Dear business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers, marketers and Joe Public lend me your ears. There are many effective ways to use facebook and in this post we have 10 effective channels to send out your message.
Dear business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers, marketers and Joe Public lend me your ears. There are many effective ways to use facebook and in this post we have 10 effective channels to send out your message.
These channels can be used for personal awareness (getting people to know you through a profile), brand awareness (using a profile or fanpage to represent what you do for a living), hard selling a product or service, creating a communication channel with your customers and finally keeping an eye on your competition.
First we will take a look at how your Profile Activity is key to advertising on facebook for free:
Profile Activity
I want your profile to be active and yes have a profile just for your business. That does not mean harping on about your new widget or super service, it means using a profile to represent the working you. Do talk about what you do but also about what you had for lunch.
Calm, Confident and Cheerful
You will say this to yourself each time you login to facebook: “I will maintain at all times, a calm, confident, cheerful state of socialness”. Calm; not getting pissed off with people, you ranting and raving looks bad, deal with everything in a calm manner and you will be more approachable. Confidence will give your sales pitches more umph. If you don`t believe in what you do then neither will anyone else. For example: “we have a 10% sale on Sun Glasses” vs “Just received the go ahead to give a 10% discount, sweet! Goto the website, choose the pair you want and enjoy a 10% discount”. Lastly cheerful, being serious and dark is for youtube. People use facebook for fun not work so keep things light example “Another Monday morning and 100 emails to get through, sucks!!!!!” vs “No clouds today, nice to see the blue sky, just wish my inbox was as bright and breezy instead of packed with 100 emails. LOVE the ignore button hehehe”.
Keep an Eye on The World
You will keep an eye on the news and what is happening to the masses. I am sure a sprockets and spanners convention is very important to your company but maybe not so much to Joe Public. Read the news and give your opinion, it promotes engagement with your profile so that when you do send out sales stuff you`l be seen in their newsfeed.
Don`t Do a Disappearing Act
Keep on top of your profile as it is easy to be forgotten. This is why I say that the number of fans/friends does not matter. It’s about those you speak to. If you don`t engage with people your status updates do not get shown in their newsfeed. The only way you can reach old friends is through posting something they recently talked about or engaged with.
Be Quick To Interact
The first place you will look, after logging in, is the notifications section. That inviting red with the white text is the potential sound of the till register. Interactions with your status updates are a key way of people showing interest in who you are and what you do. Reply to every comment and comment on every like. It literally takes seconds to do and if you are lucky you`ll start a snowball conversation of which really revs up your profile rating.
Treading Water
Think of facebook like treading water, as soon as you stop you start to sink. The algorithm that chooses when you are shown on your friend’s newsfeeds looks at how active you are. By staying active you have more chance of being shown on your connections walls. Keeping active is just doing the same old stuff you always do like posting pictures, thoughts, feelings, likes and sharing.
Be Relevant and Topical
Keep an eye on what is happening, what is causing a stir, what is making those tongues wag faster than a Yorkshire terrier that’s been told it’s time for “walkies”. If you are targeting people in the web design circles then mention about the latest JavaScript libraries or design styles, if you are into jewelry has someone famous being showing off their bling? The best thing is to read the news like CNN/BBC etc. From there you can find stories that you have an opinion about and use it on your profile. For example post some pictures of Space Shuttle Endeavor rolling through Los Angeles or the Dollar losing its dominance in the world. Starting discussions increases your reach so when it does come to telling people about your special offer more people will see it!
Notifications are Key!
Now they key to all this is your notifications bar, it tells you when someone has interacted with you or your fanpages (if you have them set to send you notifications which you can do by going into the edit details panel). As soon as I see a number up there I click it and find out how I can continue a conversation, engage more and add value. Notifications means people are listening and you`ll see what posts, pictures videos etc get the most notifications. We have new customers asking about our courses on our fanpage so it is imperative that we engage quickly to help answer their question and welcome a new trainee onto one of our courses.
Summary
- Remain calm confident and cheerful at all times
- Keep active and don`t disappear
- Use the news and relevant events to start conversations
- Notifications are key
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