If you’re using a Facebook business page as part of you marketing plans, you may have noticed recently that the number of people who have seen your posts has dropped like the proverbial rock. On a good day, our own posts are reaching about 5% of our fans. Does that mean you should throw in the towel on Facebook marketing? That’s up to you to decide, but before you do, take some of these options into account to see if Facebook is still viable for your small business.
You may think you don’t need a social media policy. You may think it’s too hard to write one. It might sound complicated, or like overkill. But I beg to differ! Today I’m going to tell you why everyone needs one, from the smallest of solo businesses to the biggest of companies. And I’ll share a few simple things to include in yours so you can easily write one of your own.
Every time Facebook makes a change, the marketers come out in droves to tell you what to do about it and “what it means for your business”. I’m here to tell you that it means nothing! Too many people are too quick to hop on the bandwagon of whatever comes next without thinking about whether it makes good business sense. Today I share my thoughts on marketers-turned-Facebook-PR-machine and what you might want to think about instead.
While you’re busy liking, sharing, pinning, providing value and creating content, a whole goldmine of opportunities is sitting there untapped, right under your nose. Where might that goldmine be? In blog comments! Now, before you run off because this sounds like tired old advice to comment on blogs and get to know the bloggers so you can build relationships… it’s not. There are other ways to use comments and other opportunities to be had. A lot of them. And probably a whole lot more targeted. Find out how to mine comments and then share your own comment with me so we can connect there, too!
In a social marketing world we meet people, engage with them, have conversations with them, learn about them… and hope to turn them into paying customers. But by the time that happens, we may find ourselves not just with a new customer but with a new “friend”. And that’s when the lines start to blur. How do we set expectations? Manage concerns? Mitigate problems? And deal with unpaid invoices? It’s a brand new playing field and there are no easy answers when boundaries between friends and customers start to dissolve. Here are my thoughts on these new social business relationships. I’d love you to weigh in with your experiences – and solutions if you’ve got them!
Getting started on social media can be challenging enough. But once you’re in a groove, are you measuring your success or simply humming along somewhat blindly? How do you REALLY know if your social marketing is successful? It depends in part on how you define “success” but here are some pretty common, universal ways to see how you’re doing. Pick something today. Measure it. Keep going!
Facebook has put marketers and businesses on notice: soon (or maybe already) your posts will be seen by fewer an fewer people. Why? So you’ll be compelled to pay for ads. And that’s right from the horse’s mouth, not just the random ramblings of a cranky marketer. Ok, fair warning: I DO get a bit cranky in this post but I also provide you with the information you need to prepare your business for the changes and some ideas for coping with them.
Think you need a ton of time to make social marketing work? You don’t! If you find yourself spending hours each day on social networks, it may be time to ask yourself WHY. (It may have more to do with cute cat videos and less to do with marketing than you think!) And even though you may need bigger blocks of time for serious planning and strategy, a mere half hour a day can serve your marketing efforts well if you use it wisely. Here are just a few ideas to help you plan your daily 30 minutes so you can get the most bang for your buck.
This is a short story about how I *almost* bought an author’s book. But more importantly, it’s about how not to conduct business on social media. It’s not a big deal… there was no crisis, no insult, nothing dramatically eye-rolling. Just a simple matter of an unanswered tweet. But in a world where we’re all busy and overloaded – not to mention “sold to” every second of the day – that was all it took to lose the sale. Read the rest of the story and take a lesson from one Random Guy’s missed opportunity.
Does the word “strategy” give you a bit of a chill? Do you worry that you don’t quite know how to pull your social marketing together? Are you spending hours every day and days every week worrying, obsessing and stressing over what your’re doing with social media? Or maybe you’re too overwhelmed by the idea to really give it a shot. Fear not! Here’s my save-time-for-dinner plan for coming up with a social strategy, putting it on paper (more importantly getting it OUT of your head) and saving you a ton of time for other things. They’re simple and effective and they’re things you can start doing today.
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