Ever wonder if your Facebook presence is having much of an impact? If it’s not, it should! Facebook serves to connect you with your customers and build their trust as well as helping you find new customers. Your Facebook presence can have a big impact on your ROI.
We’ve talked about what a benefit email and newsletters can be in nurturing leads and engaging customers, but do you know what your Facebook account has going for it that email doesn’t? A captive audience. Unlike emails, where there’s a chance they won’t be opened, your Facebook updates are being read effortlessly and naturally just as customers are scrolling through their feed. Now you can capitalize on that and convert a captive reader into a loyal customer.
First, recognize that Facebook can be an easy and effective tool for garnering leads, nurturing leads, and keeping your customers engaged with your brand.
Facebook has almost 2 billion active users monthly. Your customers are there and using it daily. That gives you a great opportunity. Be there, too! Be responsive. Be interactive. By doing so, you’ll reduce the friction points that can send a customer on to a competitor.
Friction points are the barriers that stand between a potential customer and your business. An example would be when you unexpectedly run out of stock on an item. That causes friction between your customer and you. Instead of purchasing immediately, now a potential customer may change their mind or find the product somewhere else. As a marketer, your goal is always to reduce or eliminate friction points so that customers have a seamless, pleasant experience with your business.
Utilizing Facebook helps you mitigate another common type of friction: discovery friction. Here’s an example. Jill wants to order Indian food so she looks up a new restaurant on Facebook. There’s no menu and very few reviews. What will Jill do? Most likely, she’ll scroll down to another local Indian restaurant, find the menu, read good reviews, and order her dinner – with no more thought to the first restaurant. In fact, she may never interact with the first one again. It’s a sad story, right? It’s so easy to avoid, just by being active on Facebook and making it easy for customers to discover you and get the information they’re looking for before moving on to your competitor.
Engage with customers.
Who could have known just 15 years ago how simple and quick it would become to engage with customers? While it’s rare that a person would come into your store to give you feedback, you can now easily rack up the reviews online! These ratings have become a huge part of how we pick the companies from which we buy our products and services. To forge great customer relationships, make sure you’re always responding to Facebook messages and reviews. For best practice, stick with these guidelines:
- Respond quickly – we’ve all seen the “typically responds within…” message in the “About” section of other business Facebook pages. Some customers expect a response within minutes and others are okay with a day or more, but in general, respond as quickly as possible.
- Build rapport with customers by personalizing responses and letting the spirit of your company show through your honest, transparent comments.
- Don’t fall into the trap of defending yourself against negative reviews. Sure, you’re bound to have the occasional customer who just can’t be pleased. But arguing or defending is likely to end up reflecting badly on your business. Instead, be polite and apologetic. Something like, “I’m sorry you’re unhappy about this situation. Can you please call us so we can try to resolve this?” will show other potential customers that you’re an ethical company making a good faith effort to help an upset customer.
Utilize great content.
Let’s be real, nothing is going to make a user “unlike” and “unfollow” your business page faster than constantly getting bombarded with the same pitch to buy your product or service. Yes, effective Facebook pages post about their products, sales, and specials, but they shake it up by including other types of posts that create opportunities for engagement apart from a hard sales pitch. Here are some ideas:
- Give a teaser and then link to your more in-depth articles or videos. Make the content interesting to readers and relevant to what they want to know. Free information is the hallmark of social media branding. Give them your knowledge, insight, and learned experience for free, and they’ll come to you when it’s time to whip out the pocketbook.
- End your post with questions or another call to action. Need some suggestions? Try “Which color would you choose for your home?” “Take this quiz and tell us which leadership style applies to you!” or “We can’t wait for summer grilling! What’s your favorite summer activity?”
Here’s the takeaway. Engaged Facebook followers are more likely to turn into new customers or be returning ones. Get the most out of your social media presence by being active and letting the personality of your brand show. Need help building your Facebook platform? Get Smart and let us do the hard work for you! Schedule a free 30-minute marketing consultation to learn more.
