2021
How you should be sending every email in your business
We all send out 100’s of emails from our business every
week if not every day. Each one of these emails is a touch point with
your market be it direct or indirect.&...
Updating your Facebook page with content that will promote your business does not have to be so complicated. It is largely intuitive and in fact reflects normal human communications behaviour - doing it naturally is what it is all about. This strategy will be of assistance to anyone who is looking to use social media to promote their business, their products or services.
It is probably worth while understanding that there is different content rules that you must understand identifying what should make up that content and how it should be utilised. The other aspect we talk about is the mix of content on your Facebook timeline
Contrary to what you might think - your Facebook content (in business) is not abut you - you are there to tell a story about how your business, services and products or service in a way that interacts with your customers. So what sort of content do you use?
In creating content to share you need to be mindful of the principal that you are there to ” Show and share NOT Tell” you want to actually share information in a non-invasive manner that promotes interaction or stimulates interaction rather than just telling people how great you are. Telling people does not open up conversation - think of your own personal experiences when talking to someone at a party - what is your own reaction if the other person continually tells you all night - does this induce you to make conversation?
You don't have to do all the hard work alone and in fact you are advised to do all you can to get content created by others rather than just yourself.
The most simple and quite often effective way to drive people to your page from outside Facebook is from an email newsletter, a blog (preferably your own), video or advert etc with clear direction. Some common call to action statements might be - “Check out this offer and tell us what you think on our Facebook page” “Would love to hear your thoughts, please share them on our Facebook page” ” Tell us what you think on our Facebook wall”. Important Note: You MUST include the link to your Facebook page or the post you want them to comment on so your audience can find it easily and interact as you have asked.
A really important tip to make your audience feel appreciated and that you are reading their post’s is to make sure you always “like” their comments and engage with 2 way conversation where possible AND where it contributes to the first rule above.
When using simple prompts or share request the key is to keep it simple ! Something that can be answered quickly and doesn’t require the user to write a full article to explain themselves. Example “My favourite author is a Clive Cussler, What’s yours?” this will encourage quick replies because it is an "open" question - one that seeks an answer other than just yes or No. Prompting for interaction also doesn't even have to be about your business ! It’s about getting your audience to engage with you and start to build a relationship with your brand or company. It is suggested however that it be relevant to the "theme" of your business or industry even if indirectly.
Questions and polls also are great for getting your audience to interact with your page. The whole idea of getting them to engage is to make sure you are regularly showing up in their Facebook homepage news feed, the more they interact the more you will show up.
Whilst your not there to tell this doesn't mean you can't share insight not available to anyone else - the inside story about your business
People will want to know about the inside story of your business. Showing behind the scenes stuff builds a loyal following for your brand or company as people really feel like they know you well - this is about building a relationship. Now a great example of this would be to show the back end staff working and processing orders for example. By seeing this your audience will feel that when they order from your business they personally know who is going to be handling their order and how they go about completing it.
People would much rather see people working in your office rather than a picture of the front of your building. People connect with people, people share life with people. You will be very surprised at how by just documenting your daily activities with some pictures and sharing with your fans, how interesting your audience find the “Behind The Scenes” content.
Your website is the front door to you business - do not ever think that your Facebook page serves this purpose. Therefore, you must aim to drive people from Facebook back to your website - this is wherre you do your business after all.
One very simple and effective way is to post all blog post and website updates to your Facebook page. This includes your old content - recycle old content - it may be old but it should still be valid and relevant so remind people about it. You need to drive your audience back to your website so they can find out what the sales process is.
A lot of people don’t realise but it’s very rare that customers are picking up the phone straight from Facebook. You need to drive people back to your website so they can get the official details they need, be it an email address, telephone number, sign up for your newsletter, get a voucher or purchase a product or book an appointment. Drive traffic back to your website regularly !
A super easy way to do this is to use an automated RSS feed from your blog and website to your Facebook page with products such as“RSS Graffit" app or "HootSuites RSS feed to Facebook” also include links back to your site wherever possible but not with every post you make. There are a number of different products each with its own merits. Other social aggregation tools such as "Sendible" are also very effective for managing your total social media channel communications.
It is not about the amount of content, it's not about the number of fans - its about creating engagement and in order to create this you must first apply the 3 rues above and then work from a social mix strategy. Our suggested rule is a mix of 70-20-10. To understand this we suggest you read our other article "Rule of thumb for Facebook content 70-20-10"
Keep it Regular !
So to wrap up...