Facebook - Not Just For Friends
- by Fiona Service
- •
- 26 Jan, 2017
- •
Facebook is not only for keeping up to date with your friends and family.
There are 35 million UK users, across all ages, both men and woman. Active users spend an average of 20 mins browsing every day.
You can only set up a Facebook business page through a personal account. This is a bonus though for small local businesses. If you can get all your local friends to like and interact with your Facebook business page, their local friends will notice it too and you can spread your brand through your local community.
It's really easy to set up and Facebook has great reporting details. You can actually see how many people are looking at your page and looking at your posts. Which makes it easier to see just what works and what doesn't.
People are now using Facebook to search for local businesses and also to see what people are saying about these businesses.
You might think that Facebook is not the place for your professional life - but trust us it is.
But...to get the followers you need, this is the one social media platform that you really need to spend a bit of money on. And when I say a bit of money, it can be £20 at a time, so very little and the most effective way to use Facebook.
There are 35 million UK users, across all ages, both men and woman. Active users spend an average of 20 mins browsing every day.
You can only set up a Facebook business page through a personal account. This is a bonus though for small local businesses. If you can get all your local friends to like and interact with your Facebook business page, their local friends will notice it too and you can spread your brand through your local community.
It's really easy to set up and Facebook has great reporting details. You can actually see how many people are looking at your page and looking at your posts. Which makes it easier to see just what works and what doesn't.
People are now using Facebook to search for local businesses and also to see what people are saying about these businesses.
You might think that Facebook is not the place for your professional life - but trust us it is.
But...to get the followers you need, this is the one social media platform that you really need to spend a bit of money on. And when I say a bit of money, it can be £20 at a time, so very little and the most effective way to use Facebook.
You can't just sell on Social Media. It doesn't work that way. Social Media is unsurprisingly social!
To get your posts seen, you must, must engage your audience. To do that you need to share a story and entertain.
So start talking, start sharing and start telling everyone your story. It works...we promise.
To get your posts seen, you must, must engage your audience. To do that you need to share a story and entertain.
- If you tell your customers about the behind the scenes of your business or talk about the people that work for you - they are more likely to comment, like and share. If you mention something silly and funny that happened that day - you will get LOL's and funny comments back. Then you can quietly slip in a sales post - just to remind everyone you have a service or product to sell. Talking about the history of your Brand or providing informative pieces about how to use your products is lot more engaging than telling everyone you have something for sale at £99.
- When you do get a comment - then you need to keep the conversation going. Add a Gif (small video), an emojie, a comment and even better a question. Engage with your customer - talk to them.
- When you do a post - try to have a "Call to Action." Ask your customers to message you, visit your website, call you, ask questions - prompt them to keep the conversation going.
- Make sure all your sites have all the sections filled in correctly, have your story available for anyone to read.
- TRY THE STORY OPTION. This is the newest and becoming a very important way to talk to your customers. Your posts will get lost amongst the newsfeed, or not even show in some peoples feed. So if you can use Story function on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Whatsapp - do it, do it now and do it regularly.
So start talking, start sharing and start telling everyone your story. It works...we promise.
Don't worry there is nothing scary about Dark Social - it's not going to hurt your business, but you must be aware of it.
Even small businesses can't get away from having a simple website and a proper email address.
Is your company photo worthy? Social media is driven by photos - it's worth making the effort.
LinkedIn is there to present the serious professional side of you.
Twitter is essential for any small business but can be very overwhelming
Google Business Page and Google Plus are essential for your small business, but can be tricky to set up.
