 There’s nothing cheesy about social media. As a component of business communication it is becoming ever more important. Mastering your “voice” in the social realm can differentiate one business from another even more today than ever before.
Case in point. People love to go to social media the second there is even the least little thing wrong with their experience somewhere. If the pattern on a team member’s shirt is just a bit off, the customer is out there using all capital letter to exclaim how they’ve been permanently and irreversibly harmed and how nobody should every patronize that business again.
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 There is a lot of noise on social media and, in particular, Facebook. Part of the reason for that is that there are so many prospective customers on that platform that you absolutely need to be there but how do you do a good job of creating posts people will react to?
You can look to one locality in my area who is absolutely doing the greatest job I have seen with a Facebook Page and I want to highlight their incredible work. We have a little town here called Kelseyville which is a local farming town. Like many small towns there’s a Main Street dotted with restaurants, a brewery, a bar, a couple of small grocery stores and various other businesses.  There was a line in the first Ghostbusters movie where Harold Ramis’ character urged the team never to ‘cross the streams’ when they were using their ghost-capturing technology. Unfortunately a lot of people are doing the same thing with their social media and it can get ugly. While the world may not end for all of us, this can be a huge nail in the coffin for some businesses. You don't want your business to turn into a ghost, do you?
Social media is one of the most interesting things that’s ever come along. You can hit Facebook or Instagram with all sorts of things, from what you had for breakfast to your latest vacation photos to your sense of frustration with work. Ooops, there’s where the stream just got crossed.  Facebook Events can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal as a business owner and this list of nine tips for Facebook Events success can help you. While Facebook is ever more complicated when it comes to getting your business message out, the company still has two tools that they’re really pushing hard and thus provide a lot of opportunity for your business with these. Facebook Events are one area they want people to become accustomed to using, the other is video.
There are a lot of little “tricks” to making Facebook Events work for you and I’ve compiled this list, which I hope is helpful. Facebook is becoming the place where we all gather to share both information and misinformation. After all, how else will I find out about things like whether the dress is gold or blue or if there is a secret volcano that’s going to blow up?  I get to manage a lot of calendars as part of my life and there’s something I see people doing consistently to really hurt attendance of their events. From car shows to community events, people are truly limiting how effective their messaging is to the people they’d like to attend those events. But how do you spread the word about community events so that people will find them in the first place?
Let’s face it - there are so many ways to deliver messaging nowadays that telling the world about your event is something that can very easily get lost. Even if you get to the right people, it’s still entirely possible that they will forget about your event when it rolls around.  As human beings our journeys around the sun on this big blue marble trigger all sorts of events. For example, many of us try to lose weight come January 1. Others place huge significance on the anniversary of our own arrival aboard this vehicle. In these United States we celebrate those who have passed away in active military service on this day. This can also be a trigger for our businesses.
Every day our customers and prospects are critiquing our advertising and messaging. Some are responding, others aren’t. For those who don’t it could be that what we have isn’t what they want or it could also be our messaging. So I propose that, at least twice a year, we look at what we’re doing to woo our customers and make adjustments. We all know that one guy who wonders why things aren’t going so well but tells us, “well, I’ve been doing it this way for 20 years!” Times change, customers change and, most importantly, competitors change.  Did you know that Facebook Groups can be managed by Facebook Pages? Did you know that Facebook Pages can create Groups? Did you just say ‘so what?’ For some organizations, a Facebook Group can actually make a lot of sense. For example, clubs, trade organizations and that sort of thing. Recently I took a Facebook Page and made a Group with it that was only slightly related but makes a lot of sense.
I created a Page, Road Trip Reviews, which is related to a travel blog and created a fan club under that Page for a specific brand of RV. The fan club has grown faster even than the Page with a very, very lively discussion allowing members to share tips, challenges and journeys. For lots of businesses it would not make sense to dilute your brand with a Group but, for some, this can be an invaluable resource. Lessons learned from United Airlines If you happened to be out hiking in the wilderness for the past week, you may be the one American who hasn’t heard about United’s brush with a public relations disaster as team members forcibly removed a passenger from the plane after they had oversold the seats and needed to move a crew to a new location. What’s the lesson for all businesses here?
Simple. In many ways, George Orwell’s 1984 predicted a reality that we live with today. Oh, not a dystopian world scenario. Just that everything you do as a business can and may be shot on video and shared with the world. And when you do something really, really egregious it may become a viral video.  I have not been especially kind to Facebook in this blog only because a lot of business owners see it as a panacea of marketing. But while I’ve tried to discourage people from putting all their eggs in the Facebook basket I also do recognize opportunity in the world’s largest social network. And, for a brick-and-mortar business, Facebook WiFi is definitely an opportunity. What is Facebook WiFi and how can it help your business?
 How do you market a small business in these modern times? I attended a three day marketing conference called Social Media Marketing World to gain insights on today’s trends in the small business and tourism marketing world. With over 120 speakers and 3,000 attendees from all over the world gathering for three days I have notes upon notes, references and ideas but I wanted to sum up the Conference on the latest in digital marketing in one article. Here’s what I learned.
Effectively, you can sum up the whole conference very simply with the acronym “LIKE.” I coined this because I’ve heard so many of my clients wanting more “Likes” on their Facebook Pages. But, as written previously, Facebook “Likes” are only one step in the whole process - sort of like having plates and a fork in time for dinner. What we really want is a balanced meal. Surprisingly, those who have followed my blog for an length of time will not be surprised by this information. So what did I learn? |
Tony BarthelTony Barthel is passionate about great marketing for small businesses Get Free Weekly Marketing TipsCategories
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