Social Media Ain’t Just For the Young Folk!
There are so many organizations out there that could benefit from using tools like Facebook. But all too often business owners think that these Social Media tools are for the younger generation. Well it’s time to wake up and smell the roses folks ‘cuz the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is the 35-49 age group!
As a Social Media Specialist Virtual Assistant, I help business owners utilize the power of applications like Facebook to grow their business. I offer coaching and consulting, assessment and strategy, profile setup and ongoing maintenance and support. Here are my 7 tips to using Facebook effectively. Feel free to add to the list!
- A Business Page is Important
Facebook frowns upon people using their personal page to promote their business. Create a business page for yourself or get your Social Media VA to set it up for you. The best part is, you can have one or many business pages. Showcase it to suit your business. Explore the different 3rd party applications to further customize your page. On Facebook personal pages you have ‘friends‘. On business pages, you have ‘fans‘. Anyone can become a fan of your page. You can customize your business page to allow your fans to write on your wall, post photos, videos etc. or you can limit its use. Think about having clients post a photo or video of themselves using your product. This can be a great testimonial! Remember being open and transparent is a key component to Social Media, so get creative!
Helpful tip: Get a Vanity URL for your business page. You only need 25 fans to get one. In my case, my vanity url is: VirtuallyYoursJoanneBurgess which is my business name. A Vanity URL is great for SEO and makes it easier to find you on sites like Google. Choose a name that best reflects your brand. But take care. Once you have chosen the name, it cannot be changed.
2. Distinguish between your personal page and your business page
Many people start with a personal page and then build up by adding a business page. This means that you might well have business contacts accessing your personal profile. You should monitor the items appearing on your wall and be mindful of the items you post to ensure they are professional enough for your business contacts to see. You might want to avoid having cousin Joe’s results from “which drug are you?” appearing on your wall. There is an option to remove unwanted items.
Helpful tip: Visit the privacy settings on your personal page to limit access to information that might not be pertinent for your business contacts to see. 1000 photos of the grandchildren are great, but may not be suitable in a business context. Striking a balance between being open and authentic and “TMI” (too much information) is the key. Also, consider using a professional type photo of you on your personal page (not one of you partying with your friends) and your logo or another professional shot of you on your business page. This is an important part of brand building. Try and stay consistent with your other profiles, website, etc.
3. Optimize Your Links
Make sure you use the capability to feed things like your blog to Facebook. You can also feed your Twitter stream and provide a link to your website and your LinkedIn profile. Using the Profile HTML application is very useful for those wishing to build their list. If you are unsure as to how to incorporate these functions, ask your VA.
Helpful tip: Consider adding the FriendFeed application to make it easier for your followers to see your content all in one place.
4. Get Smart About the News Feed
Knowing how to maximize the benefit of the news feed is very important. Facebook like many of the other social media tools, is very viral. Posting tags on photos, commenting on peoples’ wall posts etc. enters the news feed and raises your profile online.
Helpful tip: Doing small things like acknowledging peoples’ birthdays is one way to stay in the news feed. Someone who posts their birth date on Facebook probably likes to be remembered!
5. Message Sending
At the moment there is no spam filter in Facebook. Judicious use of the message sending feature gives you unparalleled access to business contacts. Also, knowing how to invite friends and fans to events will give you the opportunity to stay in touch with key prospects and clients. Be mindful however, when sending out hordes of emails in Facebook. This will keep the Facebook authorities away. Your account can be terminated if they feel you have been hounding your supporters with the same message so avoid constant promotion of your product or service.
Helpful tip: Use the ‘send a personal message’ feature when inviting someone to be a friend on facebook. Being personal and conversational is key to successful relationship building in the social media environment.
6. Ads
Consider using the Advertizing feature if you have a product or service you would like to promote. Facebook collects data on its users and you can get very specific with targeting your audience. This is an auction process. You can limit how much you wish to spend and Facebook will not overstep your limit. I recommend the pay-per-click option.
Helpful tip: Ads that offer a give-away appear to have more success. You may wish to consider this as an option and use it in your headline of your ad.
7. Staying Consistent
It is important to stay the course and be consistent in Facebook as with all the other social media applications. You can manage your Facebook account in 5 minutes a day if you stay focused and have a strategy in place. Your Virtual Assistant can help keep you on track. Remember that relationship building is the focus and won’t happen overnight.
Helpful tip: Being strategic about the friends that you have on applications like Facebook will help you stay focused. Diluting your friend or fan base with contacts that don’t drive your business forward will just be a distraction. The ignore button on Facebook can be your friend.
Those are my top 7! What are yours?
While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….
Right you are Sahil. As a Social Media Specialist, I caution clients against using any of the Social Media sites as a self-promotion vehicle. Sending out repetitive messages and aggressive marketing tactics will get your account suspended on more than just Facebook. Twitter and LinkedIn are two other sites that will shut you down if you are caught spamming. But whether you are caught or not, your audience will delete you as a contact if you apply these strategies therefore making you ineffective in this environment. Social Media is all about relationship building! Thanks for your comment!
Many online marketing companies are rendering Facebook to promote their business and generate traffic to their site. But doing excessive activities can result in getting your profiles banned. Let’s know what “not-to-do” when marketing via Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/ydpwxub