How to decide if your business should be on Facebook
Facebook offers you and your business a huge opportunity to connect and communicate with your clients and customers. It can be vital in raising brand awareness and nurturing contacts, clients and business relationships and in ensuring that you do not lag behind your competitors when it comes to social media presence and marketing.
Why Is Facebook Marketing Crucial?
Facebook allows you to get your message to people who are already engaged and ready to interact, meaning that marketing efforts are much more likely to result in a higher conversion rate than traditional cold-calling or real-world leaflet drops. You can instantaneously get your message in front of a targeted audience – something that would have been virtually impossible in times gone by. Meanwhile, the effort of doing this can be repaid in a fantastic cost-per-conversion rate.
Forget the Fear Factor
Have you shied away from a Facebook presence because of fears about the effect that negative feedback could have on your business? If so, it is time to banish those fears and understand how, with the right handling, even bad reviews can be great for your business. Facebook offers the ideal environment to showcase what your business does well, and even if mistakes happen, it is the perfect place to demonstrate how you deal with problems. It is a fact of life that you cannot please everyone all of the time, but you can cultivate trust and promote yourself as a reliable and approachable business by always dealing with complaints in a professional, honest and factual manner.
Why Make the Effort?
Perhaps you can’t see the benefits of Facebook because you don’t use it yourself? Do not fall into this trap if you are serious about making the most of your business. Whilst you may not be a Facebook fan (yet), there are millions of people who do use it every day – as explained in our Facebook facts and figures section – and a large proportion of these people will fall within your target audience.
The network offers you the means of enjoying two-way interactions with these people and the ability to contact customers and prospective clients who may previously have been well beyond your reach. It also offers an extremely cost-effective means of marketing, along with the potential for very fast results.
Compete with Bigger Businesses
Facebook also allows you to compete with bigger businesses on an equal platform without budgetary constraints unfairly limiting what you can do. With the right light-handed approach, you can attract new customers and clients, retain existing business and cultivate contacts and relationships which can prove hugely beneficial for years to come.
It offers a way of subtly building brand awareness and appreciation, directing traffic to your company’s website and building connections. It is not best used as a direct sales tool: rather, with the use of genuinely interesting and useful content, it can build long-term relationships which last much longer than a single sale or marketing conversion.
Communicating with Colleagues
Along with offering an invaluable communication channel with clients and customers, Facebook can also be used to allow colleagues and co-workers to communicate with each other. Workplace by Facebook can make global brainstorming a reality and remove the need for costly travel in order to communicate effectively with team members in different locations.