Are you promoting Facebook, or your business?
In part two of our three part social media series, we look at how to use Facebook to drive users to back your website, instead of them staying on Facebook
Many businesses have a Facebook page but not many of these businesses utilise this popular social media giant in the best way. This is because most people promote Facebook rather than their businesses. They put Facebook logos on their business cards and on their brochures and think that this promotes their business and increases brand awareness.
Well Facebook can provide enormous exposure for your business – it has 1.15 billion users and 700 million users per day. But you need to be sure that you are getting the best out of social media for your business.
The right way to promote your business
It is true that by advertising your Facebook page you are advertising your brand but you also need to make sure that your marketing strategy has the focus pointed directly at your business website.
By this, I mean that Facebook should be seen as a net to capture your customers and redirect them to your website where you encourage them to subscribe to your mailing list (you do have a mailing list don’t you?). And you want customers to subscribe to your mailing list so that you can send promotions, special offers, competitions and product updates etc. to your list.
So you want your customers redirected to your website. The problem with posting to Facebook is that only (some of) your Friends or Fans will ever see your post. If you want more exposure through Facebook and all your fans to see your posts then you must pay to promote your posts/news.
Paying to promote your posts via Facebook is a contentious issue and has been described as a revenue raising exercise. On the flip side of this argument, is that if you pay to promote your posts they can also be seen by hundreds of thousands of Facebook viewers.
However, what you want for your business is to drive traffic to your website rather than promoting the social media sites that you post your content to – as this dilutes your website visitors. By encouraging users to subscribe to your mailing list on your website you can target all of your subscribers rather than just those on your Facebook page.
And if you use a system like Mail Chimp you will also receive statistics on who actually opens and reads your emails.
5 ways to get the most out of Facebook
- Use a mailing system such as Mail Chimp to manage your mailing list, send emails and newsletters and track results. Link your Facebook page directly to the subscribe page on your website.
- Embed your Facebook posts in your website or blog. Customers can then Like or Share your post directly from your website.
- Cross post your blogs to your Facebook page, with only an excerpt on Facebook, with the rest of the content on your page – this encourages people to visit your website and increases traffic and leads.
- Like other complementary businesses – this increases your business network and if the other business Likes you back – their fans can become your leads or customers.
- Keep your posts short and snappy, link to the rest on our website – most people do not want to read reams of text on Facebook – they tend to prefer short updates and particularly those that include images or photos.
Part 1: 10 Tips to Boost Your Social Media Presence
Part 3: Are you consistent with your social media strategy?
If you want to know more about social media networking or Mail Chimp – contact the experts at SnapFrozen – digital experts of the future.
