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Over 700,000 businesses have created Facebook pages. Of them, how many are your competitors? This article examines 10 ways any business, no matter if it has five or five thousand employees, can engage its Facebook fan base. Use even a few of these methods and you will create brand awareness and interest, customer advocacy, and viral marketing streams. 1.Initial Thank You Messages The "Thank You" note may be the most underrated business tool ever. Let's be honest; we sometimes send "Thank You" notes in order to sustain or extend business relationships. Certainly, these messages are about gratitude, but more importantly, they are about showing each fan that your business recognizes her enthusiasm and cares about her opinions and ideas. "Thank You" Messages are best sent directly to fans. While some Facebook users have Walls open to the public for posting, the majority will only allow contact through a direct message. If a fan is in the minority, posting to the Wall is still inadvisable because it may anger your new fan. Remember, make "Thank You" messages personal, transparent, and do not assume for information than you should. For example, a profile photo of a baby may not mean the fan has a newborn, but rather that his brother does. Don't turn the fan off by assuming he is a father. Finally, timing is important. Send initial "Thank You" messages within a day, but not within hours, of a person becoming a new fan. It is a delicate balance between responsiveness and looking like a spammer. 2.Wall Posts with Questions and Links Facebook users become fans of pages they believe will have content relevant to their lives and interests. Pages that consider this fact will post meaningful content with links to further reading and/or source materials. Also, pages show their desire for engagement when they incorporate open-ended questions for fan response. Facebook Insights can be useful analytics tools, but we caution you to accept the assessments of your posts without being offended if Facebook decides your quality is low. Without fan interaction, great posts get lower rankings. The Insights section becomes much more meaningful as your fan base grows and continues to interact with the page. Once this happens, you can evaluate fan demographics as well as the number of comments, posts, and likes. 3.Timely, Thoughtful Responses to Fan Posts Fans who post to your page's Wall, write comments to your posts, participate in discussions, and hit the "like" button to items on your page are your best online advocates. Their activity (depending on profile settings) can go viral across their own Facebook networks, alerting potential new fans
that their friend has found something worthwhile on your page. Responding to fans who participate with your page should be quick, but thoughtful. Whoever responds to a comment or post should do so in a positive, helpful manner. 4.Community Content - Local Civic Events Fans of small business Facebook pages are more likely to be local and loyal customers. These are the Facebook users who know your business, but also know your community. The odds are these customers will be encouraged to find news outside the realm of your business featured on your site. As much as possible, promote the events of other important businesses, community service organizations, chambers of commerce, and development associations. As well, promotion of cultural events - local plays, music concerts, art exhibits, fundraisers - is a fantastic way of showing fans that your business cares about things important to local residents. If yours is a larger, well-known business, promoting community events is still a great idea. Those in your management will need to decide the scope and areas of your Facebook page's civic news. 5.Community Content - Local School Events Much like my advice in the previous section, community content pertaining to schools can be a powerful engagement tool for Facebook fans. With the decline of traditional media sources, newspapers and local TV news, residents are losing outlets for educational reporting. Content production for this idea and the previous idea about civic news can be a daunting task. If an internal employee is responsible, posting even daily updates about high school/civic news may be unfeasible. Without a budget for more personnel, making connections with local secondary schools and colleges is an important step to seeing this goal to fruition. The most your business can do in this effort is show the students, teachers and administrators valid reasons for their participation. Student writers can be published in the public sphere, teachers can utilize a taboo tool (Facebook) in a positive manner, and administrators can increase awareness of and support for their schools and programs. 6.Fan Incentives - Free Give-Away Events Who doesn't like getting something for free? And yes, there are truly free things these days. Automobile dealerships can give away oil changes. Restaurants can offer fans a free appetizer with a meal. The trick is to offer fans things they want. One simple, always popular give-away item is an iTunes gift card. These give-away events offer great opportunities for cross-promotions with other businesses (whether they are on Facebook or not). 7.Fan Incentives - A Facebook or Community Treasure Hunt Another way to engage fans and guarantee true interaction with the page is a Facebook/Community Treasure Hunt. Your business, on the Facebook page, can lead fans on a treasure hunt through Facebook or a local community (or a combination of both).
Again, the incentive is essential. For committed engagement from fans - multiple posts, time spent offline finding clues, etc. - your business should offer a fantastic prize. If you are a local jeweler, consider the amount of excitement and traffic you could get if you offer a diamond ring at wholesale to the winner of a month-long treasure hunt. Consider the word-of-mouth advertising and the future business the winner will do at your store. 8.Fan Incentives - Exchange of Favors Of all the fan incentives, this is the riskiest, but possibly the most powerful. The reason it is risky is some fans may find this favor as intrusive and unwarranted. They may not want to trouble their Facebook friends with your page. Therefore, be certain you frame this favor in terms that show the fan he has much to gain (a $9.95 oil change, complimentary 15-minute massage with makeover, etc.). If you receive no response from the fan, leave it at that. Your business can trade a product or service to fans who suggest your page to their Facebook network. There are ways of measuring the number of new fans this method gleans. The most effective way is to have the new fans post a message to the wall, indicating who suggested the page to them. The reasons this is a stellar method of tracking is that you now have an opportunity to engage this new fan. She may even ask if you are offering the deal you gave her friend to others. 9.Employee Photos and 150-word Biographies Businesses with small to moderate numbers of employees should use this method. On the Facebook page, there should be a photos tab. Each employee should be shown in his/her element. All employees should be encouraged to write or outline their own biography in approximately 150-words. Depending on your business, it is advisable that these biographies be interesting, engaging, funny, and short. The biographies should be highly personal, but also reflect the overall business ethos. The more human photographs you have available, the more human your business becomes to fans. 10.YouTube Videos By now, many who read this will have heard - YouTube is the 2nd busiest search engine on the web. Businesses that are not producing prodigious amounts of film are missing out. With the inexpensive camera technology available, even the smallest Mom and Pop outfit has a healthy budget for internet marketing. So start shooting videos today. Make them informative. Make them exciting. Make them irreverent and whimsical. But please make them interesting and brief! Of course, Facebook links to YouTube. All videos on your channel can easily be uploaded to your page. The vertical integration with fan incentives is endless - trivia questions, treasure hunt clues, instructions for inviting friends, and on and on.
Now, we understand that the majority of businesses do not have the time to execute even half of these engagement methods. At Xspond, we can. Our social media staff can implement these
ideas and all the other ones we develop with you. Let us show you how at http://www.xspond.com. Social Media Programs W: 810-235-8350 Xspond is a strategic-minded, data-driven, Life Cycle marketing solutions partner for our clients. We help them deliver the right message to the right person at the right time using the right medium.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Feldkamp
==== ==== We offer guaranteed Facebook fan packages to kick start your Facebook marketing campaign. http://mysocialbomber.com/facebook ==== ====