Should You Use Facebook As A Marketing Tool?
Answer! YES, If You Have Friends And Can Utilise Its Power. And NO, If You Cannot.
When you first get into Internet Marketing you will undoubtedly stumble across marketing articles saying how wonderful Facebook is, which it is in the right hands, but what these marketing articles rarely tell you is "How To Market Your Website Using Facebook". So what's new!
Anyway, let me begin by telling you some home truths about Facebook with regards to using it to promote your website. This first one might sound obvious but it needs to be said.
YOU NEED FRIENDS
When facebook started it was only meant as a means for a few university students to communicate with one another (share text messages/photos) before it was
later used throughout universities in general and then by the general public. The point being it was made as a student-to-student communication tool, and then a
friend-to-friend tool, but it was never made as a stranger-to-stranger tool. And this is something you must bear in mind.
With facebook you must, ideally, know the person you want to make friends with. In other words, you should not really search out strangers who sound interesting
and/or who share the same interests as you simply because they could be a stalker or worse. And the same applies when someone sends you a request to be their
friend. You should at least know them as a direct friend or as a "friend of a friend". So with this said, how the hell do you make friends then?
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS?
You might say "That's obvious. Just get all your offline and online friends to join you on facebook", which might seem like a good idea, especially if you have
plenty of friends, but would you really want all of those friends knowing each other? Some of them might only be internet friends to you, and/or "friends of friends",
who you do not know personally.
Also, what happens if you have no friends at all? for whatever reason(s). If this is the case you would have to ask your coworkers, clients and so on to be a
facebook friend. You could also make friends by joining online hobby forums and facebook groups, as well as meeting people offline at social clubs for example, but
even when you have a supply of facebook friends they don't normally like be sold anything. Remember, people go on facebook to chat/gossip/socialise with genuine
friends and family members and not to be sold something.
I have a friend who is a direct family member of the Yoingco Family facebook group, which has 1000s (five generations) of family members on it, whereby I have a
link to my yoingco.com website on his main page (facebook wall). I could ask him and his 1000s of family members to click on that link, but I don't. Why? Because
I would just be getting fake hits - People who would be clicking on my website link and making it popular for a while but with no real benefit such as them genuinely
visiting my website in order to buy my products/services from it. I would want real/genuine clients in other words.
So how do you sell your products/services to genuine facebook friends then? Strangers who you have met online, people you know as acquaintances offline, work
colleagues and so on.
HOW TO MARKET FRIENDS?
Answer? Facebook, from an internet marketing angle, is not really the tool for selling products/services to friends on. Not directly anyway. It's more of a promotional tool whereby you can sell your website and brand to them, indirectly via a facebook page or a direct website link for example, which in turn means you can sell products/services to them once they visit your website. So promotion of your website and brand is more important than a direct sell. Here's an example of what I am talking about.
AN EXAMPLE OF FACEBOOK MARKETING
I use a general facebook account for both my Click Wise Computer Services website and my Yoingco website, even though its username is ClickWiseCS. This is because
I can use it to promote products, services, discounts and so on that are applicable to both computer related websites.
If you visit http://www.facebook.com/ClickWiseCS you will see links
to special offers, which I have found on the internet and offline, that benefit users of my Yoingco computer lessons website. You will also see links to website/code
snippets that benefit users of this Website Creation Help website. In other words; I link to free and discounted content that not only benefits the visitor of my
facebook wall, that costs me nothing but a little time, but I also make my facebook wall benefit my own websites via backlinks to them which over all promotes my
facebook wall as a good/valuable service/resource.
Fig 1.0 Some special offers on my Facebook Page (Wall) that cost me nothing but time to put there
People viewing my websites have a link to my facebook account (ClickWiseCS) and people viewing my facebook account (i.e. its wall) have links to my websites. Hence why it is important to promote your website and facebook account equally in free classified ads, blogs, articles and so on. They all need each other to work well.
CREATE A FACEBOOK PAGE
Creating a facebook page can also help your website and brand. Although a facebook page should be used to showcase your business, brand, personality, website and so on you should really be thinking about your visitors. Follow the old rule of 20% self-promotion and 80% promoting your visitors needs.
Fig 1.1 Create a facebook page - Its info sub-page can be used to tell visitors what you do.
Fig 1.2 Its wall sub-page can be used to promote free stuff, info about your special offers and so on
Treat your facebook page more like a blog page. Tell visitors funny stories. Let them know what's going on in your company (without promoting anything). Show them pictures of customers enjoying your product(s)/service(s) and invite them to post their own photos. And above all write in a natural, friendly, style as opposed to a formal, business, style. Don't annoy them either by spamming your own facebook page. Once a week is quite enough.
PICK A GOOD USER NAME
When people first set up a facebook account they normally just enter their name, which means other people can only find them by their name (i.e. search for: John
Cairns). Many of these people don't realise they can set up a one-off unique Username for their facebook account. This is especially good if your name is John Smith
for example.
As a business you should also give your facebook page a unique username. Just in case you are not aware, a facebook account is really a personal set of pages
whereas a dedicated facebook page (also known as Fan Page) is a set of business pages. For example, I set up a facebook account using the name John Cairns but then
set its username to ClickWiseCS (even though I use it as a personal and business facebook account). I then created a dedicated business page (fan page) using the
name Click-Wise-Computer-Services but then set its username to
ClickWiseComputerServices.
To clarify this; The facebook account of John Cairns has the username of ClickWiseCS and the dedicated business page of Click-Wise-Computer-Services has the username
of ClickWiseComputerServices. A dedicated facebook page is a good promotional tool for business whereas a general facebook account is good for promoting yourself as
a person (as opposed to a business).
Just as with a Skype username, a Twitter username and a YouTube username; you should always register your business name for these accounts.....before someone else
does. Not only does it prevent the usage of your name by someone else (i.e. a business with the same name in a different country) but it also makes you look much
more professional, which in turn brings trust to your brand because people know its you behind that account.
HOW MUCH TIME, ENERGY AND MONEY?
Facebook marketing, when done properly, can take months. It follows in the footsteps of any website promotion. You have to promote your facebook wall and page (i.e. http://www.facebook.com/ClickWiseCS) on other social networking websites (via your Bio page for example), in classified ads, in articles, in blogs and in all the other places you normally advertise your website.
THE PROS AND CONS
On the upside facebook can bring visitors to your website and hopefully turn them into potential/paying customers, but it really does take plenty of "boring" time
and energy.
On the downside facebook brings in curious visitors who are only looking for free stuff/information and/or who want to socialise in a boring/negative way. Spammers
are also becoming a problem - People who want to make friends with you just to sell you something!
At the end of the day it comes down to how much time and energy you have to spend and whether or not that time and energy can be better spent elsewhere, such as
writing articles and using better methods of promotions. Personally I think you should create a facebook page just in hope of getting even one sale out of it. In
other words its yet another free marketing tool so why not try it out in your, or someone else's, spare time.