Building your business on Facebook is most definitely a challenge. From how you position yourself, to building an audience, and taking the impact offline so that you can see real business results, there is a great deal to think about and to action to get success.
Once you’ve got your Facebook page created it’s time to consider building your audience. This is probably the most difficult section for most. Have a quick look around Facebook and you’ll see plenty of profiles with minimal page likes and interactions. The problem is that people assume that people will just find them, whereas these days that simply isn’t the case.
No matter what your business sells or offers, the first place to start with Facebook is in creating great content. Post content that is relevant, and that people will want to share. Do this regularly and try to get people you know and your current customers and partners to engage with you and follow you. Next, you need to get people to your new content. To do this consider advertising with Facebook Ads. Make sure you advertise to the right people so as not to waste money – make sure that you’re targeting people in your country in your target age range as a minimum. You can get really advanced with this targeting, and this can be really effective.
Once you’ve got your audience building up, it’s time to try to generate ROI and to take this new audience offline. You can run competitions, offer vouchers, and all sorts with Facebook apps – and you can share all of these on other social channels to increase performance. Consider sending out branded marketing collateral such as custom USBs from the likes of USB Makers to your audience to engage them further in your brand when you send out competition prizes or vouchers. You’ll need to be creative to get the offline world working well with your social media – but if you have a physical location your at an advantage as you can ask people to check in, review, or like your business when they are physically in front of you. Some even offer discounts or special offers for customers that are happy to do this.
Building your business on Facebook is a tough task, but if you invest the time, think carefully about what you’re doing, and invest in great content that you can succeed. One of the main challenges can be in tracking the value of your Facebook profile. So taking your followers offline with branded merchandise, and real life check ins and promotions can give you a clearer idea of the value you’ve created.