Found an article today about how to more effectively engage your Facebook fans. It provides 9 ‘tips’ to help you get your clients to remember who you are! Sound weird? Let’s lay some groundwork before we get to the 9 tips:

Primarily I would like to talk about the amount of sincerity that goes into your social media. The point of social media is to engage your customers and potential clients. When you’re on your Facebook Page you’re representing your business. Half of the problem is that businesses look at social media as a way to shove information down peoples’ throats. What you should be doing is engaging them! There’s a huge different between showing off and providing useful information.

Every business is different and every business-type is different. It’s up to you to determine what is actual useful information for people who ‘like’ your page. If you own, say a website company, it’s not very useful to post on Facebook once a week about how you make websites. That is a great way to have people ‘block you‘ from their wall or ‘dislike‘ you. On the other hand, creating a blog post about social media marketing (like this one) is a great way to showcase your business. So…am I creating this post just so I can get potential business in the future? Seems a little insincere, doesn’t it? Not really. Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I get when it comes to this stuff. This is my trade. This is what I love to do. This is what I educate myself everyday to do. Creating a post to help out a mom-and-pop business effectively bring in a few more bucks is what makes me feel good at the end of the day. To be quite honestly, I’m not completely selfless either or else I’d be writing this post on a website totally unrelated to I Heart Blank. If I get a new client because I can prove to them I know what I’m talking about and even help them then that’s great. If not, that’s fine too and I applaude the business-person that randomly found this article because they were doing the research on their own. I actually talk about that over here.

The same philosophy goes for your Twitter, but it’s handled a little differently. One of the big ones is Reposting, or retweeting. If you’re reposting someone saying they like your business, it’s not the same as just replying to that person to thank them. One is self-indulgent shameless self-promotion and the other is a sincere thank you. If you’re doing it for the first reason or even thanking them under the guise of sincerity then you need to stop. They will figure you out, whether it’s when they pick up the phone to call you or just dealing with you over time! An old friend perfectly exemplified what I tell people all the time (and is partially responsible for this rant.) Check out his article, Retweeting Your Fans is Cheap – not available anymore : (. It’s about musicians and bands but the same exact theories apply. There’s a reason why we’re friends : )

So many times a business will Follow one of my Twitter pages. I usually return the favor and check out their business. More times than not I get a Private Message (within minutes) with ‘an offer’ (whether it’s ways to help me save on my fill-in-the-blank or them telling me how great their webpage is.) How insincere is THAT! It usually results me ‘unfollowing‘ them immediately.

People do not want to see you be self-indulgent…even if that means you have to wait a little longer to get the amount of fans / likes you’re looking for.

But I’ve digressed enough for today. Here’s some great ways for you to properly use your Facebook Page:

  1. Get Personal
  2. Use Pictures
  3. Run a Contest
  4. Have Fun
  5. Showcase a Cause
  6. Use Facebook’s Features
  7. Consider Using Your Personal Profile
  8. Crowdsource Your Content
  9. Love Your Fans

As per usual, click on the links below and read the full articles. It’ll be worth your time.

9 Facebook Marketing Tips to Improve Engagement