Facebook for Business | Striking the right balance

After our last Lemur Link Up meeting I was asked my advice on “how to strike that right balance between selling and communicating on Facebook?” It’s a really interesting point. I have 2 businesses Charlie Moo’s and this blog. Now using Facebook to drive traffic to my blog is easy, using it to sell party supplies is a lot harder! I’m not in the minority there are tons of small businesses trying to “sell” on Facebook, some do it well others struggle (I have this problem with Charlie Moo’s! Plus I lose interest!) According to the “experts” it should be a 80/20 split meaning you only spend 20% of the time selling! You might also be wondering if I want someone to buy my product what else could I possibly have to talk about? Which means you either oversell to your followers, undersell or worst of all sporadically use Facebook for your business.

Consistency : 

To keep both your followers and the FB magic algorithms happy you need to be consistent, which is where a mix of scheduling and live posts works really well. I schedule 1/2 updates a day (for Joanne Dewberry, I really NEED to work on this for Charlie Moo’s) it takes maybe 20 minutes to do a week. This gives you a chance to schedule in sales based posts too, enabling you to be more natural during the week as you aren’t thinking about the sales angle.

Pinning Posts :

Pick a product you want to promote. Pin that to the top of your page whether that be via a lovely image, live link or a status update.  Pinned posts can also set up a topic for a week or month sometimes it’s handy to have a collection of content both yours and others to share which helps to promote your product. Pinned posts also give you something to refer back to in either comments or new updates (example : “check out the pinned post” “as you can see in the pinned post”).

Think outside the box : 

For example if we take Valentine Day as a starting point with a view to sell cards, you could consider creating a Valentine Pinterest board filled with crafts, recipes, decorations and your cards. This way you are selling your potential customer a complete package not just a card.  By sharing this Pinterest Board on Facebook you are more likely to drive traffic to your products than just a live link to your shop.

Also think about “styling” your images, images that sell a lifestyle, a situation rather than just the product. Going back to the Valentine Card example you might use an image that shows a couple hugging, whilst one is holding your card or a table with roses, chocolates and wine with the card. These visual clues will help sell more than a card on a white background.  These images can then be used on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest where images have increased engagement and reinforce your brand with your followers.

Although Facebook is free it’s still a marketing tool. You wouldn’t blindly throw money at advertising without a plan and specific goal and Facebook is no different. Along with my increasing your Facebook reach tips you can certainly be using Facebook for Business in a much more effective manner.

If you have enjoyed this post why not pop over and say “hi” on Facebook too : Facebook.com/JoanneDewberry.co.uk

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