Improve Your Facebook Strategy Right Now with this ONE Thing
Using Facebook as part of your marketing strategy to build your business can be a fairly daunting, if not overwhelming, undertaking. There is so much you can do on Facebook, and it would be EASY to waste hours every day on there just poking around, checking things out, replying to people, posting updates, and so on.
So how do you make sure that you’re spending your time effectively on Facebook? What is the ONE key thing that you need to be doing and focusing on to improve your Facebook strategy?
Be Social and Build Relationships
Yep, that’s it!
Facebook is a social network, it’s all about connecting with people you know to keep in touch with them. It’s all about the relationship you have with them, your mutual connections and common interests.
It’s all about relationships, baby!
And it’s no different on your Facebook Business Page. It’s still all about building relationships with your fans and strengthening the connection they have with you and your business. And everything you’re doing on your Facebook Page should be moving you toward that goal.
Always remember that your fans are not on Facebook to be sold to or to do business! They are there to connect, to see what their friends and family are up to, to make new friends or connect with ones they haven’t seen in years.
When you come along trying to sell them stuff, promote your stuff, talk about your stuff… You are boring and they don’t want to hang around. They want to go somewhere else.
Have you been wondering why you’re not getting any comments, Likes or other interaction from your fans? This may be why! Look at what you’ve been saying. Is it all about YOU and YOUR BUSINESS? Try making it more about your FANS and what they want to hear…
Building relationships on Facebook is similar to doing it anywhere else. If you come in just looking at what’s in it for you, then you’ll end up frustrated, disappointed, with no one listening to you.
On the other hand, if you come into it looking at how you can help your fans, and asking what they want from you, then you’ll have a MUCH better chance of catching their attention and keeping it.
Three Steps to Facebook Relationships
Building a relationship with your fans is not as challenging as you may think! In fact, here are three easy ways for you to get started!
#1. Find out what they want. Ask them.
First, you need to know what your fans want from you and how you can help them. They may not want what you think they want, at all. It may be something completely different. Find out.
You can ask them questions to find out what they want. Ask them how you can help them or what they are struggling with. If you know some of them personally, that’s a great chance to send them a personal email and ask them specifically what you can help them with. If they want help with it, chances are others of your fans do too!
Listen to what they are saying when they’re commenting on your updates. Follow them on Twitter and see what they are saying there. Pay attention to what they are talking about and what’s going on with them. This is a great way to really tailor your content to them and make it interesting and helpful.
Trust me, your fans will want more of this kind of stuff!
#2. Share other people’s stuff. Often.
Second, be careful that you’re not just sharing your own stuff all the time. Look for opportunities to share content from other people as well. This gives your fans even more resources and shows them that you’re not completely stuck on yourself.
When you’re browsing the Internet and reading articles or watching videos that are interesting to you, watch for ones that would be interesting to your fans, as well. Then share those! Post it right up there on your Facebook Page, and even better if you can include a note along with it about something you liked in the article or video, or something else about your experience with it.
These things don’t have to be directly related to your topic, either. It can be things that are somewhat unrelated, but still relevant and interesting to your target market. For example, if you are a nutritionist and talking about nutrition on your Facebook Page, your target market is probably interested in other areas of health and wellness, so you might want to share that video you were watching about an easy home workout or the article about aromatherapy. It doesn’t have to be directly related, but does need to be relevant to your audience and compliment your own topic.
#3. Ask their opinion. Be interested.
Not only do you want to be interesting, you also want to be interested in your fans and what they think. You are talking to your ideal customers, your Right People, here, and you should be very interested indeed in hearing their opinions, what they think, and what’s going on with them.
So ask them. Ask their opinion. Ask them what they think about an article or tip you post. Ask them to add their own tips or stories from their experience.
You can do this with many things that you’ll be sharing. If it’s an article, whether it’s one from you or someone else, ask them a specific question about it, such as asking them what action they are going to take or what one thing they are going to implement. Ask them if they have any additional tips to add to the article. Or ask them to share their experience with this topic, and what they’ve learned about it.
As you start engaging your fans more, building those relationships, remember that it takes time. You probably won’t get an overwhelming response overnight! You may even get silence the first few times you try asking a question. It takes time, patience and consistency to build relationships, so just keep at it!
Try different things to see what kind of response you get. When you get a good response, make a mental (or physical) note so you remember to do that again. Pay attention to what is working and do more of it.
And once you get that engagement and start building relationships with your fans, be sure to respond quickly and gratefully. Show them that they matter and you appreciate them. As with any relationship, appreciation and caring goes a long ways.
Your Turn
What is one thing YOU can do this week to build more relationships with your fans?
Jess is a quirky entrepreneur who helps fellow quirks EXPLODE their business on Facebook. She loves all things Facebook and being able to help business owners learn how to build an active audience to grow their business through Facebook. If you’d like to learn more, you can attend her FREE webinar, The Facebook Explosion Blueprint, or join The Facebook Explosion community on Facebook.
facebook has vast user-base hence a potential market around it..
We all know that this social media site called face-book are commonly used by many people around the globe, there are many benefit regarding the use of this for example that one written in the article that we can use this for business, not just for fun , games and etc.