Force Your Business Forward With Facebook

It’ll seem odd to say it but I’m not a massive fan of social media, the games aggravate me, privacy is always going to be an issue and the number of alerts you receive and what you’re alerted to all seem to have to be set way low because the default might as well just be a big button with the legend “FLAME ON!” emblazoned across it.

I was an early adopter of twitter and linkedin too, maybe too early as there didn’t seem to be anyone else about so I averted my gaze for six months and then BOOM it’s a phenomenon. But I’m still not interested.

So, why should it

seem odd that some-one somewhere doesn’t like social media? Well, being an SEO it is supposed to be something I’m a complete Fan-Boy over. I appreciate that as a tool it works, but a tool is all it is, do you ask an artist to describe her brushes while ignoring her work? Would you sit in a Mazaratti ask the owner to describe how they drive it, or would you ask if you could have a go?

Today more people are being taken on in social media than in internet marketing and emarketing because of the belief in social marketing which, so far, is unproven. In a report published this year by ForeSee only 3% of traffic to a retailers website was driven by social media. Half was driven by prior knowledge of the company, a quarter was from emarketing.

    

So, if you’re going to make your social media strategy worthwhile you’re really going to have to work it, it’s not a wonder marketing device where you just flick the Facebook switch and orders flood in.

Having a Facebook or Myspace page is a very passive form of communication left on its own, you are going to have to engage and engage well to give the page the initial boost it needs to get it off the ground.

Advertising and Promotion

OK, sure ‘everyone’s’ got a Facebook page but it’s not necessarily natural for some-one to Facebook search a shoestore for example. If you have a Facebook page for your shoestore you’re still going to have to advertise it. Leaflet campaigns and traditional print and broadcast advertising should direct people to your Facebook page which should be populated with lots of good quality pictures of your stock a good bio and engaging comments wall.

It’s Your Voice so Speak

If you receive harsh comments from disgruntled customers don’t ignore them or worse yet, get involved in and online argument. This is a sure way to getting yourself a fur lines ocean going PR disaster; if people are making complaints then investigate them and say you’re doing so in reply. When you resolve the issue announce that the problem has been solved and that you’d welcome them back to see how well you’ve improved your service since their last visit. In this way you’ve turned a criticism into an opportunity to improve and you’ve kept your public image untarnished. A positive result all round.

You should also make ‘friends’ with all of your employees and encourage them to write comments and invite their friends too, offer inducements to new customers and new friends which aren’t available anywhere else. On the face of it this seems like your business is promoting your Facebook page but the more popular it is the more people will like and the word of mouth will spread which is the overall goal. But you have to keep at it, putting the page up and being enthused about it for the first month then finding you’re too busy to keep it up just won’t rock and roll.

Build Brand Loyalty.

What Facebook has over traditional marketing is the aspect of brand loyalty. It’s between five and ten times more expensive to convert a new customer than it is to get some-one who’s already loyal to the brand to buy. If you keep on good terms with your Fan-Boys and Girls by pre-releasing press, giving loyalty bonuses and rewards, inviting them to events. By treating your core clients extremely well you get not loyalty but devotion, again your word of mouth is second to none and they are far more likely to recommend you and defend your business better than paid PR when comparing you against other providers.

Moving on from Facebook, have you filled in your Google Local entry? Putting yourself into Local means that you have control. If you search your company’s name you will probably find yourself in Local and be astonished at how inaccurate the data is. The reason for this is that the data used has been aggregated from a number of directories all input by hand several years ago then chopped about as company after company have re-formatted the data to fit their directory’s style. Putting your own data in means that you can have a bio, pictures even a couple of Youtube movies up there.

I think that to many people the idea of having a corporate Twitter account is counter intuitive or at least irrelevant but if you’re blogging and commenting every day either on Facebook, your own website or other business partners, competitors and companies from where you draw inspiration then you should twitter everything. If it’s important enough for you to say it it’s important enough for you to tweet about it.

You’ll want a ‘follow me on twitter’ button but you’ll also want to follow everyone you can think of in every allied industry to yours because followers get followed not only by the followed but their followers too.

So you’ve got followers, so what? Well, your twitter is a free means to putting your brand in front of people every time you have something to say, your followers are always being reminded of you and seeing what you want to tell them that’s not just marketing, that’s almost like propaganda of Big Brother proportions; still can’t see the point?