Engage Customers on Facebook to See Growth ImageThrough trial and error we know what we should and shouldn’t do to build a strong offline business reputation. But building on online business reputation requires a whole new effort. Whether you are a seasoned social media user or just starting out, engaging in conversations can be crucial to your marketing efforts.

Today, Facebook is the number one social media choice for people to market their business. Facebook is  a very powerful tool that you should include in your marketing mix to help grow your business by strengthening your reputation online.

The first step is to create your own company page. This page is use to connect and interact with your customers. You can grow your fan base by asking your customers to visit and follow your businesses Facebook page.

In turn, you should read their posts, look for any problems they have that you may be able to solve for them. Ask them for their opinions and engage them in conversations. This lets your customers know you care about their issues.

Facebook is all about engaging in conversations. Your participation allows you to gain brand awareness and build relationships with prospects and customers. You may also see that you drive traffic to your website from Facebook.  Here are a few tips to get fans and help keep your online reputation on the positive side of the spectrum:

  1. Try to make sure that the tone of your posts is professional, but approachable. Shoot for a conversational tone so you show that your business is friendly and helpful.
  2. Be proactive about responding to comments, positive or negative. Let’s face it, negative feedback can’t be avoided but it should be addressed. Respond quickly and address their concerns while maintaining a neutral tone. The longer a negative comment goes unanswered the more it will stain a good reputation.
  3. Cultivate testimonials from your clients and feature them in your posts. Prospects looking into your company will easily find out why they should choose your business over your competitors.
  4. Try not to overdo it. If a business makes excessive or irrelevant status updates to their page or spams inboxes with unwelcome messages, it can guarantee a direct drop in the number of fans.
  5. Be consistent. An empty or rarely updated Facebook page will make visitors think the business doesn’t care, or worse, out of business. Find a posting frequency that you can maintain and stick with it.
  6. All Facebook business pages are equipped with an analytics feature called Facebook Insights. Insights make it easy to track fan engagement and post success. It’s important to look at views, regularly check Insights to see how your page is performing and make adjustments where needed. Two insights that you should pay attention to day-to-day are “Lifetime Likes” and “Lifetime Total Subscriptions.” This will show you if your fan base is converting or not.

There is no one size fits all formula for using Facebook for business. Start small, experiment, post regularly, and actively strive to engage with your customer.

Does your business have a Facebook page? How do you engage with your customers on Facebook? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

Source: Demandforce and Column Five Media