Need a marketing idea for small business?

Look no farther than Facebook. If your business is on a budget, then you should consider making either a fan page or a group for your business on Facebook. You may have heard of other businesses having success with a Facebook page and you want to experience this same success. There are many benefits to having your business on Facebook, but there are also some things you’ll need to avoid so you don’t experience any disadvantages.

Doing it Right Makes All the Difference

A poor Facebook page for your business is worse than not having one at all. So if you are thinking of making a Facebook page, make sure you do it right. Don’t just spend a few minutes on it by creating it, and then leaving it alone. You need to tend to it for at least a few days, and make sure that it provides a good experience to the user. If your business has a blog, you’ll want to set it up so that your blog posts go right to your Facebook page’s wall so that there will always be some new information for people to read. Update as much information as you can, including your business hours so that people know you’re a real entity and not some scammer with a Facebook page.

Facebook Business Page

If you notice in the picture above, it shows one of Nine Irish Brothers fans posting a “thank you” on their business page.   This is the ultimate and shows other customers that the business works very hard to keep their customers happy.  Engagement with the customers is key.

Getting to Know Your Customers is Critical

If you cater mostly to baby boomers they aren’t going to care too much that your business has its own Facebook page. It’s not going to make them want to do business with you any more or any less than they already do. They’ll likely find your site through other means than through Facebook. If you cater to pre-teens, teens, and twenty and thirty somethings you definitely need to have some presence on Facebook. If you don’t, you run the risk of looking out of touch with your core market.  While this trend is changing, if you cater to a target market over 60, you may not be as successful using Facebook – at least for now.

Encourage People to Visit Your Website

If you have a main website that you want be to use, you may find that they never make it there because they’re getting all of the information they need from your Facebook page. If you spent a lot of time and money to make your website, and you want people to use it and appreciate it, then you might want to limit how much you put on your Facebook page and just use it as a teaser to get people to click through to your website. Either way, it’s still one extra step they have to take to get to your website, and many people might not bother to click through.   One way to get people to your website from Facebook is to provide a link to your site that is attached to your posts or pictures.   If you have an interesting post and it links to your website, you have effectively used Facebook to drive traffic to your website.

There’s not too many disadvantages to having a Facebook page, as long as you follow the advice given here and do it the right way. The only thing it can do is potentially give you more visitors, and it provides another avenue for people to get to know more about you and your business.

If you are like most business owners – you don’t necessarily have the time to devote to gaining this knowledge or you may not have the time to do posts and respond to questions and comments.   Feel free to call us and we’ll be glad to either help train you or be your outsourcing to handle your social media for you.