With more than 800 million active Facebook users around the world, it’s little surprise every business is keen to tap into the social network‘s ability to drive business. But how do you create a community and engage with them effectively? Here’s some tips from a Facebook insider.
Facebook’s manager of small and medium business growth Kirby Koo offers up some inside advice for getting the most of your business Facebook page:
1. Get to know your fans
The best way to get your fans to talk about your business with their friends is to understand what they care about. Do this by using Page Insights regularly to track which posts sparked conversations and sharing, then try to keep posting this kind of content.
It’s worth remembering that no matter how engaging your posts are, not all of your fans will see them in their News Feed. To make sure that more people see your posts, you can use Page Post ads to reach a wide audience and get more people to Like and engage with your page. Because these ads tell people what their friends are liking and interacting with they’re much more effective because of that social context.
2. Stand out from the crowd
Don’t forget that people’s News Feeds contain a lot of information and they are busy so probably won’t have time to read everything. Your posts are a reflection of your business but keep them short and snappy, ideally less than three lines.
Pictures are also a powerful way to grab people’s attention so try to include related images when you post.
3. Post regularly
It’s important to keep up the conversation with your fans, to build a real relationship with potential. You wouldn’t stop talking to a friend for six months and then try and start up a conversation out of the blue, so you should treat your Facebook page in the same way!
There are no hard and fast rules for the optimum amount of posts and only you know how often your fans want to hear from you. If you run a small shop for example you may want to post a few times a week when new products come in, however often you decide to post, make sure you post consistently.
4. Start conversations
Your page should be a place for conversations between you and your fans. You can ask people questions and make them feel involved with your decisions.
Your page is a real online community, so you should use it as a way to gather feedback about your business. Facebook’s questions feature allows you to ask your fans for ideas about how to improve your business. People can agree with an existing answer with a single click, or add a different response – this is incredibly easy and means your customers can engage with minimal effort.
“Fill in the blank” posts can be particularly useful if you want to give your customers a very simple way to engage with your post by asking them to finish your sentence.
5. Reward your community
There are thousands of businesses on Facebook, so you need to stand out from the crowd. To do this you could reward your fans for liking your Page by offering competitions and special offers.
Think about announcing new products to fans on Facebook before anywhere else, giving fans early access to sales, or posting exclusive photos from events on your page.
6. Be relevant
Your fans will be more likely to notice your business’ Page if you post about relevant issues, post about special offers and mention the issue of the day – whether that’s the Oscars or Mother’s Day.
Visit http://www.facebook.com/marketing to keep up with how you can use Facebook to market your business.
