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Social Media Strategy for Facebook

Is Facebook right for my business?

Short answer. It depends on what you are selling and if you have the time to invest. However, I believe that 90% of businesses will be able to use Facebook to talk and sell to their audience.

From a strategic marketing viewpoint, if you are just starting out in social media, Facebook is the way to go. You can quickly create an account and from that make a page for your business. Depending on your network size, you should be able to get your network to start "liking" you – effectively putting this "like" in their newsfeeds to their friends. However, by getting your followers to interact with you on wall posts and information you post provides much greater impact as these interactions and messages are passed through to the friends that you aren’t yet connected with.

Having someone "like" you on Facebook is the primary goal and having them interact with you through your wall posts on a regular basis is the follow-up goal.

We see 3 main objectives with Social Media…
1. Create top-of-mind awareness for your product, service or brand
2. Sell more products and services and
3. Provide customer support

Listed below are some good example’s of Facebook posts from the travel booking agency, Wotif http://www.facebook.com/wotif

1. Example of top-of-mind awareness through interaction… A woman in Mexico has been caught trying to sneak her hubby out of prison in a suitcase! For today’s Travel Tuesday, we want to know what’s the weirdest thing you’ve carried in your suitcase? (37 comments)

2. Example of selling with strong call to action … You've got an hour left to book today's Wot Deal. Stay in the stunning heritage listed Medina Grand Adelaide Treasury for $135 including free upgrade, breakfast, bottle of wine and late checkout. Radelaide has pulled out all the stops... http://www.wotif.com/

3. Example of customer support…VERY DISAPPOINTED with one night's accomodation at Surfer's Paradise that we booked through Wotif.com. In my opinion the Bahia self contained apartments mis represent their accomodation on the website and get around it by saying 'sample picture' The apartments are nothing like they portray them!! They are grubby and old!! I feel ripped off!! I have often booked through wotif and have never had a problem. You may want to look into this one.
(public response... Wotif.com Hi Lisa, that's very disappointing to hear. This sounds like one our customer service team would definitely like to handle. Can you please email your concerns to info@wotif.com so we can look into it further. Thanks so much.)

How do I get people to like me?

You firstly need to communicate to your existing customer base at every opportunity – can they "like" you through your website or email correspondence? Do they know you have a Facebook page and that they will be rewarded for following? You will need to offer incentives to your customers to "like" you after you have exhausted asking them.

We have also found it is hard for people to "like" you if you only have a small amount of likes to start with – as there has been no Facebook credibility established. What if you could buy "likes" to get you this credible base faster? Well www.twiends.com is the answer. Here you can buy Facebook likes or Twitter followers. It works out at about 20cents each. So for $30, you can buy 150 Facebook likes. Pretty cool hey? These people are not necessarily your customers and will come from all over the world, but they are useful in helping to establish social media credibility. Likes attract Likes. Followers attract Followers.

What people want to see...

Ok so you need to highlight new products or services with an incentive to buy (make them up if you need to or repackage them so they become topical).

For example, "Brand new luxury dog washing service – 50% off to the first 10 people only. Offer ends Friday.

Also, try and link current news stories to your strategy or be witty in your post. For example, "Carbon Tax Special, $23 off your next appointment if you book today".

For variety, you could search Google and post a funny picture of a dog having a bath and ask for a caption from your followers to win a prize – people love interacting with these types of posts.

Whatever you do, the idea is to get your followers to interact with you as only when this happens will your message spread. Here’s a fact… 55% of people like a page because they want to see promotional offers or interesting/entertaining content from you. There needs to be a perceived value to get people to follow you. Just highlighting your products and services is not enough. What is the offer or entertaining information you can provide?

How does Facebook advertising work?

In a nutshell, you design an ad with your own picture and text, set a daily budget to spend and also determine the target audience who will see the ad. Facebook allows you to be quite specific with your audience and target say all females, who are married, aged 18-40, live in Sydney and like dogs. Only these people will see your ad in their sidebar. Facebook will give you an approximate number of viewers for your ad based on your specifications. The wider the appeal, the more people will be able to see your ad. You don’t pay for impressions, you pay for clicks. You can start or stop at any time after your ad is approved which normally takes 24 hours...

I don’t have the time…

You should dedicate 1 hour a day to your social media strategy. If you need someone to look after this for you, why not give us a call on (02) 9984 8605 and we’d be happy to discuss this with you.