personal connections such as friends, friends of friends, acquaintances and relatives will help greatly in building your business social network.
Wall updates, photos, notes, group discussions and basically any other posts will help the product or service stay top-of-mind. As I mentioned in your last lesson, prospective customers want companies to have enthusiastic and informative updates.
Tip: Don’t make the mistake of barraging your customers or potential customers with too many Facebook updates at one time, or worse, continuously flood their Facebook walls with the same message placed several times. Spamming is annoying no matter who does it, so take care that you avoid doing that to your friends and fans.
The best way to avoid spamming others, however intentional or unintentional, is to choose your target market well. Nobody wants to receive a wall post that is a generic message of a product they’re not even interested in.
You can control who sees your message by researching the person’s likes or dislikes which may be apparent in their profile page or you may also ask from a personal contact. You can even check out organizations or groups that they are affiliated with online which are related to your business or industry.
Another way to place a wall post in that isn’t tantamount to spamming is to place it like a personal message. The less generic the message is, the better. You may start with something like, ‘Hi. I just saw from your profile that you like Ice Cream and I though you may be interested in a free sample of our Homemade Ice Cream.’
If this strategy is a bit too forward for you, then work on making Facebook applications that can insert advertisements into them or better yet, try Social Ads. Demographically speaking, these two are more effective and less time consuming than having to analyze your customers one by one.
That’s it for today’s lesson. In your next lesson we will talk about using Facebook and Twitter together for your business.
Facebook Business Basics (Lesson 2): How To Use Facebook to Attract New Customers
October 29, 2011 by Lisa Santos · Leave a Comment
It’s time for your second lesson in the Facebook Business Basics Crash Course. I hope you found lesson one informative and that you now have a good understanding of how Facebook statuses work to your advantage. In this lesson we are going to talk about how you can use Facebook to attract new customers.
Some business owners ask, why is it important to establish online presence through social networking sites particularly Facebook even when if you already have an official website?
Simple, because Facebook is more accessible and to most, more user-friendly than any traditional website will ever be. It gives a sense of friendliness to business that puts prospects at ease and lends a sense of credibility to businesses who have no website to speak of.
Aside from this, a Facebook page allows a business to be more interactive with present and potential customers, getting their feedback for everything from product reviews to testimonials. While it may seem scary because you can be given both positive and negative feedback, businesses should not be afraid because with Facebook it can be easily moderated.
If you have a mind to you can retain the best feedback and hide the rest. This way, most potential customers will be able to read the positive testimonials of previous customers. Such feedback adds a touch of authenticity to your business, and can entice the potential customer reading it.
Furthermore, customers who are tired of traditional online marketing such as email, newsletters and online ads will look to the Facebook page to have their questions answered. Having a Facebook page will give your business access to over 500 Million users without even having to buy e-mail addresses like what traditional email marketing resort to.
Interaction isn’t limited to Facebook updates and wall posts though. You can also use Apps to provide photos, notes and videos. When using a Fanpage which is the recommended page for businesses (instead of the more personal profile page), you can change the posting ability of fans which allow them to post photos, videos and links to the page. This way, potential customers will be able to see how other customers use the product or service.
Again, this can engage the community to be more interactive as was successfully executed by the Pampers’ Facebook Fanpage. Other companies like Ben & Jerry’s go as far as polling customers. This gives customers a sense of power with regards to their products, which in turn will give them a sense of ownership and acceptance.
Facebook is also a great tool to gain audience to promos, special prices and discounts as in the case of the company rushIMPRINT, who use their page to feature their products for sale.
The site easily leads back to their official website as well as their toll free number. Some even use Facebook to give exclusive deals to their customers. This is a good way to gauge the effectively of your page. Various incentives can be given exclusively to Facebook users which aren’t accessible by those who follow you through e-mail, Twitter or your official website.
Other companies such as Baskin Robbins develop and use a Facebook application to make their Facebook page more interactive and enticing to customers. Through their account, they’re giving out a very enticing deal, a Buy One, get one promo that most enthusiasts will not surpass.
Facebook is an easy tool to master and can add just the right sense of fun, differentiating you and your business from the rest in the market.
That’s it for today’s lesson. In your next lesson we will be talking about how to use Facebook to advertise your business without spamming.
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Facebook Business Basics (Lesson 1): Facebook Status Updates and How They Work So That You Can Better Understand How to Use Them to Your Advantage
October 19, 2011 by Lisa Santos · Leave a Comment
In this first lesson let’s talk a little about Facebook status updates and how they work so that you can better understand how to use Facebook to your advantage.
Because there are so many social network terms out there, let’s start this lesson by distinguishing early on what a Facebook status actually is. A Facebook status is a post that appears for your contacts to read. Whereas before, Facebook statuses were immediately broadcast for everyone, now there are plenty of privacy settings to protect the person by letting them choose who can actually read their messages.
You can also interact through your Facebook status. Friends and other contacts are allowed to comment on the Facebook status or simply Like the status. Recently, Facebook has added a tagging feature to Facebook statuses. Put @ in the beginning and you are allowed to tag as many as 6 people in a post. Friends and contacts that are tagged will be notified in the same way that they are also notified when somebody else or the status owner has replied a status he commented on.
How are Facebook statuses important for professionals, you may ask?
Well, Facebook statuses are what many consider as the very essence of Facebook. Here, customers, potential customers and other interested parties can interact on a particular piece of information in a casual manner that is way more convenient and conversational than email or even Twitter actually will.
With Facebook statuses also, almost everyone can join in the conversation (that is if you want them to) which makes for a casual promotion of your product, service or company. The Facebook status is a powerful part of using Facebook for your business. The number of Likes and comments for every Facebook status will help your page climb up in its search engine position.
Facebook statuses can also help you with branding efforts. For your Facebook marketing to be successful it is important that you monitor your page carefully, that you keep your status posts enthusiastic and professional at the same time.
While it’s tempting to place something instantly catching, hilarious or even shocking, you need to ask yourself first whether this will help the business reputation in the long run or will it just server as temporary entertainment?
It is important to optimize Facebook statuses in order to make them more searchable for potential customers. A good feature to use is Facebook status tagging. What makes this so advantageous for business owners is that when you tag affiliated companies in the post, it will also appear on their page. Therefore exposing your company to customers who may be looking at a related site. You can also do this with community pages. When you tag a community page, you will gain access to millions of potential customers who may have the same interests as your business.
While it’s important to organize your Facebook status updates, it isn’t recommended that you leave all the work to organizing sites like Hootsuite. Checking through a Profile or Fan Page that are dominated by RSS Feeds is a turnoff for most potential customers. Clients want to feel like they’re interacting with a real person in the company, so be mindful of interaction.
We have a lot to go over in the next few days if you want to learn how to use Facebook for your business, so make sure you look for your next lesson soon. We will be talking about how you can use Facebook to attract new customers.
Filed under Facebook, Facebook Business Basics Lessons, Facebook Marketing · Tagged with @replies, facebook comments, facebook for business, facebook lessons, facebook likes, facebook marketing, facebook status updates, hootsuite, hootsuites, interacting with people on facebook, rss feeds