One of the most common mistakes I see small businesses making on Facebook is blatantly using it as a sales platform.
The key word to keep in mind whenever you post on Facebook (or other online networks) is “social”. You should be using these channels to connect and network, through doing that you will build credibility and trust, that may (or may not) eventually lead to sales, but that will definitely strengthen your brand, business or product.
Look back at your recent posts and ask yourself these three questions?
- Have the last three posts been asking people to “buy” something? This might be you just posting photos of your products and saying how great they are, or it might be a more obvious push marketing tactic, “Don’t Miss Out”, “Just In”, “Sale Ends Soon”…
- Have you been talking at people rather than having a conversation with them? If your audience take the time to add a comment to your Facebook post, please show them the courtesy of more than a “thumbs up”. Try to think about nurturing these online relationships as you would a friendship. If somebody stepped into your place of business for example and told you they liked a new product or service you were offering, would you just give them a thumbs up, or would you engage with them, ask them what they liked about it and strike up a conversation? The greatest gift you can give potential customers is showing them that you’re interested in their feedback.
- Have you been focusing on quantity rather than quality? If you’re posting the same type of content every day it shows that you’re not putting a lot of thought in to how this can benefit your customer, your audience will switch off, and so will Facebook, (they have a sneaky algorithm that detects content that people are not engaging with) but you’ll work this out as your post reach dwindles. Look for content that you can share from other pages your market will be interested in. I’m not a great fan of the time-saving auto post, if you’re not able to post about the “here & now” you probably can’t reply in the “here & now”, and there you have a lack of engagement.
Think about cultivating your online relationships with your customers and become their friends, rather than consistently trying to sell to them, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again we all do business with people we actually like. I’m going to leave you with this little saying, which you may have seen circulating on Facebook, it’s not mine, but it makes me laugh…. And I’m going to ask you not to be the see through pair, add a little class to your act…
Friends are like knickers, some crawl up your backside, some snap under pressure, some don’t have the strength to hold you up, some get twisted, some are your favourite, some you can see right through, some are cheap and nasty, but some actually cover your butt when you need them to.
