Simple Facebook Strategies for Small Businesses

1. Go Slow and Steady - The difference between Facebook and more traditional promotional channels is that the small business owner needs to invest a little bit of their time. The extra effort can go a long way and can even provide a rewarding experience as customers begin to provide feedback and communicate directly with you. So how much time do you need to be spending? Not hours a day! While promoting via Facebook can become an addictive process, you can allocate little more than an hour a week to your promotional activities.

While it’s never bad to start off enthusiastically, you don’t want to waste all of your efforts in the first few days. Build up your fan base steadily and you’ll begin to see the benefits.

2. Schedule Your Status Updates – There are several tools that allow you to schedule Facebook status updates. One of the favourites is Hootsuite. In fact, you can schedule an entire week’s worth of Facebook activity on Sunday evening, freeing you up to run your business during the week. 

But, beware. Scheduling updates doesn’t mean you don't have to check in on your page to see what’s going on. You will want to still log on to your account a couple of times per day to check for, and respond to, comments.

3. Be Entertaining - Keeping your fans engaged is an important component of any good Facebook strategy. How much time does it really take to come up with a clever status update? If you’re like me then catchy ideas occasionally pop into your head (or at least ones that you think are clever) when you are on the go. If you’ve properly configured your Facebook Page to work with your mobile device, you can instantly update your Page’s status while on the go.

It takes very little extra effort to bring a smile to your fans and it’s something that they’ll remember.

4. Contact Your Fans Directly - When you first start growing, it’s a good idea to interact with each new fan on an individual basis. Send users a message after they’ve become a fan of your Facebook page. Build a relationship with each fan and they’ll become a fan and a customer forever.

5. Post frequently – Your Facebook fans’ stream is usually arranged by “most recent.” Meaning the most recent status updates from a fan’s network is posted at the top. The more frequently you post, the more likely it is that you will catch a fan’s attention. Just make sure you don’t catch their attention by over posting and irritating them.

Different Ideas for Facebook Posts:

1. Social - Ask questions of fans, relate stories from customers or employees, or just tell something social that’s happening at the business.

2. News and Information – Make important announcements, offer incentives and give interesting facts.

3. Special Offers and Adds – Reward the people engaging with you Facebook page with promotions and discounts. A great way to keep your followers coming back to your page.

Read more about how we can help you with your social media marketing.