If your page is engaging without being too spammy, people will stick around. A yearly advertising budget of $600 sounds like a lot, but the potential return is huge. Especially when we start getting closer to Christmas time. Build that audience now. Train that audience. Engage that audience. Then in October, sell to that audience!
Of course you will more than likely sell enough items as a direct result from having a Facebook page to make it all worth while. Here are a few tips to help keep your ever growing audience interested in your page:
1. Post pics OFTEN. I post a pic at least once a day during the week. Sometime it is one of my products. Sometimes it is a picture I share from my news feed. Sometimes it is just a random pic of nothing in particular. Pictures catch attention.
2. "Like" every comment someone makes to you. Acknowledge people when they take the time to leave a comment. Answer their questions. Engage them in conversation.
3. Post more than once a day. People are on Facebook at different times of the day. You want to try and catch them when they are on. This means posting more than one time during the day. I try to post 3 or 4 times a day. Be sure that if you duplicate information that you change it up for those who will see your more than one post or they will think you are getting spammy.
4. Post on other people's walls through your page. Don't post "Come Like Me" posts. Just leave comments, ask questions and engage them. You can even do this with your competition! This will get your name on their page and people tend to click names of shops etc. Especially if your profile pic happens to be one of your product.
That is all for today. See you all tomorrow.
What great tips! I never thought about posting at different times of the day. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting tips!
ReplyDeleteI would be a little careful with #3--sometimes people will hide you if you become too talkative. Every page is different, and some pages can post more, some less--just depends on the audience.
And I would be even more careful with #4. As the admin behind the page of a friend's business, I know that they work very very hard and pay $$ to advertise and bring business to their page, and I would be leery of trying to advertise to their audience for free. In fact, I'll bet that you could get banned by some pages for it, so it's definitely something you want to be careful with. :)
Just a couple thoughts that popped into my head--YMMV.
I think I am going to disagree with you on both of your "be careful" statements and here is why:
DeleteIf you have more than say 500 fans from several different countries I think it is just fine to post more than once a day. Posting only once a day is FAR from engaging. Like I said, do not repeat the same content over and over, make sure it is different. If someone hides you because you post more than once a day, they are not going to be buying from you anyway.
I did not say post ads on other pages. That would be bad, what I said is:
"Post on other people's walls through your page. Don't post "Come Like Me" posts. Just leave comments, ask questions and engage them. You can even do this with your competition! This will get your name on their page and people tend to click names of shops etc. Especially if your profile pic happens to be one of your product."
No part of that would come close to having you banned in any form or fashion. Commenting on people's pictures and stories is what Facebook is all about. If a page banns you from engaging them, that is a pretty sad statement from the page admin or owner.
Thank you for posting the comments. Even if I do not agree with you I respect your views and thank you for being a part of the discussion.
I'm surprised you would disagree with being careful, lol, that's usually a good thing to do in any endeavor. ;)
DeleteLet me try to clarify a little. For number three, what I said is this:
"Every page is different, and some pages can post more, some less--just depends on the audience."
Some people can post ten times a day, some people only once--it all depends on the audience. I never said a number, in fact. I never said anything about repeating content.
What is important is to keep an eye on the stats you can see, such as people defriending your page. And also it's very important to know that there is a contingent of people who will hide your page which you will never know about.
People who hide a page is a complicated issue--they might have been thinking about buying from the page, but were turned off by too many posts. Some people only log onto FB once every week, and if they see twenty entries from a page during that time, it might be a bit annoying.
Again, this is all down to personal preference, and I've heard from many sources that it's best to try to monitor your posting activity and find out which level of posting is best for you. That is what I was trying to say; it's best to experiment. Some pages can post more than other pages. I've heard this in several FB webinars.
As for #4, when you post on someone else's page as a business, regardless of your intent, you are still counting on using that as a form of advertising. You yourself say that people tend to click on names of shops, and the main reason you are suggesting to post on other pages is to get traffic to your shop--which is advertising.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it, just that you should be careful. When admins and page owners have spent time, money, and effort drawing customers to their page, and then someone else posts as a business and draws potential customers away from them, it can be upsetting. Not all business pages are going to react this way, but some care should be taken with commenting on other pages.
I don't know if you yourself would be upset by businesses posting or commenting on your page as a form of marketing; I would imagine that it's a fine line for many people.
I want to clarify again I was not suggesting that you should never do #3 or 4; only to exercise caution.
You point out:
"No part of that would come close to having you banned in any form or fashion. Commenting on people's pictures and stories is what Facebook is all about. If a page banns you from engaging them, that is a pretty sad statement from the page admin or owner."
And I do understand what you are saying; I just am trying to point out the other side of the coin. Business owners and page admins are people, and people never all react the same way. Most people will probably be friendly, but there are some who will be suspicious of your purpose and will not want you to market to their customers.
Like I said, your mileage may vary. This is only my perspective on the issue, and as always, everything is subjective because we are dealing with people. :)
PS: I know you are super busy with opening a store and I will understand if you don't have time to reply to this. ;)
DeleteFair enough. I may have over reacted to your comment. I spend very little time on my personal profile page and much more time on my business page. I tend to join in discussions on other pages with my business page. Maybe I should have said that the potential chance of someone clicking on your profile is an added benefit. I would never think of intentionally marketing to their clients.
DeleteI have many businesses that post on my pages and it really does not bother me in the least. I usually even return the favor by posting back on their page. I don't usually have time to enter into discussions on my competition's pages and I have yet to have any negative experiences when I do find the time to chime in.
I want to thank you for this discussion. It does bring up some good points and a moral to the story of "everything in moderation." Treading carefully is always good advice.
When businesses post on my page, I always go and check them out. Since I'm selling both jewelry and the components to make jewelry, I don't mind jewelry makers posting, because they could be customers at some point; I'm lucky to have both sides! :) But I do wonder about other jewelry makers and whether they will allow such a thing or not. As always, it's probably another subjective thing.
DeleteThanks for the reply! I'm glad we talked.
This is great info! Thanks for posting the pic of your ad - it helps to see what a successful ad looks like. :) I'm anxious to get started with my FB ads soon!
ReplyDeleteHeh heh, I am not sure exactly how successful the ad actually is in the grand scheme of things! It works great for me.
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