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What is the best way to utilize Facebook to reach your potential customers with out pissing them off
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5 Answers
1. Understand how your customers use facebook. What communities (pages) are they members of. How do these use these communities - to find information, to get deals, to communicate with the businesses? This will help you determine both your content strategy as well as tactics to connect with them that work for them.
2. Solve a problem for them. Understand what your customers biggest fears and frustrations are with your industry / segment. Find ways to solve their problems - ideas, tips, strategies, promotions, information, training, etc.
3. Communicate. Don't just use FB as a one-way channel to talk about your products / services. Ask your community questions, engage them, answer their queries.
A few thought starters...
Lara McCulloch-Carter
President, READY2SPARK
Helping SMEs attract more customers
The first thing you should consider is that Facebbok is not a Twitter or Linkedin, where people are on purpose looking for networking and business connections. Facebook primiraly was created for leisure and content sharing.
So the important thing is to make content interesting even for those people who are not concerned with your business. For example, you could write an interesting blog, update fun videos. Maybe upload articles that would "by the way" explain people why your products or services would be interesting for them.
My point is that your Facebook page should not scream out as an advertisment but rather be a sourse of interest. More over it is often useful to create separate Facebook pages for different events, new services or coming up products as this way you get a better chance to attract more potential customers.
The first thing a business should do is look at their marketing plan. There should be a marketing strategy which will direct the company into developing a social media portion to their overall sales/promotion tactics.
There is a misconception that every business needs a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...
Not every business needs it because it is free but if you do use it you better know what you are doing from the start because it is hard to recover damaging actions on social media platforms. We have all witness and read case studies on these issues.
Please, please, please if you are a business looking to expand your marketing strategy to incorporate social media create a professional Facebook page which will give details, content, promotions, news, and etc about your business. No one likes to see a page that has 1 photo, no contact information, no address, and no way of communicating with the business on the social level. You would only hurt your marketing campaign that way.
Also check out what your competitors are doing. How are they engaging their audience. Facebook is not about selling it is about letting people know and the loyal customers of yours to reap benefits for being Fans, Friends, Likes on your business page.
5 Critical Must Have's for Business Oriented Facebook Pages
1. FBML- (if you don't know what that is, you need an social media consultant to help you with your page ASAP)
2. Contact Information- email, phone, address, POC, etc.
3. Discussion Board- utilize the wall or create a separation section for customer service (It's like 24/7 if you check Facebook frequently)
4. Photos/Videos- Too many times I enter a company Facebook page and I only see 1 or 2 photos of the outside of the store, and thats it! Have multiple angles and interior shots too.
5. Links from other websites, your own website that will lead customers and audience to your Facebook page, how else are they going to know you set one up?
If you want more, email me.
David Lee
Business Consultant
David L. Lee Consulting
Laura hit the nail on the head with this one.
It all starts by knowing your target audience. Keeping track of your stats on facebook (are friends leaving, coming in droves?) and also checking out what your competition and other groups/organizations that attract the same type of consumers are doing will help you figure out what your target audience wants.
Then its just keeping up with it, by posting new content, answering questions (and complaints!), and also interacting with your fans/followers . . .
Good luck!
Ryan
http://LDPWebSolutions.com
Paul, Just consider for a moment what turns you away from a company or brand page: they are talking only about their fabulous product/service. Social media is just a conversation means, which if used wisely can have great outcomes.
So, before embarking into Facebook do your homework: list which groups/communities you want to engage with, see whether they are on Facebook, what they talk about, how these talks are relevant to your product/service, who the influencers are in each group, how yhour product/service may be useful or solve problems for them.
Then, listen again and again to understand these groups and any eventual interactions before joining the conversation. Communicate with people as you do in your everyday life, be concerned and offer to help. Share content, tips and comment of the problems that may be solved by your product or service.
Remember: Facebook is for people's conversations for advetising.
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