Post Like This: Good Habits for Businesses on Facebook

If you are a business owner or admin for a Facebook business page you are probably thinking this article is about how to create Facebook Ads—but it isn’t.  Stick with me here.

This is about a creative, interesting, and VERY important way correctly promote businesses on Facebook.

What is the REAL reason to promote businesses on Facebook?

You might say:

• To sell stuff
• To tell people about my business
• To build awareness about what I sell so I make more money

You wouldn’t be wrong, but you are missing a HUUUUUUUGE piece of the puzzle.

Here is the missing piece:

To build an online community of followers who support your business and will promote it to others by driving traffic to your website. 

 

You do have a website right? If you don’t it is going to be very difficult to be effective on social media. PERIOD! More on that later.

SO, back to using Facebook.  You have a Business Facebook page for your business. You post to it regularly (EVERY DAY AT LEAST ONCE–more than once a day is better)!

What are you posting?

Here are some obvious options:

• Events
• Specials/Sales
• Product descriptions
• New products
• Pictures

What do all of these have in common? Self-Promotion.

While some self-promotion is good and necessary to do for a business (it IS marketing after all), it’s boring and self-serving. Wouldn’t your business be much more valuable to it’s clients if it provided interesting and useful information and ideas related to the industry you are in?

Become a thought leader or subject matter expert in your industry, not just the business that only posts its daily specials or latest Widget and that’s it. BORING!

The content you create and post to your website and social media should be interesting and informative. It should make people want to follow you, share your posts, tell people about you, and buy stuff from you. All while being entertaining and causing people to CARE about what you are doing. It’s not as hard as it may sound. Provide the type of information you would want from another business. Don’t throw your products in people’s faces consistently without giving them something else to grab hold of.

For example, I am much more likely to “share” a post like “How to Throw the Perfect Baby Shower Tea Party” than a post that states “Book a tea party this month and get 50% off.”

The first post is useful to me. I clicked on the link in the post and it took me to the website of a cute little cafe near me. It just so happens that the cafe that posted the information DOES host exactly these kinds of tea parties, but if I wanted to do it myself, now I have some ideas. If I decided I don’t want to have to clean my house and cook for this big event, well, how convenient that the cafe rents out its space and provides the types of food and drinks suggested in the article.

Do you see the difference?

The second type of post is also information, but it’s self-serving and lazy–not to mention boring. Stand out of the crowd–that is the whole point of marketing.

Psssst! By the way, the above mention of the cafe’s website is a big reason why you need one.

The golden nugget of information in this entire article is right here:

Create meaningful and interesting content in a BLOG on your own WEBSITE and then post teasers on social media with a link back to the blog (to read the whole article) .

The whole point of social media is to drive traffic back to you website. Your website is your calling card. It is the place where people find out exactly where you are, what you do, how to buy your products, the history of your company, etc. etc. etc. You don’t post all that on Social Media. Who wants to read that in their feed every day?

Plus, all that awesome content you are creating on your website will make you more searchable, easier to find through Google, increase your SEO, and make you look and sound like you actually know what you are doing. All business owners know there are some days when we wonder if we do in fact, know what we are doing. When those days come, just click through your website to reassure yourself.

Where are you posting?

On your own Facebook page, duh! Anywhere else? Did you know you have other options?

Does your town or community have a community Facebook Page?

Do you belong to groups on Facebook with similar interests to your business or community?

Using a community page or group to promote businesses on Facebook is very helpful, especially when it is a large group and you are getting a lot of exposure. But don’t take advantage of that exposure. Don’t bombard the members’ feeds with every single yoga class your studio offers. Instead, write an article about the benefits of daily yoga (with a link embedded to your studio schedule) and then post a link back to your blog on your site.

RELATED: Contributing to Online Communities

Facebook pages and groups are amazing to belong to for a few reasons:

• In the same way your website works for you, posting to Community Pages and Groups will get more people to LIKE and FOLLOW your business in social media.
• They can be local, and local support of your business is invaluable
• It is a way for your business to become more involved in the community
• The people in these  groups have common interests
• Most people on Community Pages or Groups belong to other groups and will TELL more people about you business.
• You’ll find out more about the other businesses in your area or industry and you can start to cross-promote, building even more community and support.
• You can align yourself as a “voice of reason”, a professional, and a good person to do business with based on your behavior, comments, and the way you promote yourself and others on Social Media (the flip side of this is also true, not ALL publicity is good publicity). Basically, be a good example.

Is this making sense yet?

Bottom line: When you post to Facebook, make sure you have diversity in what you are posting. Make it interesting. Don’t just self-promote, promote others when you have the chance, provide quality information that isn’t selling anything (more often than you self-promote), position yourself as a leader in your industry/community, and above all: BE NICE!

Many business owners don’t have time to construct daily campaigns and properly crafted Facebook posts and blogs, so they hire social media experts and content creators. If you find yourself in need of one of these experts, or just need more information on what more you can do as a business owner, check out Zander Management.

See what I did there?