The 7 Things Every Business Needs To Know About Facebook… Plus The Winners!

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1.	Know the FOUR Business Goals for Your Facebook Account Get found by people who are searching for your products or services Connect and engage with current and potential customers Create a community around your business Promote other content you create, including web pages, blog articles, and your advertising.
2.	Every business should (must) create a page, so your customers can become your fans. The myth is that Facebook is only for kids or Gen Y. It is for everyone. Older people and especially Baby Boomers (the oldest Baby Boomer is now 63 years old) which means most boomers are still working, in pretty good shape, and don’t think or feel old like they are ready for the rocking chair.
3.	Profiles are for people, Pages are for businesses. Do not create a personal profile for your business. This is one point that many people who are successful at Facebook are not even aware of (including me). A Page is similar to a Profile except that it is, by default, public and users can become a “fan” of your Page without first requiring approval from the Page administrator. Creating a Page is completely free but will require your time to build and maintain. To get started, visit www.facebook.com/pages
4.	Make Your Page Easy to Understand ~ Use Tabs (The Tab Interface) – This allows you to group the content and applications as per your requirements. Not only you can edit the default tabs, but you can also add new tabs giving you complete control in its customization. You can freely drag them to arrange in required order. With new Facebook application standards in effect, almost every new application (internal or 3rd party) can be integrated with Facebook tabs. This opens endless opportunities to create customizable tabs with your choice of third party applications.
5.	PROMOTE – PROMOTE – PROMOTE Know the Six Best Ways to Promote Your Page Draw on your existing network. Start promoting your page to your own customer list. Although Facebook is a do-it-yourself type of endeavor, have your webmaster make sure your pages are indexed just like your website pages. The results are amazing with this little fix. Create Events, Discussion Boards and/or News Flashes about your business and community. Join the various networks of people who would have an interest to buy from you. Buy a Facebook Ad. For some reason this is not as widespread. Every quarter, create a poll to get your fans’ feedback about their views on various pages or page elements.
6.	Schedule a block of Facebook time (15 min?) each day to monitor your account/keep up with things/add new content.
7.	Go to http://Facebook.Grader.com to grade your profile or page for free. This is another free service from a company I love and I am an account of. HubSpot. You will be hearing lots more from this company in the months ahead.

I would like to thank all of the people who helped in forming this list. Especially my friends at HubSpot, a web marketing company like none other, Interactive Insights Group, and my chief researcher, Cindy Potts.

NOW… FOR THE WINNERS!

There were so many great responses to decide on just one winner, so after arguing back and forth, here is the Grand Prize winner who will receive a 2-month subscription to The Retailer’s Advantage, plus the choice of any of any Rick Segel book. The other 3 winners will receive the 2-month subscription to The Retailer’s Advantage.

Grand Prize Winner ~

Chistine Joyner
Diamonds Direct • St. Petersburg, FL

Website: www.DiamondsDirect.us
Facebook: Click Here

We are using Facebook with great success. I set it up at the end of May and it has exploded. We have over 400 fans and nearly as many friends. I have integrated a Facebook widget on the homepage of our website so that a viewer can become a fan, read the thread, etc. We have gained two known sales from this vehicle. Clients coming in the store that haven’t bought yet are asking us about products they have seen us talk about on facebook.

We used it to introduce a new commercial and get viewer’s response and comments before it aired. In the next few days we will be setting up advertising to coincide with a commercial that we are launching in the next week. I have posted comments to entice viewers to visit our website and sign up to win a $50 gift card to a local high end restaurant… we drove more traffic to our site and gained more entries for the contest, but most importantly, we are using it to grow our client base.

Overall, Facebook seems to be helping with top-of-mind awareness. Plus, if we are already their “friend” before they even walk into the store, the barrier to gain a rapport with the client is reduced.

Check out our website, and become our friend on Facebook!!

Runner-up Winners ~

Ann Burlingham
Burlingham Books • Perry, NY

Website: www.BurlinghamBooks.com
Facebook: Click Here

I expected to blog more — I come from a Usenet background, where I wrote daily in a number of modes on different subjects, easily — but I haven’t. I set up my Facebook page for the bookstore and had a number of people become fans. What I’ve started doing lately, in addition to posting event notices, is to write a quick daily (or so) note about a book, item in the store, things going on in town, etc.

Not a lot of feedback from it, except some positive comments and encouragement, but I think it’s a good way to go – easy to do on part, easy to read for the customers/fans. I know from the store that my personality is one of my strongest sales tools; since I find writing easy, Facebook is another way to let my personality, sense of humor, community involvement, and the like shine out.

One more way of reminding people that there’s a Real Live Local Bookstore with Real Live People in it, locally involved and so much better than *blech* Amazon. Just as we see new customers in the store daily, I seem to see a few new fans on Facebook everyday.

Shawnda McGinnis
Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce, NJ

Website: www.OceanCityVacation.com
Facebook: Click Here

Hi, Rick. Not on Facebook? Is that even an option anymore? We had almost 2,000 fans before we even announced that we had a page.

We use FB for just about everything! We announce events, put up teaser photos from the event from the previous year, announce new businesses with photos from their ribbon cuttings, attach a link to our website with “What’s Happening” each week, link all press releases from our website, we ask and answer questions, send event notices, traffic updates if there is an issue with one of the bridges coming onto the island, last minute info or changes for events, and much more.

People write into us and tell us how much they LOVE Ocean City, NJ, send us pictures, and taut their favorite businesses. We even have a farm that is located “on the way to the shore” who posts notices to our page saying, “stop here on your way to the beach.” A local fundraiser also used our page as a way to get their info out to raise money to stop childhood hunger.

We direct people to our website for more detailed information about things we are posting. Once they are on our site, they stay and look around which is great for our local businesses that are on our site. AND… we can track it all!

Through FB, we can also get a glimpse at the demographics of our “fans” and from which areas they are coming.

We can check and update information 24/7 from just about anywhere. The best part? It’s FREE! We love Facebook for promoting Ocean City, NJ.

Sarah Deveau
Cater Tot Consignment • Airdrie, AB Canada

Website: www.CaterTot.ca
Facebook: Click Here

How do I love thee, Facebook? Let me count the ways.

I created a Facebook presence for my children’s consignment boutique over a year ago, and it has been phenomenal for my business. We have a Page, with more than 900 ‘fans’ who are seeing our status updates in their news feed or receiving longer Updates from us as well. On our Page, we offer links to articles featuring our store or the products we carry, we link to like-minded businesses, we offer contests and coupons, and encourage our fans to post their photos of their kids using products they bought at our store. We announce special sales and latest arrivals exclusively on our Facebook page.

Since introducing Facebook into our marketing mix, my revenues have increased by more than 10% – in a recession. Where stores around me are closing their doors, we’re flourishing, in part due to this new form of advertising and marketing. I have slashed our advertising budget in half and funneled it nearly completely into Facebook. Previously, customers might come in occasionally and say they had visited our website and decided to drive out and give us a try (we’re 15 minutes away from a city of 1 million). Now, many times a week customers come in with a list of items they found on our Facebook page that they want to buy. When we ask new customers where they heard about us, it is always Facebook. Often we’ll announce new products on our Facebook page and the cash register will start ringing within an hour as moms log on, see the update, and head for the store.

Though I rave about the power of Facebook, many stores still don’t appreciate the immediate results they can see from this incredible new marketing tool. Yet, I do understand their hesitation. I think Facebook is really only fantastic if your customers and potential customers are also on Facebook, and you’re executing it well. I have tried Twitter, to no success. Only a tiny fraction of our customers use Twitter, and even those that were on, were not checking it often enough to see our “tweets.” Thanks for the emails Rick!