Small Business Talk
The Podcast to Grow your Business Faster
Facebook Friend or Foe for Your Business
Hey, I’m so glad you could make it. Today’s Small Business Talk Podcast topic is Facebook; Friend of Foe for Your Business.
Facebook love it or hate it, Facebook is a business tool; a very powerful business tool when used correctly.
- You have to pay to play on Facebook don’t you?
- What about negative comment?
Answers to these questions and more tune in to episode 4 of Small Business Talk Podcast with Cathy Smith.
004 Facebook Friend or Foe for Your Business
Show Notes
How can Facebook be a friend, when used for Business?
1. Be Consistent
The first thing you need to do when using Facebook for business is be consistent, Facebook is not going to work if you do a whole heap of posts in one day and never come back. Most of your people that have liked your page will never return to your wall. Your wall is the bit where all your posts are kept, a bit like a website, if you like. Most people using Facebook will see your information through their feed.
2. Be You, Be Real and Authentic
You need to think about is being real, being authentic, being you, we have all hear the things about Instagram where people are spending hours and hours trying to make their lives look like they’re perfect when they’re not. Facebook can be the same, people react to things that are real.
If you’re a cafe owner and you’re posting things about your actual food as opposed to stock photos, you’ll do far better. Post pictures or videos of happy customers, ask your customers to post their own pictures and tag your business page.
3. Use a Facebook Business Page
Insights
Your Facebook Insights are general located at the top of your business page when you are logged in as an editor or administrator. If you are not logged into your business page you will not be able to see the insights and non admins can’t see your insights.
Insights are the data collection centre of your business page. The insights can show you lots of information about the people that are interacting with your posts.
Your Facebook business page insights contain general information about your audience such as:
- see when people are looking
- what people are looking at
- what your demographics, location
- the type of people, age, gender
Pease be aware that if you’re using your Facebook on an iPhone or an Android, you will have less options. And Androids don’t always show Insights so you will then have to go back to a PC, a computer, an iPad, or a MAC, something like that, to get your full range of services from Facebook.
4. Post When Your Audience is Looking
Recent studies have said, “Up to 65% of Australians look at their Facebook as soon as they get up, or just before they got to bed.” And don’t discount the weekends. Often people are sitting at sporting events or waiting for things or even when they’re watching TV and then they will be also trawling through their Facebook so post when people are looking.
If they’re looking at 6 o’clock on a Sunday night, that’s when you should be posting. Now, you don’t actually need to be on your Facebook at 6 o’clock on a Sunday night. There are lots of different ways to set up schedules and posts, just be a bit creative.
5. Stop Selling All The Time On Facebook
Stop selling all the time on Facebook.
The first time you met your partner or a potential partner, you didn’t walk straight up to them and say, “Hey, here I am. Marry me.” Of course not.
You started a relationship,
first off you made eye contact,
sort of did the little wink,
made sure that they were into you as well.
Then over time, you had a few dates, you got to know each other and then eventually, you may have moved in together or it led to a more permanent thing.
Facebook’s a bit the same.
People want to know, like and trust you.
You need to build that relationship.
Add Value With Your Posts
Start by adding value, give them some interesting things in your posts, real information that can help them. Like Small Business Talk podcast. We’re not selling anything here, we’re just trying to help you out.
Do multiple value posts before you try to sell and be social!
Be social with your posts, allow your potential customers to get to know your business. Depending on what kind of business you’re in and how comfortable, you might post some things about your staff, you might have a staff member of the week or if you’re sponsoring a sporting club, or something like that, that’s a perfect way to be social.
“Remember, Facebook is social media and people come to Facebook to be social not sold at”.
A Really Good Way Of Doing Your Value Post Is Using Video.
Remember that 85% of videos are watched without the sound on. If you’re going to do a video that has audio, make sure you do also have the caption so that people can read it. Make you’re your videos are interesting. If you’re recording your video in an outdoor location and it’s really windy and nobody’s going to be able to hear you. This type of video is probably not going to work for your business.
With the advent of smartphones, we can do videos anyway and quite easily, so the audio needs to be relatively good. A video with reasonable audio as opposed to no video at all, definitely go with a reasonable audio. But if it’s really windy and hard to hear, that’s probably going to be a turn off. Think about somewhere else you might be able to shoot that video.
Can Facebook Be Bad for My Business?
- What are the negative consequences of Facebook?
- Facebook is a time suck.
- How many times have you ended up just going to post one thing or look at one thing and hours and hours have gone past?
- “What am I doing?
- Am I doing some research?
- Am I looking at other people’s similar pages to see what they’re doing?
- Am I scheduling at the posts for the week?”
Negative Comment?
“If you're getting the same negative comments over and over, there is something wrong with your business wouldn’t you want to know?”
Occasionally you will get comments that are from your opposition’s, boyfriend, girlfriend, aunt, cousin, etc. You can put in a complaint to Facebook about that, you can hide them so that nobody can see them apart from that person and their friends, or you can just comment back to say, “Can’t see that you’ve ever used our services, please contact us in private.”
Now with negative comments, the worst thing you can do is start a slinging match. He said, she said, we all said. So just think about how you would actually react to that if a person came to your business and made that comment.
Yes, Facebook is anonymous to a certain extent. Even though you can see the people’s name, people forget that there’s people behind it.
Think about the way that you would like to be treated and the way that you would react. And yes, sometimes you do get a brash of negative comments. But on the whole, if there’s something wrong with your business, you’d probably want to know.
Used correctly Facebook can be a great tool for your business, learn more in coming episodes.
To be great, you must start. Take 1 tip from this Small Business Talk episode and take action.
