Facebook is the largest social networking destination currently online. Over 1 billion people worldwide and over 90% of all adults in America use Facebook each month, so chances are that your customers are already on Facebook. While every business is different, having a Facebook presence can be an essential element in significantly improving the online visibility of many businesses .

By improving your online visibility you expand the exposure for your business and your brand. Since your customers already spend a significant amount of time online engaging with others on  social networking sites like Facebook, you really have no choice. You need to go where your customers are.

An average Facebook user has around 130 friends. That means that if your page is ‘liked’ by one of your fans, it will show up on the News Feed to their friends, expanding your business exposure to hundreds of people every time someone else ‘likes’ your post or Facebook page.

In addition, the average user spends about 55 minutes on Facebook every day. That’s a lot of time and opportunity to try to grab their attention with your brand.

Connecting with your customer is paramount, and Facebook is a great social networking outlet to connect. So I’ve put together some tips for getting the most out of your Facebook business presence:

1. Setup your Facebook Business page

This is the easy part. Click here to create your page. Your Facebook business page is where you will be creating posts and trying to connect with people. It’s like a conversation, but better because you can add pictures, quotes, links, videos and more. If you already have a Facebook Business Page then great, keep reading.

2. Connect with Customers

Next you will want to tell people about your business fan page so that they can start connecting with you. Here are some quick ideas to start social networking and acquire fans to expand your exposure:

Ask for ‘likes’ – ask your friends and family to start the ball rolling. Send an email to your existing contacts and customers letting them know that you are now have a Facebook fan page and humbly ask for their “likes”.

Add a link – on your website add and promote a link to your Facebook fan page.

Facebook feed – Facebook has little apps to allow you to show off your Facebook feed right on your website. If you are using WordPress there are also many free plugins which make the setup of the feed easy.

Signs — Promote your Facebook Business

Include on print media – Remember to include your Facebook address on business cards, receipts, emails, and other marketing material.

3. Engage with Your Customers/Fans of Your Brand

Active engagement is often the hardest part. Clients often ask me; “what kind of things should I talk about”. Although each business is different, I would caution you from acting too formal as well as coming across as too casual.  You need to remember that even while interacting on social networking sties like Facebook you are still representing your business so you need to remain professional, but engaging at the same time. Here are some tips to help you along:

Be entertaining — relate stories that are either fun or controversial.

Don’t bore your audience — refrain from industry buzzwords, but rather say it in plain terms.

Don’t link and run — Don’t ever just link to a story without giving either a short summary, a bottom line, an opinion or the reason for sharing the link.

Being neutral is for politicians – Try to refrain from being neutral, take a stand, people tend to comment on posts that are opinionated.

Use photos — people like to look at photos. Either to see other people or cute photos of dogs and kittens.  Photos grab people’s attention.

Use videos — Videos do great on Facebook.

Stay positive — According to research, positivity as well as sex sells, so do what works.

Say it simply – I don’t mean dumb it down, just get to the point and say it plainly and directly.  As the complexity of the posts increases, the sharability decreases.

Don’t oversell — if you don’t like being sold to on every post that a brand writes, chances are neither do your customers.

Conclusion

We tend to measure online success by how your business ranks against other businesses in your niche. However, the world of social networking is a bit different. You are not only up against just your competitors, you are competing against the world and all the cute kitty pictures or funny quotes your friends are posting. So for the message to get through it needs to be compelling, interesting and something others actually want to see and share.

If you’re still not convinced about Facebook let me leave you with this list of reasons why you and every business should be on it:

• It’s Free
• It’s an opportunity to reach and expand your reach of audience in their preferred environment
• Having a presence on Facebook improves your overall online visibility and ranking
• It’s an opportunity to show publicly the side of your business that only your most loyal and close customers might already know about you
• It’s an opportunity to build your brand and create a strong and dedicated following

Don’t be left behind, take advantage of this powerful tool.

If you’d like assistance setting up your Facebook business page, or find out about ways to improve your business online visibility, please feel free to contact us.

See Our Facebook Brochure here

 

 

 

 

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