Facebook for Business
Facebook business pages start from the very basic for those who have a small hobby and wish to show their friends their progress over time, to those who run multi million pound businesses with social media professionals in charge of running their Facebook page. They are responsible for designing the cover photos, writing wall posts, responding to fans, and also run Facebook competition campaigns to encourage new ‘likes’.
You can add as little or as much as you wish to your Facebook business page. There are several apps you can now build into it, there is also an online shopping feature now available called Payvment.
The more you add, the more you can interact with your fans. Competitions are a good way for a business to attract new fans. It is hoped all this hard work interacting with fans will convert them from Facebook page likes, to website visitors, to customers, to retuning customers who recommend you to others.
Competitions
Competitions have really taken off over the past year on Facebook. More and more companies big and small are utilizing them to encourage page views and website clicks.
We often see shared competitions in our personal news feed which encourages us ‘like’ the fan page our friends have ‘liked’ to be in with a chance of winning a prize. Another tactic used is to ask your fans to tag themselves in one of your business page photographs. This means that this image will be spread and seen by friends and friends of friends, so this image can be seen by many, and your business name spreads. If it is an image of a product, it can lead to clicks to your website and potential purchases of this product. If not, additional ‘likes’ can always be gained from this process.
Most competitions comprise of a prize given away by a business when an image is shared, and a certain level of ‘likes’ has been achieved. The better the prize, the better reaction from your fans. These competitions can also be used in other ways. If you need a survey completed, you can post this of your wall and tell your fans to fill in the survey for their chance to win a prize. If you business if involved in a professional competition you can get your fans to vote for your business using the prize initiative.
The more interesting your prize is, the more interaction you will receive. If you give away an interesting or unusual prize, your fans will feel encouraged to earn your prize and happily share your posts to their personal walls. It is a great way to drum up business. A large amount of the population visit Facebook every day, and some for hours at a time, so you can really target people and spread the word about your business.
It is hard work, and can take time to work out what works best for your business. Make a note of what was the most successful competition you ran, or which wall posts gained good feedback, and why? What works for one business, might not work for another. Experiment and give it time.
The Future of Competitions
As competitions are now widely used on Facebook, they are almost becoming the new spam. We constantly see them and are beginning to ignore them. It is important not to bombard your fans with too many competitions and updates, as you can actually become an irritant and lose fans.
It is important to stay ahead. If you notice too many competitions are becoming all too similar, how can you put a twist on what you are offering? How can you be different? Instead of maybe offering a standard prize, maybe your prize could be different, like a day, week or month of work experience; this can be valuable to those looking to get onto the career ladder with few opportunities. Perhaps if you sell handmade goods, you could offer a commission service.
My Competitions aren’t Attracting Fans
You might find you are giving away your expensive stock with little return from your competitions. Try to assess why this is. Why are you not attracting new fans, do your fans actually convert to customers? If not then maybe your efforts and stock is best invested elsewhere. As stated before, it works well for some businesses, yet others don’t necessarily work well on Facebook. Perhaps your products or services need to be seen elsewhere or don’t translate as well. It is not worth making a large loss over Facebook.
Start small competitions, test the water, research what your competitors do, and give it time. Facebook is still a fantastic outlet for updates, and encourage your fans to your website with the odd link to a product of blog page for them to see, as they are likely to have a quick site browse and could purchase!
There are no set rules for Facebook, its purely trial and error, and the understanding that with most aspects of business, a lot is based upon timing, presentation, and customer psychology.
