Thursday, September 1, 2011

Making Facebook Work For You


This week I have been discussing how to set up your Facebook Fan Page and ways to get more fans. Today I would like to talk about how Facebook can make money for you. Facebook is one of the greatest promotion tools you can use to spread the word about a sale you are having, a new item listed, a show you are vending at or just about anything. The more fans you have the more potential customers you have.

I talked a while back about QR codes and how to get one for any website you have. (QR Code article) It is tie to start using that code to gain more fans. Put it on your business cars, print it on a piece of paper and put it in your booth at your next show, put it on flyers, put it where ever you print something dealing with your shop you can even put it on a sticker and put it next to your return address on your packages.

Adding the Etsy Facebook App is a great way to make money with Facebook. People can buy directly from your Facebook page. The app can be found here: My Etsy for Facebook It is easy to set up and starts working for you as soon as it is live. You will have to switch back to your profile page to install it, just make sure you install it on your Fan Page. Some people set the My Etsy App page as their default landing page. I do not recommend this.

Speaking of landing pages, there is a neat way to get more likes to your page. You can set up a landing page that encourages people to click on the "Like" button. You then set your default landing page to the newly created page and every time someone new comes to you page they will see your custom page. I will not go into the creation of this but if you Google "How to set up a custom Facebook landing page" there are many tutorials. Please note that there are some free options out there. So, if you are on a tight budget you can still do it.

I talked about organic vs direct traffic the other day. When people find you organically it is more valuable than if you are found through an ad or you ask someone to visit. The same thing applies to Facebook Fan Pages. When people find you naturally and become a fan it is far more valuable than if you tell someone to come be your fan. I know people with few Facebook Fans that have a better customer conversion rate than people with thousands of fans. I am not saying do not advertise your page, just that natural fans tend to become customers faster.

This concludes the series on Facebook Fan Pages. Next week I will be talking about Twitter and how to make it work for you. In the meantime if you have questions please feel free to ask.

4 comments:

  1. Question about QR codes. I have one that leads to my actual Etsy shop, which I have been including in the note that goes with my sent items. Do you think it's better to use that QR code, or my Facebook QR code? Both seems like overkill.

    Thanks!

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  2. Laura, I think I would include the Facebook code if they bought from Etsy already. Both would be overkill. Both on a business card might be okay.

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  3. Thanks for the input! I think after I use the ones I've already printed up, I'll move on to a Facebook code.

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  4. Hi again - I'm making myself get around to facebook this week and I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't have a personal page and I don't really want one but AFAICT I have to have one to start a fan page. It wants a first and last name when you register and I don't want my real name there at all. Should I be breaking my my shop name into 2 words to use as names or will I be able to have separate names for my personal page and fan page? I know that these are simple questions but it's hard to figure out since I haven't registered yet and can't see anything useful. Is there some sort of "Facebook marketing for antisocial old people" link that you know about?

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