The Book of Faces. Facebook

In our first blog we talked briefly about Facebook.  To recap Facebook is a platform where people, businesses or brands can interconnect by posting, sharing and commenting on  different types of media.  We are also going to apply the theory that your Facebook is not used to generate sales but it is a tool for growing your customer base and building rapport and a strong relationship with your clientele.  In this blog we are going to focus on some tips on how to get the best use out of your Facebook page, for your business or brand.

-Make sure your Facebook page is set up as a business page or fan page and market it as your business or brand.  Keep it polished and professional and don’t forget to add all relevant contact information so that your business listing is complete.

-Do not make posts about what is going on in your personal life, keep things strictly business related.  Keep in mind that you are acting on behalf of your business.

-Focus your content on your audience’s needs and how your business will benefit them.

-Interact with your audience; respond to comments and answer or address questions that the consumer is asking.

-Call for action from your audience; ask them to share, visit your website or subscribe to your blog.

-Post legitimate and thought provoking content to engage your users.

-Join groups related to your target market so you can learn more about your target market and how they behave on Facebook,

-Like other business pages as your business page so that you can create a strong network and potentially get involved in some cross promotion with the said businesses.

-Check your Facebook periodically and update content accordingly, remember if you aren’t active on your Facebook page it is not going to do the work for you.

-Buying likes?  Think again.  Buying likes will get you the aesthetic appearance of having a big following but they most likely won’t be your desired target market, remember, it’s like buying friends, they will only be there because they are being paid to show up, but don’t expect anything out of it.

-Quality is always better than quantity.  You want to have a strong following but strength doesn’t always show in numbers in this case.  Having a small loyal base of “fans” is better than having hundreds of inactive and disengaged “fans” who don’t even remember that you exist.

and lastly…

-Make sure you use your brand imaging on your Facebook so that people can recognize your logo, trademark etc.

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Why Social Media?

Why Social Media?

First of all, let’s talk about what social media networks/platforms are.  A social media network/platform is a virtual meeting place for users who share similar interests, backgrounds, histories and affiliations.  The relationships that we see throughout social media are B2B (business to business), B2C (business to consumer) and C2C (consumer to consumer).

According to Pew Research in one of their recent studies approximately 74% of adults (who have access to internet) use 1 or more social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn just to mention a few (this does not include e-mail or non-social platform websites). To see more of the details and a breakdown of demographics check out the article from Pew.

Why is this important?  It means that more people are on the internet than ever before and it is important because if you have the ability to reach a multitude of new customers who you had never even considered, with the same amount of effort you put into reaching your known target market, imagine the results?!

Now this is not to say that you can just make accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram LinkedIn and Pinterest and POOF, you have customers.  It does take planning and time and little bit of elbow grease to formulate and carry out.  It also doesn’t necessarily mean that you need all social media outlets.  Here is a brief rundown of what each social media platform works well with:

-Facebook: Allows for In-depth content sharing, video posting, image posting, status updates which allow you to add multiple media links and images.  Users can like, comment and share the uploaded media and also follow your personal or business profiles/pages. You can add users as “Friends” or get customers or target market to “like” and follow your business via their newsfeed.

-Twitter:  Create a brief profile then share status updates in 160 characters or less.  It allows you to add shortened web links as well as photos and allows users to post, re-post, “favorite” user content/statuses and follow (or subscribe) to other user account content.

-Instagram:  This platform also consists of creating a brief profile and allowing users to follow you and receive updates of your posted content.  It is a place for sharing photos and videos and allows # Hashtagging and commenting to link to similar categories and themes, allowing you to explore other similar users and categories.

-Pinterest:  Using Pinterest is like creating a giant cork board of things you like, for everyone else to see and share and re-post.  Pinterest gives you the ability to post links to content on other platforms, websites or links for videos/images.  Many people use Pinterest as a tutorial source from anything from hairstyles to technology modifications to cooking. You can search by keyword, user, category or theme.

-Linked In:  A professional place for  businesses and job seekers to post profiles, job openings and resumes.  Linked-In allows you to connect with people in your “network” via relationships with people in your own network.  You must confirm that you know these people (with personal profiles) before you can be added but you can openly follow any business profiles. It’s pretty much online head-hunting and job searching.

So with the creation of all these different platforms, we now have the channels to display content that will draw your target market in, but since each platform has its own unique set of characteristics and features they might not all necessarily apply to your needs, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t.

See our other blogs and video blogs for a more in-depth explanation of each platform and to explore how each platform can be used and for updates tips, tricks about social media related topics.