1.  Have A Strategy

Entering into the land of building and maintaining a Facebook business page without a strategy is like etch-a-sketch; mildly entertaining but in the end pointless.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned working with businesses in building Facebook pages it’s that unless you know what you want to do with the page, it isn’t even worth making it.  All too often fan pages get built and then just sit there, the odd fan lingering around, just waiting for something to happen.

So whether your strategy is to attract new business through positive referrals, increase demand for a specific product you’re selling our just to remind those who you’ve dealt with previously that you still exist, be sure to come up with a game plan before lacing up your skates.

2.  Promote Your Page

Having a Facebook page without promoting it is like adding a new high margin item to your kitchen but not bothering to put it on the menu.  You should be doing all that you can to promote your newest marketing channel as it will be the most cost-effective long term marketing tool you have.  Adding a fan box to your website, running promotional offerings and/or giveaways to Fans as well as using a little Facebook Advertising are all really really good ways to start off.

3.  Understand Your Audience

As you embark on various parts of this journey you’re going to find that the more you know about your audience the better.  From utilizing Facebook’s hyper-targeted marketing right down to when you post the more you know about your fans the better.  Here’s an example: You own a pub and you’re wanting to promote something via a post.  Careful consideration should be given to when you post, as posting on a Friday night at 7pm will almost guarantee that the bulk of your fans will miss it.  They’re all out pubbing.  Now Sunday at 2pm would be a much better time as they’re all recuperating from good weekend checking out what their friends did!

4.  Engage

About the only thing more painful than the Facebook business page that doesn’t get used is the one that simply spouts out information about itself.  Whether you’re running a bar, shooting wedding photo’s or mowing lawns, the one thing that will set you apart from your competition will always be engaging with your customers.  Ask your fans questions, propose certain changes to your company, etc. people love to be involved.  The other item to note with regards to engaging your fans is that with the recent changes to the way Facebook displays news you’ll stand a much better chance of your fans seeing your posts if they’re interacting with you.

If you follow these 4 simple rules you’re sure to be off to a great start in the land of Facebook.  At 4CAST we ensure that all of our customers who sign up for our Social Media Start-up package get all of this as well as some valuable insights on what works and doesn’t here in Southern Alberta!

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Back in the late 90’s the internet as we knew it exploded!  People of all ages, shapes and sizes flocked to it in hordes.  The beginning of what was to become our gigantic fishbowl (for this analogy) was underway.  As people continued to rely on the internet for what they wanted and needed, the fishbowl got bigger and bigger.  Until early in the 21st century when the fishbowl got SO big that the fish (users) were struggling to find good food (content), no matter how hard the food manufacturers (businesses) tried to get it to them.

Enter Google!  Although Google had been around for a couple of years it’s adoption by the masses (fish and food manufacturers) didn’t happen until they all begin to realize how badly they needed help.  Google quickly became the ONLY way for the fish to find EDIBLE food.  And for the most part the rest is history, Google is by far and away the largest provider of valuable content to internet users.  They identified early on that some food manufacturers would be willing to pay to have their food served to the fish when they came looking, and in turn is now making billions; serving up grub!  This is referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  It is important to note that although Social Media offers new and improved ways to market to the fish there is still a need for SEM.

Let us now examine how social media changes this landscape once again.

Social Media represents two major shifts in our fishbowl; the personal identifiers placed on each individual fish (by the fish themselves) and the swimming in schools. This gives manufacturers a number of new assets to work with when it comes to the delivery of food.  One of the biggest being that when a food manufacturer satisfies one fish the whole school will know about it!  There is a catch here though (no pun intended), if you don’t have a social media strategy then the fish won’t hear about your food.

To finish let’s quickly compare what Social Media Marketing does differently then Search Engine Marketing (SEM or Google).  Search Engine Marketing takes all the fish that are looking for food and gives them a number of manufacturer’s food.  The challenge in this is that the fish don’t trust this to always be the best food. Enter Social Media!  Who better to take buying advice from than those who swim in your school.  Manufacturers can now use the personal identifiers (location, gender, age, education, workplace, relationship status, relationship goals, etc.) that fish are giving them through Social Media to hyper-target which food they drop in front of them!

So if you own a business you are a food manufacturer, plain and simple.  You now need to identify the school of fish that is the most likely to eat your food and when and how to serve it to them!  Enter 4CAST!  That’s what we do, we teach you the best way to get your school of fish’s attention, how much food they are willing to eat and when they prefer to snack.  We give you real world solutions to technology and we make it make sense!

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I’m a firm believer one size DOESN’T fit all.  I struggle a great deal with telling every company that there is one single solution and that ‘WE’ have it.  I say this simply because there are so many different outlets out there for businesses to connect with their customers and MANY of them are FREE!  Tools like Facebook Business Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs (much like this one) and the many others offer WAY MORE traffic, SEO weight (how far they actually push you up in search) and they do this all for FREE!  One must also consider that if your company has already spend lots of $$$ on a website that the overall goal should be bringing people there at the right time, maybe search engine marketing could work for you.  I think you probably get my drift, $300 a month for one single solution is like owning a restaurant and only serving bread; your customers want options and so should you!

I understand that in some cases companies don’t fully understand how all of this works, hence why I started 4CAST Business Solutions.  We offer a very broad set of services and solutions by considering your company, your goals and your budget; we’ll help you spend your money as effectively as possible.  Contact us today for a free consultation, we would love to hear from you.  (403) 942-4500 or send us an email.

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