Last Updated on May 29, 2019 by Numinix Developer
It’s hard to walk down the street these days without hearing words such as ‘tweeting’, ‘blogging’ and ‘Facebook status.’ While countless hours can be wasted using these social media tools, they can also increase traffic to your website and physical store if used efficiently. Efficiently is the key! Many business owners just don’t have the time or patience to figure out how to promote their businesses using Facebook. Facebook has over 500 million active users, and it’s not just for teenagers and college students anymore! Let’s get started with a few Facebook basics.
Creating Your Facebook Persona
Before you do anything you need to create a Facebook profile for your business. This is not a difficult task. The more involved part is creating a persona for your profile. Think of your business’ Facebook profile as if it were a living breathing person, with a personality and emotions. Why? When you call a customer service number would you rather talk with a person or a machine? Thought so! What kind of persona you want to create depends on your business. Consider Bill’s Electronics owned by Bill Smith. Bill has been running his consumer electronics repair shop for decades. Customers come to Bill’s shop because of Bill: he’s known for his honesty, integrity and hard work. In this case, you want to pass Bill’s reputation to potential customers who visit his business profile on Facebook. His profile should let readers know about his reputation and years of experience, and every post or comment that Bill makes should convey this reputation.
Finding Friends
Great, so you have your profile and persona, but your friendless (on Facebook only of course). So, how do you find friends? If you have a personal Facebook profile add your close friends, family members and other friends or acquaintances who you think would be interested in your business. Tell your close family members and friends to tell some of their friends to add you. Visit various Facebook groups related to your business and add people who you think could be potential customers. Search for people whose interests align with your business. There are many ways to increase your number of friends and thus you business’ exposure, but be careful! Facebook will allow you to add a person again even if they have rejected your request, so make a note of which people you’ve added.
Be Active
Think you’re ‘spamming’ people by continually updating your status, or posting notes or pictures? Most likely, you’re not! Every time you post something on Facebook or make a change to your profile your friends will receive updates on their homepages. However, many users have hundreds, and even thousands, of friends. Since the homepage shows updates in chronological order (older entries eventually become hidden), even if you post the same update five days in a row you may find many of your Facebook friends will see the update for the first time on the fourth or fifth time you post it. That doesn’t mean you should post everything five times, but, in general, focus on posting more rather than less.
We’re Just Getting Started
There are a myriad of ways you can use Facebook to promote your business once your profile is up and running. Creating groups, pages and events are three of the main ones. However, each of these require an article for themselves!
Numinix will soon be offering a variety of social media marketing services, including how to use Facebook in order to increase your business’ exposure or sales. If you are interested contact [email protected].