So you’re launching your beautifully redesigned or brand new website and you want to show the world how up-to-date you are with your subtle design aesthetic and perfectly welcoming color scheme, and you’re ready to shout from the rooftops that you’re open for business. How do you go about creating a buzz in the online social circles?
To cover all your social media bases, you should have a finger in each of the important social network pies: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. Perhaps Google Plus as well. It would benefit no one if I glossed over each one in a single blog post, so for now I’ll focus on the behemoth of social networks: Facebook.
With all the changes that have happened to Facebook in the last four years, it might seem that it will be unrecognizable in a few more. Fortunately, these changes seem to be slowing down a bit and the trends that were popular in 2013 should continue throughout 2014. I’ll go into the latest trends later in this article, but I’ll start with some of the basics to give a more complete overview for the benefit of beginners.
There are two types of accounts in Facebook, one is a personal profile page, which you most likely already have, and the other is a brand page, a different beast altogether. You’ll want to utilize both of these to optimize the marketing of your eCommerce store with Facebook.
Personal Profile
A lot of online merchants might perceive it to be a social media faux pas to use their personal profile as a promotional platform, but like with anything else, there is an acceptable balance that you must find. It’s perfectly reasonable to post a link to one of your products five or six times per week. You can also post anytime you’re mentioned in the press. If a fan or friend tweets about your business, it’s a good idea to post that too if you think it has value. Your friends and family won’t mind seeing how progress with your business is going as long as it doesn’t overwhelm them.
Make sure to craft a great “about” story on your website. This makes for great social currency and you can post it once every four to six weeks. If you copy and paste the text directly into the post instead of just linking to it, more of the story will appear directly on the feeds of your friends and family.
If you feel that once per day is a bit much, or you start getting complaints or lose friends, obviously you might benefit from scaling it back a bit. This is an area you’ll have to use your best judgment in.
Business Page
Facebook created business pages to keep business promotion in personal profiles to a minimum. It might be slower growing your business page than your personal page, but after some time this investment will pay dividends as you grow and strengthen your fan base. The way you gain followers is through people “Liking” your page. In essence, these people have given you permission to advertise to them. Permission advertising is much more effective and efficient than the outmoded strategy of spamming everyone under the sun.
You’ll want to post things that will foster conversation amongst your Facebook friends on top of the posts that you make about your business, like the PR mentions, products links, and stories about your company – similar to the things I talked about for your personal profile. Although, you should keep things fresh from every angle and avoid posting the same things in both your page and profile on the same day. Mix up the content of your posts, picking from inspiring stories, inspirational quotes, industry news and trends, funny or moving high-resolution photos (that you have a right to publish), or fun and interesting polls or surveys. These things won’t have a direct effect on increasing sales, but they will help you cultivate your fan base and keep the conversation going around your brand. Always remember to respond to any comments directed at your business! Anyone ignored that “Liked” your page should be considered a lost customer.
Another good way to attract and retain fans is to offer promotions exclusively on your Facebook page. Customers will keep checking back if they know that’s where they’ll find great deals and discounts.
Facebook allowed more freedom for promoted posts in 2013, meaning that someone could take a post that was once popular and inject new life into it with a budget, specific targeting methods, and releasing it to the public and even pinning it to their own page. The new guidelines also removed the three day limit on how long marketers could promote their content.
Facebook Marketing Apps
- Dlvr.it is a tool that enables bloggers, publishers, and brands to instantly syndicate content and expand their reach. It takes the RSS feed from a blog and routes it to your page as a post, including a link back to the merchant’s site.
- NetworkedBlogs connects over a million blogs and publications to the real identities of their writers and readers. It is a user-generated blog directory and one of the largest distribution platforms for news on social networks.
- North Social has a marketplace of great apps for managing content, promotion, and brand building for Facebook and other social media. $2 – $6 per day gets you access to all of their apps.
- Wildfire and Woobox are contest and sweepstakes apps. Attract customers to your page with sweepstakes that award winners based on a lottery system or contests that award winners determined by public voting. Wildfire is a premium service, whereas Woobox offers a free app.
- Real Gifts is an app that utilizes the Facebook gift shop (as they have long offered virtual gifts) to enable the purchase of physical products. Merchants apply to become Real Gifts’ vendors and, pending approval, transfer a list of products to their online catalog.
You could fill an impressive directory with all of the apps designed to help with social media marketing, and several of the aforementioned app designers each have a wide selection of apps that you should take the time to peruse to see what your options are. It might seem overwhelming for merchants thinking about starting or getting serious about marketing with social media, but once you start to get into a habit it becomes less daunting and actually starts to get more fun!