Let me state the obvious. The more you know about your target fans, the better you can make connections with them on your Facebook Page. If you have ever made sales calls, you know the more you know about the prospect’s needs and priorities, the better chance you have for the sale.
Train yourself to look at Facebook Page connections through the eyes of your fans. What do they need and want? What are their goals and aspirations? What are the problems that you can help them solve?
What do they believe about your industry? What needs to change if they are going to connect with you? Look at your business from their eyes.
When you use this mental picture of your ideal fan to conduct your Facebook Page activities, you will generate more fans.
Example
Let me give you a simple demographic example. Women love to shop. Men go the bottom-line. Women are more relationship orientated; men are more competitive. Women make 80% of the household buying decisions.
Would you approach your Facebook Fan Page connections differently if you were connecting with women rather than men?
The debate continues. Should you strive for large numbers of Fan connections? Or should you go for quality relationships with your Fans? In this post, I will weigh in
on the subject and provide some answers to this question. Enjoy and prosper.
Quality Verses Quantity Connections
There are a number of choices you will make as you build your Facebook Page connections. Your first choice involves quality verses quantity Fans.
At first blush, you want as many Fans as possible on your Facebook Page. If a hundred Fans is good; a thousand is better. Going for as many Fan connections as possible is one strategy.
Choosing a large quantity of Fans is fashionable today. The money is in the list! Statistics show that at any one point in time, only 3% of any group is ready to buy, with another 7% considering a purchase.
With the quantity strategy you build as many Fans possible. Many sales strategies are built on “the numbers game.” Go for as many numbers as possible and there will always be a certain number of people that are ready to buy what you are selling.
Another strategy is the qualitative approach to Fan building. In this approach you seek to build relationships with a limited number of Fans on your Facebook Page. Using your own criteria, you carefully select who to connect with on your Facebook Page.
If you have a hundred Fans on your Page and 30% of them are qualitative connections, then that number equals 3% of 1000 weaker connections.
What Strategy to Use?
Here’s my answer to that question. Base your strategy on the answers to two questions: your type of business and your goals for using Facebook Pages.
Your Type of Business
Some businesses such as personal or professional services promote themselves based on establishing relationships with potential clients. Before a prospect will choose your service, they need to know, like and trust you. If you are offering kitchen design services, it makes sense to use a qualitative approach to your Fan building.
Other businesses sell products. In many of these businesses the relationship is less important than the product qualities. If you are offering kitchen cabinets, prospects are less concerned about the relationship with you than the color, style, and wood of the cabinets. At any one point in time, 3-7% of homeowners are looking for cabinets. So it makes sense with these businesses to use a quantities strategy.
Your Goals for Facebook Fan Pages
Why are you using Facebook Pages in your small business? Are you looking for internet awareness about your business? Are you looking to promote your business? Are you looking for more information about your prospective clients buying preferences? Are you looking for business resources for your small business?
Choose a strategy that works best to accomplishing your goals for your Facebook Pages.
Conclusion
There is not a right or wrong answer about quantity verses quality. One strategy does not fit all businesses. You may even mix your strategies and use different strategies on different Facebook Pages. This is the beauty of using Facebook Fan Pages. You get to call the shots. I hope these comments help you sort out quantity verses quality connections on your Facebook Fan Pages.
Why do I love Facebook Page Marketing? Facebook is hot with over 500,000 million participants. 250 million active users spend 25-50 minutes per day on Facebook. That’s a lot of potential eye balls to see my business. I have a better reason for my love affaire. Facebook Page Marketing tools match the way people buy. In this post, I will identify the Facebook Fan Page marketing tools and how you can put them to work for your small business. Enjoy and prosper.
Facebook Fan Page Marketing Tools
I believe Facebook Pages offers unique ways to market your business. These tools match the changing way people want to buy in today’s ecommerce.
A shift from one way marketing to interactive marketing. Today’s prospects want to tell you what they think about your industry, products, services, articles, etc. Facebook business Pages allow for this Fan interaction. (Facebook Comments, Discussions)
A shift from 3rd person marketing to first person marketing. People are tired of sterile corporate speak. They want to know the person behind the business before they make a purchase. Facebook Pages encourage personal expression. (Facebook Status Updates)
A shift from static websites to getting found on the internet. Google gives immediate indexing of Status Updates. This gives you the opportunity to get your business to the top of search engine rankings. (Google Indexing)
A shift from text to video marketing. Video marketing engages people. Facebook Pages makes it easy to share videos with your fans. (Facebook Videos)
A shift from selling to sharing. Sharing information is the heart and soul of the new commerce. People want to share and connect with others on line. Everything on Facebook Pages is build on this model of viral sharing. (Facebook News Feed, Facebook Links)
A shift from mass marketing to target marketing. Mass marketing is dead. Facebook Fan Page marketing allows you to precisely target the people you want for your business. (Facebook Ads)
A shift from individual marketing to community building. By its very definition, a Facebook Fan Page is a community of people who share a common interest. Today’s buyer wants to know what other people think and experience before they buy. (Facebook Fans)
A shift from mass numbers to loyal followers. Loyal customers have always been the key to long term business success. Loyal Facebook fans are part of this success tradition. (Facebook Fans, Facebook News Feed)
A shift from clever marketing to making connections. Marketing is no longer about being clever. It’s about making genuine connections with people. Facebook Fan Page marketing promotes these connections. (Facebook Applications)
Conclusion
When you use Facebook Fan Page Marketing tools, you market the way people what to buy in today’s ecommerce. The more you learn how to use these tools, the more you will fall in love with Facebook Fan Page marketing.
To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…
Al Hanzal
If you need help with your Facebook Fan Page, email me at al@hanzal.com
In the posts on Facebook Fan Page marketing, I will share practical strategies and Facebook tools you can use to connect with your fans. They will show the unique opportunities Facebook Fan Pages offer for small business marketing.
Facebook now offers business Pages for you to use for your business. It would be a mistake to see this as just another place to use traditional marketing practices. To be successful with these tools, you must have a different mindset, a new framework, a marketing paradigm shift. When you read the next two posts you will see why this is true.
Paradigm Shift
Facebook Fan Page marketing calls for a paradigm shift. The new framework rests on two key pillars: (1) giving up control; (2) consistent participation. Let’s look at the control pillar.
Interruption Marketing
The traditional model of marketing and advertising is an interruption model. Ads, phone calls and advertising messages come from every direction asking us to buy their products. Even the more sacred places are no longer private! The interruption model often manipulates people into buying with new claims bigger than the last claim. “We are going out of business. Everything must go. Prices reduced by 50%”.
People no longer believer these types of marketing. People have fought back with Do not call lists, spam filters, TiVo’s and other mechanisms to stop the interruptions and the advertising noise.
Web 1.0 Marketing
Web 1.0 has its own form of marketing control. Most websites and email marketing efforts are one way conversations. Whether a hard sell or a soft sell, they still put the website owner in charge of the process telling the visitor about their products.
With the advent of social media sites, people have shifted from one way marketing. They want customer interactive rather than product pitches. Many major companies send customers to their Facebook Page rather than their websites. They understand the shift customers have made with Web 2.0.
Facebook Fan Page Marketing
Facebook Fan Page marketing demands that you give up the traditional marketing hat—“I am in charge!” You are an invited guest, like other participants on any social media program. You come as a guest to participate with others not to manipulate or control them. No one is in “charge”.
You can be an influencer on your Facebook Fan Page. Your primarily skill is listening. You listen for what people are saying. You make contributions. You make suggestions. You ask questions. You provide valuable insights from your expertise.
As odd as it sounds, you essentially give up marketing control over your Facebook Page.
In the next post, I will talk about the second pillar in this paradigm shift— consistent participation.
I have written in earlier Facebook Page post about your need to create a profile of your ideal customer.http://successfulinternettools.com/2010/04/04/developing-a-customer-profile-for-your-facebook-page/ Having a fan profile is critical if you want to connect with fans.
