Marketing your business should absolutely be centered around the use of your Facebook Fan Page. But, especially if you are a solo entrepreneur, your personal Facebook profile presents some marketing opportunities of its own. First and foremost, using your personal profile starts with personal relationships in building business relationships.
Here are 10 tips to use your personal Facebook profile most effectively to grow your business:
1. Let your friends know about your business.
Make posts that specifically focus on the business. You can put a lot of information in one post, but it would be more effective to go through a number of posts, spread out over time, with each having a tidbit of information. The multiple posts increase the chances that any particular friend will see the post.
2. Grow your personal contact list.
When friends share your posts about your business and their friends Like or Comment on them, consider sending Friend Requests to those new contacts. If they accept your Friend Request, you have new friends that will be seeing your posts regularly.
3. Manage your post privacy wisely.
Use your ability to select whether each post can be seen by only Friends or by the Public to expand your ability to use your personal profile to interact with the Public.
4. Know the power of Follows.
You should be sure to Allow Follows. When you Allow Follows to your personal profile, you don’t have to accept individuals as Friends to for them to see all of your public updates. You also won’t have your news feed cluttered with the updates of all of your followers.
5. Even personal posts can connect to your business.
Your business is a major part of your life, so it is natural that some of your personal posts will involve things that are happening in your business. Keep those posts personal for your friends, but don’t overlook the opportunities to promote your business subtly at the same time.
6. Being promotional is okay sometimes.
Don’t hesitate to create posts to your personal profile that are solely ads for your business. This is an effective place to do that, because your friends already trust you. You have to build that trust in new contacts. Keep it in balance, though. Even your friends will lose interest in your Facebook posts if they are about nothing but your business.
7. Don't hide your business details.
Whatever the nature of post, if there is any connection to your business, include business contact info or a link to your website.
8. If you don't ask… they won't take action.
Always work to find ways to include a “Call to Action.” Whatever you are doing to promote your business on Facebook, asking the reader to take some action that will strengthen their connection to your business is essential. Some possibilities are links to take them to your website or Facebook Page, or to sign up for your mailing list to receive an informative report or other information. Any response to a Call to Action gives you more information about the prospect and presents an additional opportunity to make them a customer.
9. Use images intensively.
A company logo, a photo of your place of business, or a photo of employees involved in some public service activity – any image like this draws more attention and gets more responses than text alone. Include text with, or even within, the image to further enhance its ability to create interest.
10. Leverage your success.
Any professional certification or award is a subject of personal pride, but don’t overlook it as an opportunity to promote your business.
In marketing your business through Facebook, you have an entire suite of tools available. Don’t overlook the opportunities presented by your personal profile.
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