Facebook is growing at a phenomenal rate and each week I hear at least one person saying they don't know what they should be doing with their Facebook page. It is a question being asked by small business owners around the world. It's true there is a huge amount of information available to help, but the volume of information available can be overwhelming. Quite often the Facebook guidebooks and tutorials come from digital marketing companies who only deal with large corporate clients. These companies have lots of money and staff time to put into social media strategies, as well as large client databases they can tap into in order to build numbers of followers. It can be frustrating for a small business owner who is told to offer a prize to encourage Facebook fans to sign up (as a large retail chain might do) only to have 20 people join.
The most straightforward way for a small business to learn what could work for them on Facebook is to simply follow other companies on Facebook that they think are proactive and industry leaders. There are three indications you can see at a glance on a company Facebook page that suggest a company is actively working on their Facebook marketing, these are:
- They have a number of followers who 'like' them (might be just 100 for a professional services company or 1,000s for a big retail store or chain).
- Their Facebook pages have fresh content that is less than a week old.
- Their Facebook pages show they are trying to engage customers and the wider Facebook community.
To start it is a good idea to try to think of companies that are in a similar situation to you with similar audiences and business objectives. You need to differentiate between B2C and B2B marketing as it is quite different. Don't look at a mass retailer or strong brand targeting a huge consumer audience, if you are selling a manufactured technical product and targeting niche distributors and potential agents. Don't focus on a company targeting teenagers if you are targeting business people.
It is common to look for direct competitors and find that none of them are doing much on Facebook either. In that case try to think of parallel or complimentary products or services. Then think of the market leaders in that industry or niche and search for them on Facebook as they may be using Facebook well. If you sell joinery components to building companies, think of all the other types of companies that work with builders. If you are an accountant working with businesses, check out prominent law firms, business advisors, business software companies and even business brokers to see what they are doing on Facebook.
Unless you are looking at a direct competitor it is easy to click Like on their Facebook page and then keep up with what they are doing. After a few weeks you'll get an idea of what initiatives and communications they are focusing on. While it can be challenging to grow and manage your Facebook page, there are lots of examples already out there of companies making it work with a diverse range of businesses and audience types.
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