Facebook For Local Business

The active membership of Facebook was recorded at over 800 million active monthly users and an astounding 30 million daily active users in January 2013. With such an endless potential audience and market, simply setting up a business page isn’t enough. However using Facebook as a marketing device can seem equally difficult. The trick to Facebook for local business success is to ensure that, the time you invest on the social media platform is directly linked with one of the four following tips.

1. Provide Customer Service

Increasingly customers are turning to social media for customer support. Facebook for local business can provide you with a fantastic forum to answer these queries or questions directly. However handling customer service publically in real time, can from time to time have its drawbacks. But engaging and answering your customer’s questions in a public space is undeniably beneficial. As it displays how dedicated to your customers and that you genuinely care about their concerns and problems.

Quick Tips:

• Maintain a consistent voice when answering customers concerns.
• It is important to be honest and genuine with your customers on Facebook, especially when dealing with a complaint.
• Never delete negative posts! Answer them directly, and provide any assistance you can to help rectify the issue.
• Always ensure you answer customer’s questions in a reasonable timescale, i.e. within 24 hours.

2. Conduct Market Research

The following of your Facebook for local business page is essentially a highly focused and most importantly, qualified focus group. It is for the most part made up of people who like your brand and products and may even be willing to help you for free. When considering developing a new product or service it is worth reaching out and asking your followers for insights.

You can also use Facebook as a tool for advertising research. If you are planning to launch a new advertising campaign, you can utilise Facebook as the testing ground for that campaign. Unfortunately from time to time advertising messages can be misunderstood or confused, Facebook is the ideal forum to gauge your campaign.

3. Increase Your Leads and Sales

The primary reason behind your Facebook for local business campaign is to increasing both leads and sales. If well managed, Facebook provides an excellent vehicle for promotion, both of your business and products. You can use it to: post a link to your homepage or blog, introduce a new product or to promote an upcoming sale.

However the key here is to provide a good blend of promotional and social content. As a rule of thumb try to ensure that no more than one in every five of your posts is about either your brand or your product. A sure way to lose all your Facebook likes is to unleash a barrage of self-promoting posts. The vast majority of your posts should aim to provide your following with interesting or informative content.

4. Build Brand Loyalty

The most cost effective ways of growing your business are repeat customers and word-of-mouth advertising; however you have to earn them. If Facebook is used correctly it can be an excellent tool to build brand loyalty within your predefined target market. An excellent way to do this is to recognise repeat customers and to reward them. Other ways to build brand loyalty on Facebook include:

• Publically recognise your most loyal customers.
• Provide those who like your page with exclusive discounts.
• A fantastic way to reward customers who engage with you regularly on your Facebook for local business page is to highlight either a photo or a post from one of your fans on a weekly basis.