Social Networking for Small Business - Part 2: Facebook

(For an intro to social networking see our previous article: social networking for small business.)

Facebook Dominates
Facebook is the fastest growing social network, with 50 million users joining in the 3 months to July 2009. That's over half a million new users per day (more stats from Facebook) and the fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older.
Facebook is no longer new; it's well and truly mainstream. And at the time of writing Facebook has just hit 1 million active Kiwi users!

Facebook is no longer new; it's well and truly main stream. And at the time of writing Facebook has just hit 1 million active users in New Zealand!
And this means you can find your customers in Facebook

Selling by Regular Contact
Calling your customers every 2 or 3 months is an effective way to keep them spending. But to do this en-mass you traditionally convert that one-to-one dialog to mass marketing monolog, such as direct mail or email.

Social networking allows you to find a nice balance between contacting lots of people at once and maintaining an interactive dialog with your customers.
This kind of regular interaction reminds your customers you are always thinking of them, and it keeps you at the top of their minds - ready for next time they spend their money.

Education = Repeat Business
Facebook allows you to easily feed byte sized pieces of info on your range of products or services to your customers. Most customers are only aware of a subset of your offerings, so this kind of education is great for repeat business - people don't buy your product or service if they don't know about it.

Here are the steps we suggest for using Facebook to ensure you stay at the top of your customers minds and you keep them educated so they buy more...
(Facebook does not make this info easy to find so add this page to your favourites.)

1. Join Facebook
Get familiar with Facebook. If you don't know your way around to a basic degree you'll break all rules of etiquette and your marketing efforts will fall flat.
So visit www.facebook.com, join up, follow the prompts and find some friends.
And post questions if you get stuck - your friends will enjoy helping you.
And don't be nervous about the technology - 250 million people found it easy.

2. Create a Facebook Page for Your Business
Here's an example: Anyware Facebook

This is similar to your personal Facebook account except that, well, it's for your business.
As you build a fan base (see the next step) your fans (friends and customers) will see your posts.
Post details about events, product launches, case studies or anything that your customers may be interested in and that can help you to maintain constant interaction with your customers.

Every time you complete a job for a customer consider posting the details to your Facebook Page (keeping the private details private of course).
Remember that regularly educating your customers on your full range of services is an effective way to increase repeat business.

Once you've created your Facebook Page you can edit it by clicking the "Ads and Pages" link in the bottom left corner of Facebook, then click the "Pages" link to edit your page.

Remember to post information to your company page not to your personal profile.

Here's more info about Facebook Pages and how to create them.

Keep in mind that unlike your personal page, your business page can not have friends. Only people who become fans of your page can see your posts.

If you'd like someone to walk you through the setup process and provide ongoing support when you need it we'd be happy to provide a fixed price quote. 3. Build a Fan Base
For people to see your posts you need fans - and fans are not hard to come by.
Here's how to make it easy for people to become fans.

Start by posting 'Find us in Facebook' links on your web site and in your email signatures.
See the rules for using Facebook logos.

Even better than a 'Find us in Facebook' link is a 'become a fan' box.
See the example on our home page.

A fan box shows people how many fans you already have and who some of them are. This is more engaging then a 'become a fan' link and likely to produce more fans.

Review your stationery - you could add 'Find us in Facebook' logos to your letter head or business cards if the right people would see it.

Send an email to customers and supporters and ask them to become fans. If you have an online newsletter include a 'become a fan' link.

And post a link on your personal Facebook page asking friends to become fans of your company. Be sure to include an easy to follow link to your company page.

4. Grow Your Friends
More friends mean more fans and more interaction with your customers.
The steps below show you how to import your contact lists into Facebook and selectively invite people you know to become friends. Click 'Find Friends' under the Friends menu and follow the prompts.

Upload your address book from outlook. This makes it quick and easy to selectively invite most of the people you know who are already Facebook users to become your friends.

If you have a newsletter mailing list, load it into Facebook too. Most email marketing programs can export the list of contacts as a CSV file. Upload this to your to your 'Find Friends' page.

5. Turn Friends into Fans
As you get more friends invite them to become fans of your business page.

To do this visit your business page and click the 'More' link below the 'Add Fan Box to your site' link. Click 'Suggest to Friends' then select all the friends you want to invite to become fans. Click Send Invitations and invitations are sent to the friends you selected to become fans.

6. Communicate on Autopilot
Set up procedures in your business so that you post to your Facebook Page every time you produce an online newsletter, finish a significant job for a customer, launch a new product, run a seminar or do anything that is worthy of your customers attention.

Just like with your email marketing you need to find a good balance between posting often enough to stay in touch and posting too often. If you post every day you're likely to over do it and lose fans.

Summary
Follow the steps in this guide and you'll have the fundamentals covered.
Before you know it you'll have a good presence and a solid, growing following in the largest and fastest growing social networking site, where your customers are waiting to engage you

If you have any questions or would like to review your options in more detail feel free to contact us.

Watch out for more on social networking tips in the next Anyware Insights.