Facebook Your Business
| February 3, 2010 | Written by: ebolling |
Last week I talked about Twitter and how a business could effectively use it, track it and see if it’s working. So now lets move on to the next big social media, Facebook.
How about we take a look at a small retail store like Forbidden Shoes? If Forbidden Shoes sets up a Facebook account and starts adding their personal friends, family or whoever they can find on Facebook, most likely Forbidden Shoes is not hitting their target audience.
Now if Forbidden Shoes decides to collect information from their customers, like their name, (which is all you need to search for someone on Facebook) and sends them a friend request and that person accepts it, Forbidden Shoes is now connecting to their target audience.
So now half the battle is over. Forbidden Shoes is connected to their audience and the people that shop at their store. Now comes the creative part. Once Forbidden Shoes connects to their audience, they have to keep their attention, engage them and keep in contact with them. Otherwise, people forget who their friends are and will never visit the profile of Forbidden Shoes!
Perhaps one way of keeping their attention is making an event at the store exclusively for the Facebook friends of Forbidden Shoes. Maybe they receive 10% off if they mention that they are a Facebook friend or fan of Forbidden Shoes. Maybe Forbidden Shoes has a monthly special that only people on Facebook can find out about. Or maybe the store creates an event on Facebook like a pre-sale preview party for exclusive Facebook friends. Customers get to come in after hours and get a sneak peek at the sale and receive an extra discount.
This is an opportunity for customers to feel the benefit of being a Facebook friend of Forbidden Shoes and gives Forbidden Shoes the chance to get to know their Facebook followers and maybe pick their brain about what they like, don’t like and how they use Facebook.
If you engage your audience, spark their interest, make it worthwhile for them to visit your profile often and then are able to make a sale out of it, you are using social media successfully. There are endless possibilities and creative ways to connect to people with social media. The key to social media is connecting to the right people and finding a reason for people to visit your profile. This is what will determine the effectiveness of your social media.
Now go get Facebooking!
