How many customers or patients does your small business or practice currently have? Are you utilizing the power of social media to attract more? Do you have questions of where to begin? If you haven’t created a Facebook Business page for your small business, or are concerned about the time it will take to manage the page, you should be aware that your missing out on the opportunity to reach the over 800 million Facebook users – any of whom could become your next customer. Whether you’re new to using Facebook for marketing or just need to get to the next level, small businesses can leverage the features and functions of a Facebook Page to help attract, engage and retain customers. Here are a couple tips to create a successful Facebook Brand Page to interact with current customers, as well as attract more:
1. What Type of Content to Post
When business owners delve in to the use of Facebook to reach their customers, most of them aren’t sure what they should discuss in a given posting. Any business using Facebook as part of their social marketing strategy will want to keep their customers and fans informed about their business, industry, and local, community events, and specials. A common misconception among people just starting out with Facebook is that the content should serve as a discussion between the business and consumers. Facebook should NOT be used as a one-way discussion solely about your products and services. Some good ideas would be posting links to your blog, providing photos and videos showing your product or service in action, and questions about a topic related to your business as a status update. This can trigger discussion from your fans; as 77% of fans read the posts, news feeds and offers posted by a brand, and 34% of people who interact with brands online do so via Facebook. Keeping your content interesting encourages fan “interaction.” Additionally, by including your customers in discussions about your company, they will feel a sense of ownership – and are more likely to not only return, but recommend you to a friend.
2. How to Drive Traffic to Your Facebook Page
In addition to posting engaging content, running contests on Facebook can be a great way to generate fans and brand awareness. Contests on Facebook have strict rules and can be expensive, but if you have a bit of a budget and a need to quickly drive brand awareness, a contest can help make your social marketing strategy on Facebook a huge success.
Of course, don’t forget about using traditional marketing to inform customers about your page – placing a poster in your business about your page, or encouraging your customers to “Like” your page – especially in return for an exclusive discount or gift – can also drive traffic to your Facebook page.
3. Connect your blog to your Facebook Page
Top Ranking Media can help create custom blog postings for your business and practice that will blast out automatically to your Facebook and other Social Media pages. The advantages to this are numerous including saving you time, man hours, and increasing the likelihood that your page will gain regular updates which is important for the growth of the page. In addition, by adding more blog postings you are killing two birds with one stone by adding page count to your website.
For more information on helping manage and create your Social Media Marketing program please feel free to contact us today.