photo credit: asvensson

Facebook isn’t going away. And why would you want it to? Small businesses around Australia are now getting on Facebook and reaping the rewards. New visitors, fans and friends – all of which have the potential to convert to new paying customers. Facebook is a small business’ marketing dream come true. In this two part series I am going to look at why you need Facebook and how to market your business successfully. Make sure you subscribe by email so you don’t miss part two.

Ignore Facebook and lose money

Let’s be clear here: if you ignore Facebook and put it in the too hard basket you will be losing money. Money that you could be earning with quite a minimal amount of effort. It doesn’t take long to do a bit of marketing on Facebook and the rewards can come quite naturally. If you take one thing away from this post I hope it is the fact that you need to get on this social media giant today, not tomorrow. Your business will survive without it, but you could be doing a lot better with it.

You might also want to check out our article on why Facebook is not the marketing solution they would have you believe for some insights on why it will never replace the traditional website.

Why all small businesses should use Facebook

photo credit: U-g-g-B-o-y-(-Photograph-World-Sense-)

Before I get into the details on how to use Facebook I want to give you a few reasons as to why you should be using it. Once you know a few of these you will, hopefully, be more motivated to get on board and start to see it as a great opportunity as opposed to another commitment to take on.

1. You’ll reach new customers
Last year Facebook overtook Google as the most visited website on the planet. That is a remarkable feat and something that we should all be paying attention to. As a small business operator you should be thinking of Facebook as a free customer database that you can tap in to whenever you like. Sure, people go on there to talk to friends and make pointless updates about what they had for lunch. But they also “like” and “share” their favourite local businesses. They talk about them with their friends. And the really interesting thing is that when someone talks about their favourite local business on Facebook their 100+ friends all see the update.

So why is this relevant? Because you have a free medium whereby your customers can do some of your marketing for you. Imagine if ten of your loyal customers wrote a Facebook status update saying something like, “Taplin Web Design is such a great business. They really looked after us and we love our new website.” If each person has 100 friends then I just had my business promoted to 1000 people. Free. And what’s better is that almost all of those people are local. That is a highly relevant update.

2. You’ll make old customers more frequent and loyal
The flip side to getting new customers is that you will help make old customers more frequent visitors and more loyal over the long term. There is an old marketing saying that states that one repeat customer is more valuable than ten one-off customers. With that in mind it is very important to remember to promote your business to your existing customers, not just your potential customers. This is something that many small business owners overlook but an area that Facebook can help with. I’ll tell you how later in the post.

3. You can save on advertising costs
Facebook has two sides to it: the regular updating service that we are all familiar with and Facebook Ads. This is the “back area” which allows you to buy ad space on people’s profile pages. If you log into your Facebook account and look on the right hand side you will see a whole bunch of adverts. Have a look at the screen shot below of my Facebook homepage to see what I mean.

Now, here is how this saves you money. Facebook Ads are extremely targeted. When you create your advert campaign you can select from a whole bunch of demographics like age, sex, marital status, location, time of day, interests, etc. This means that your adverts are only going to be shown to relevant Facebook users. For example, if you are a female deodorant company you don’t want your ad been shown to 65 year old retired men. Radio and television can’t guarantee that… but Facebook can.

Guidelines for small business Facebook marketing

photo credit: Retinafunk

Now that you are (hopefully) a bit more motivated to use Facebook I want to give you some basic guidelines on how you should use it. These tips are not meant to form a complete marketing strategy. Rather, they are aimed at giving you a starting point so you can begin experimenting on your own. Remember, Taplin Web Design is regularly engaged by firms to do their Facebook marketing for them. If you are interested in getting some help just drop us a line.

1. Learn the terminology and types of pages
The first thing you need to do is learn the terminology and discover what pages Facebook allows you to create. For example, do you know the difference between a Fan Page and a Group? Do you know which one is better (or allowed) for you type of business? Most businesses will want to start a Page as opposed to a Group but it is a good idea to check out the Facebook Guidelines before doing anything.

2. Research the best Facebook pages
The second thing you need to do is take a look at how the other businesses in your industry are doing it. There is no point in trying to reinvent the wheel and as such you can save a lot of time by taking inspiration from others. Although I recommend looking at pages in your niche you can start by looking at these few which are doing the whole Business Page pretty well.

• Darren Rowse (Problogger)
  Darren Rowse is the original ProBlogger and makes a hefty seven figure income from blogging at his home computer. His Facebook page is one of the better ones around providing a lot of value and using some really nice graphics to draw the user in. Interestingly, Darren’s page is about connecting with him rather than his website. Very personal and intimate.
• Glam Adelaide
  Glam Adelaide is a local business run by Kelly Noble who is a veritable master of social media. The Glam Adelaide page is a wonderful example of a locally targeted service that is valuable to people and businesses alike.
• Taplin Web Design
  Of course I had to throw ours in there. We use our Facebook Page to promote our client’s websites as well as our own work. It is a great way to keep in touch with client’s once the work is done and keep them up to date with tips on how to get the most out of there new website.

When you are looking at these pages pay special attention to things like the tone of the updates, how the graphics are presented, what the call to action is and what benefits the users get if they “like” your page. These are the kind of things you want to emulate with your own page.

3. Think of a good elevator pitch
Decide on a name and an elevator pitch. The name should ideally be your business name and the elevator pitch is the small bit of text that you place in the sidebar. It is called an elevator pitch because it is short, just like telling someone in an elevator ride what it is that you do for a living. It should be focused and compelling; something that makes the person want to delve further. Don’t make it just a description but target it to your audience and give them some direction.

4. Create a landing page effect
A landing page is a page or website that serves as a launch pad to get users to go further into your website. Facebook pages are essentially pages that get people to visit your main website and, similarly, the first page that people see on your Facebook Page should serve to get people to go deeper into your Facebook Page. That’s quite a mouthful! If you didn’t understand that’s okay, keep reading.

There is an application called FBML that allows you to customize your Facebook Page so that you can add a landing page that people see when they visit your Page. I have attached a screen shot of the Taplin Web Design one below. Darren Rowse (see above) also does this really well on his Page.

This is a very powerful method to get people interested. Darren goes so far as to tell people to “like” his page! You might want to follow his lead or you might want to use the space to show some of your products or your services or tell people why your Facebook page will benefit their lives. Make sure it encourages them to delve deeper or you will lose them on that first screen.

5. Use a call to action
A call to action is an image or snippet of text that encourages a user to do something that you want them to do. Some common call to action phrases include “Add to cart”, “Click here to learn more”, etc. It is vital that your Facebook Page has a strong call to action. If you don’t have one you will find that your users get confused and don’t end up interacting in any meaningful way.

Think about what you want your visitors to do when they arrive. Do you want them to check out your website? Or perhaps “like” your page? View your latest products? Whatever it is it is important that you flat out tell them what it is you want them to do. Don’t leave it up to them, guide them. You will be amazed at how much more interaction you get.

6. Give, give, give
The most popular business pages are the ones that give a lot to their fans without asking for anything in return. It doesn’t need to be tangible products or anything like that, but it should be something that your visitors perceive as valuable. For example, if you own a clothes shop you might want to post regular fashion tips to your wall. This has the dual effect of giving your fans something for free as well as keeping your name in front of them regularly.

In part two of The Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing for Small Businesses I am going to talk about Facebook ads; how to design and implement a successful pay per click marketing campaign. Hopefully there will be lots of tips in there for you to use.