I met some friends of mine in a local pub yesterday with their teenage son as they ate some lunch. Their son like mine is doing his Junior cert in a few days. We cracked the (stale) joke that if Facebook was on the Junior certificate that and A grade was assured. We slapped our proverbial knees and chuckled. All we were missing were pipes and tartan blankets over our knees.
The reality for you as a business owner is that thousands of current and future clients visit Facebook every day. Despite the recent article by Mashable about teens losing interest in Facebook the reality is that it is the destination of choice for teens. When my son logs on he can have up to 50 other friends online at the same time and this is where they chat, share links and give status updates. Contrary to popular opinion (flawed) they don’t just spew out rubbish status updates. They share YouTube links, news, talk about their weekends and post links to interesting websites that they visit.
These are your future customers (or current depending on your niche). The 16 year olds of today will be the ones spending money over the next 1-5-10-20 years and you should be looking for them on Facebook. Note: They have no idea that you have a website as you didn’t post it on Facebook – get it?
They don’t live on Twitter. I repeat they don’t live on Twitter.
So if you don’t have a business Facebook presence then don’t finish today without getting one. I repeat (again) don’t finish today without getting one. You may not have a clue how to make the most of it but here are 10 things that should be Facebook 101 for your business today.
- Create the Facebook page now don’t go onto the next point. Facebook make it easy to create a business page
- did you do it? No go back to step 1.
- OK I believe you have done it. Put up information about your business and what you do. Create a reminder on your phone and every day post something on Facebook. Throw away the tartan blanket.
- Put your business Facebook link on your signature, business cards and media. Make it a proper name. Again Facebook shows you how to do this. Still have lots of business cards without the Facebook link. Throw them in the bin and get new ones.
- Put interesting images on your page. Product images, pictures of you working or creating your product or service. Images are the backbone of Facebook so get snapping and adding.
- Tell your friends that the page exists. Email them, print out the link and create a poster with a QR code on your shop, business. Don’t have a shop put the link on your signature of your website.
- Get adventurous and reach out to other businesses on Facebook, friend and subscribe to like minded customers and businesses out there . Get busy on Facebook.
- Don’t give up on it. Develop your skills on the network. Read about the new technologies. Create pages. Build loyalty.
Grange Web Design has a Facebook page and until recently we have been ignoring all of these points. Race ya.
