In today's economy, we are all looking for new ways to market our businesses that are cost-effective. I am often asked if Facebook is worth the time and the effort.
Let's look at the stats: Facebook has become a daily routine for more than 500 million active users. That's 500 million people actively using Facebook in the last 30 days. Astonishing.
It can be a great tool if done right. And it doesn't need to take a lot of time or effort. In fact, you can start right now by just doing a few powerful things:
1. Start by posting one or two things a day on your page. These should be ONLY useful tidbits from your area of expertise. Avoid trying to sell your fans anything and don't direct them to your website (yet). Make one post every other day that invites comments from your fans by asking a question. And make only one or two posts a week that attempt to people to your website for a sale or to promote specific items.
Ex: Did you know that asking a question in the subject line of your email prompts people to open it? What have you found useful? Tell us by commenting here...
Ex: Tip of the day: Most click-thru responses will come from the hyperlink at the top, bottom, and middle of your e-mail message – in that order. A lot of marketers forget the middle hyperlink. Don’t. Your response rates will suffer.
Ex: Happy Monday! In celebration of "Left-Hander's Day" on August 13th, all email marketing packages are 15% off all week long to anyone who's left-handed! Contact us today to discuss your project: 800-662-6808
Do things like that for about a week until you've got people commenting and you've started conversations with your fans. The whole point of social media is the "social" part of it, so encouraging conversations is KEY.
2. After a week of the above, send an invite to all of your personal friends on facebook to join your fanpage. Do this even if you've already done it in the past. People get busy and need to be reminded.
3. Concurrently, begin sending a little message to your fans once a week thanking them for being loyal fans and offering a coupon code with a link to your website.
4. Get a newsletter sign up form on your FB page immediately. (I'm happy to walk you through this if you're not sure how to do it.) Then send out a message to all of your fans with a link to your newsletter sign up page and start sending out weekly enewsletters that are short and sweet and offer several great tips plus offer some sort of discount code or sale on an item that you highlight in your newsletter.
Advice: re-purpose your blog into your enewsletters. You don't need to reinvent the wheel with each marketing piece you create. Just take what you're posting on your blog and turn that into the topic for your enewsletters. That way you're managing your marketing efforts efficiently!
Make sure in your enewsletters you encourage people to join your FB fan page for more discounts and coupon codes. This way, you are constantly funneling people to your fan page where you will have a chance to interact with them on a daily basis in a way that's more personal.
5. Run a contest once every few months. This is a FUN way to engage fans. Have them tell their best or worst story about something and encourage them to get their friends to comment. Tell the contestants the person with the most comments will win "X" prizes. Make it worth their while.
The reason you want to encourage people to get their friends to comment is because this will drive FRESH eyes to your fan page. Their friends will "Like" your page and before you know it, you will have 1000's of fans and your mailing list size will continue to grow!
It's a beautiful thing! And I hope these tips will help you increase your interaction with your customers as well as turn more prospects into paying customers.
To Your Success!
Rachel Karl
P.S. Join the conversation with me on Facebook and receive weekly discount codes and more great tips to grow your business: http://www.facebook.com/writergal
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