How to Use Facebook for Business & Tie It to Trade Shows
A rule best remembered is to always stay in conversation with your customers, even when you feel like there’s no conversation happening. We will circle back to one of the fundamentals of doing business in the digital age – social media. Hashtags may become viral on Twitter and the age of the influencer is upon us on Instagram, but the one network businesses ought to be on regardless of their size or the nature of their industry is Facebook. Brand loyalty online is cultivated namely through Facebook as you have one of the best and most stable ways to touch base with your target audience and provide customer service.
To get a digital marketing strategy to work in your favour, you need to know what precisely you are doing on Facebook, so we bring you the three venues to develop a brand reputation:
FB Profile: This is the baseline unit – a personal profile is a representation of your persona online. They are suitable to form individual connections with experts and leaders in your field, and can be good vehicles to spread information of your company to different social bubbles, but least useful.
FB Groups: Groups is where you might be able to position yourself to generate brand recognition and potentially target sales leads. Groups based on interest and location help you create a sense of visibility in your town, industry or among prospect buyers, but are not where you have to start!
FB Pages: Every business should have a page as this is where you completely create an entity for your company with all the relevant branding efforts. This is your gateway to communication with the public, because it allows them to find you, rather than you have to chase after them through employee profiles and in groups.
Why Do You Need a Facebook Page?
You might think – I’m such a small business; I don’t have anything interesting to say; I’m in the B2B sector, so the public is of no concern to me. This would be wrong as Facebook is a far better vehicle to build visibility than just having a website. Most people use the Facebook search as they do Google anyway and you want to be easily identifiable. Have your working hours, contact info, address and a thoughtful breakdown of services and goods you have to offer.
On another note, there’s much to be gained from the social interaction online. Promotions are very popular on Facebook and can increase an influx of public interest, which can generate leads and more purchases. Your profile page is the most compelling instrument to receive feedback and be in a position to help your clients when they have a problem. A thoughtful response to an angry client is more than enough to earn loyalty for good customer care.
How to Grow Your Company on Facebook?
Post as Often as Every Day – Algorithms favour those pages with regular output and you should have varied content, which engages with fans of your page so that you maintain your engagement at optimal levels. This will promote company growth on the platform.
Make the Best out of Groups – Joining groups that consist of an audience segment you’re interested in provides you with many benefits. You can get more likes on your page, run promotions and get deep insight into consumer taste, desire and needs so that you can build the right advertisements. Groups are also the closest thing you have to old-school networking events only without any real end in sight.
Can’t Go Far Without Facebook Ads – Every company can muster the budget for FB Ads as they don’t charge you much, but give you a greater reach for specific posts. It’s the perfect tool to promote time-sensitive promotions, contests or surveys. Not to mention that they can publicize when you go to a trade show or conference. Ads are perfect to give you that short, but powerful push forward online.
Drive Awareness of Yourself at Trade Shows – Your page is how you announce which events you will be at and how you can be found on the show floor. Although you shouldn’t fill your page with promotional posts about the event daily, a short announcement after buying a booth slot and then how preparations are going is absolutely fine. The week before you leaving is fine to start posting more about the trade show in question and then take full advantage of the social network once you are there. Don’t be afraid to tag people, post videos and pictures and use hashtags. Especially now with the Facebook Stories function, you have an even better way to become visible online.
