4 Tips to Maintain a Small Business Social Media Page
By Fanny Barrientos
Small business social media is hard to implement with so much information and so many social media tools at the ready. Designing a business Facebook page is usually easy and inexpensive. The hard part is maintaining the page and making it worth your while to maintain. Here are four tips to remember while maintaining a Facebook page.
1. Content Is King
Arguably the best type of content on a Facebook page is something that is fun and engaging for those that follow. It is best to create content that promotes a discussion with your audience. Make sure to keep it light and enjoyable and, if possible, offer a promotion to those that engage. A great way to encourage engagement is to run a contest or have followers vote on what product they like the most. People in this day and age are very opinionated and if prompted, they will state their opinion. Additionally, sharing pictures and videos generally draw in more engagement than lengthy posts. Keep posts concise and to the point. Finally, ask questions. A post reading, “Nicki Minaj’s outfit: yay or nay?” accompanied by a picture of said outfit will encourage engagement more than, “Interesting outfit.”
2. Keep It Human
Human first. Business second. People want to have a relationship with a person, not with a faceless business entity. Show a little personality in the content that is published in order to give off that human vibe. There is nothing more annoying than reading post from businesses that do nothing but post about how wonderful their product is, or telling the audience to “buy item XYZ”. A Facebook post is not a TV ad so don’t treat it like one. Rather, keep posts as if you were carrying a conversation with a friend. By maintaining a conversational approach with your audience, your business will be more likely to build brand loyalty and develop an emotional attachment from potential customers. Remember to encourage further participation by responding to follower’s comments on your page, even if they are negative.
3. Know Your Audience
A good way to start is to check Facebook Insights regularly. They will tell who is liking what, where they are from, whether they are male or female, how old they are, etc. Then, cater your voice to that demographic. Use whatever jargon or slang they use, if appropriate to your brand image. For example a custom car builder might describe a vehicle customization as “bad” meaning that the customization to the vehicle was very well done. A hair salon, however, might not be able to use the same terminology. Afterall, none of us want a “bad” haircut. Another way to get in touch with your audience is to see what other kinds of pages they are liking and see what statuses or comments are being liked more often. Again, usually the more lighthearted posts will be liked more often, regardless of your target audience.
4. Link Social Media Tools
Don’t forget that your audience may not only be on Facebook! Link your business Facebook page to Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc. to lead traffic to your site. If you haven’t already, embed page apps to all these different tools to your Facebook page. Having a custom Facebook page is a great and inexpensive way to develop small business through social media.
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Tags: Social media, Facebook, How-to, Facebook marketing, social media marketing