Facebook Marketing - Getting The Balance Right

18 May 2011

I keep on getting asked whether people should bring their business onto Facebook, and if it will actually work - both difficult questions to answer - both almost impossible to provide previous proof for.

 

Should A Business Be On Facebook?

The simple answer is, unfortunately, no. However, there are certainly B2C and a very limited amount of B2B businesses who can use Facebook effectively to communicate with suppliers, partners and perhaps most importantly customers. For a business to be on Facebook, realistically they should have the following features and follow the following ethos in relation to their business:

• Be willing to invest signifcant time into running a communication tool. Facebook can generate leads, but only if treated like email or phone calls - it is not a static website and needs daily input.
  
  
• Be relatively tech savvy in the first place and have some marketing skills which have previously been proven effective through more traditional marketing mediums - no online marketer will truely represent your brand.
  
  
• Be aware that customers will only interactive content, and if your product, or service is not visual, engaging or informative it will have no real purpose for Facebook users.
  
  
• Be able to control emotions and put into context peoples opinions of your business, and respond to negative feedback - thankfully many only marketers can help with this.

Will Facebook Marketing Work For My Business?

Again, not an easy question to answer, but clients who have been successful with their Facebook marketing campaigns have done so by having a number of key attributes to their management of their Facebook communication, these include:

• Have an open attitude to learning new skills, or have previous experience with Facebook or other social networks.
  
  
  
• Have a realisation that Facebook is not a solution to poor sales, poor customer service or varied public opinion of your brand - it if primary a communication, not a broadcast tool.
  
  
  
• Have enough interest in your Facebook presense to monitor it or at the very least pay someone else to monitor it.
  
  
  
• Have the ability to sell the idea of your clients or customers contacting and listening in to what you are saying on services like Facebook.
  
  
  
• Have a holistic approach to Facebook marketing, and not to presume that any marketer can run a campaign for you, the general rule is, if you can only answer a phonecall or email in house, you can only run a Facebook campaign in house - setup is what online marketers are for.

 

If you have any further questions, please do contact Smith and Wise on 0861780743 or [email protected]

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