My 30 Day Blogging Challenge continues and it’s only been 5 days – 25 to go!
Here’s the link if you want a Challenge that will help you with your writing skills, share your knowledge and raise the awareness of your business.
The tag [TIME SAVED] shows you where a Virtual Assistant (such as Virtual Hand) can save you time by doing these elements. This allows you to do what you love in your business as well as what you are good at.
Today is all about Facebook Interaction – once upon a time it was a social network for family and friends to keep in touch – then it all changed.
Businesses were encouraged to use the platform to find new clients; tap into the social world and find a new market for your goods and services. It was easy – many businesses reaped rewards for getting on early and using a platform that was, to be brutally honest, not ready for it and did not capitalise on this explosion. As time has moved on they have jumped on the band wagon – reducing the sharing of posts so even if someone had liked your page and showed an interest in your product or service they were suddenly not shown your information on their timeline. Initially text posts were penalised and images were shared more – then when we cottoned on and did more of those type of posts they reduced the share too – eventually creating an income for them as people were asked to pay to advertise, boost posts and generally pay to be seen by an audience that had previously selected them!
So, Facebook was then an accepted platform for businesses to market to – even the B2B market – because even business owners have facebook pages and are individuals first! With the ever changing rules the success rates vary dramatically from business to business and the Facebook Marketers are forever identifying the new rules and helping people to succeed – for a price.
Interaction is what we all crave when marketing – who likes talking to an empty room? Stimulating that interaction is the key and there are so many ways to do this but the results are not consistent and you can sometimes feel you are ‘flogging a dead horse’ (sorry horse lovers!)
But more importantly for us business owners the time to achieve a good level of interaction can be mammoth and for a number of businesses – soul destroying.
I wanted to set out a few of the avenues available – good and bad – within facebook and maybe open a door that you thought was not there.
Creating a Page on Facebook
Firstly, this is not a personal page that you promote your business on. Facebook have recently clamped down on this and you may wake one morning to find your account closed, no more friends and all your ‘community’ gone!
I actually think this is good – are friends on facebook real friends or just people you have ‘met’ online? A personal page with friends says to me you know them and to keep them separate from business associates/colleagues. I agree these associates/colleagues can become friends and the relationship changes but until then do you want your client to see what mad things your school friends get up to?
So creating a business page [TIME SAVED] is the way forward. Those that like your page do not get access to your personal page – it becomes separate until you invite them in.
Creating a business page with a business header and business links optimises your presence and gives access to those that are interested in your business to your business activities and you can post on there without worrying if Auntie Sue is wondering what you are talking about!
This page is also a great feeder to your website [TIME SAVED] – your blogs, offers, landing pages, services, testimonials etc.
Content
Facebook is not Twitter or LinkedIn – the content is therefore not the same and to post on one and have it directly feeding to the other is frankly lazy! They are different audiences, expecting a certain kind of conversation and if they are reading the same on one as the other it all becomes a little repetitive. However, there is the theory that we need to hear something about 10 times before we remember it so why not? Yes, but not necessarily the same words, in the same order at the same time! Think about it. But also think that you don’t have to do it all [TIME SAVED].
As previously mentioned picture posts are being favoured over text posts when sharing and if someone doesn’t interact their view of your posts will diminish – it’s as if they are not interested because they have not liked, shared or commented.
Text Posts – sharing your thoughts, highs, lows and general questions and information are useful to your audience to enable them to get to know you better and learn more about what you know and how you can help them. Extracting information from blogs and including a link to the blog helps to drive traffic to your website.
Images – using images to gain interaction is good – the image usually has text on it (called a Meme) or accompanying it (when it’s a personal image). Use of quotations; inspirational, motivational, insightful and just plain entertaining work so well to get people sharing.
Sharing – sharing other posts is a bit like a testimonial – this is good stuff so I want to share it with my audience. Commenting, liking and sharing are all the ways you can show people you are supporting them.
Interacting – responding to comments and shares is your way of recognising the support of others. It also shows you are present and you are a real person.
This can all be supported with the use of VA and save you lots of time – because as I said it is very time consuming and you can certainly get sucked into Facebook and a ten minute session can soon become an hour – and more! (I talk from experience!) Talk about Facebook interaction!
Here cometh the end of Number 5 – Facebook.
Here’s a link to the Start in case you missed it.
One of the hardest parts of working for yourself is building up a strong presence and keeping your business profile in the hearts and minds of your audience. Why not download your FREE GUIDE on how to raise your profile as a freelancer here.
Have you found the best platform for your business; there are so many to choose from?
Connect with Michelle on other platforms too: Learn how you can work with Virtual Hand; how your business can grow and how you can communicate better with your audience.
