It’s About People Being Social With People!
I read a Tweet this morning about increasing a business page’s Fan base by exchanging likes with the admins of other pages. While this will absolutely drive up your numbers of likes, can it bring in new business? Probably not! Those administrators want the same thing you want, more fans on their pages. But be honest, will you ever go back onto their page again? Do you think they care enough about your business to ever visit your page again or be engaged in your posts? Do they care about your products or services?
We engaged in like exchanges as an experiment with other businesses over a period of about 3 weeks and built a rather impressive number of fans. Since these fans were small business owners, there’s a slight chance that we’ll be able to convert them into actual fans. But what if our business was… say a children’s boutique? If we did a like exchange with another small business who’s focus was plumbing fixtures on the other side of the planet. Well, you see where I’m going with this. There are likes, and there are artificial likes. The artificial likes have very little chance of impacting your bottom line in a positive way. In fact, if anything, they have a negative impact because you’re spending time getting these likes when you should probably be working on something else.
There are hundreds of pages out there dedicated to fan exchanges on Facebook with huge followings. And they work! But, the fans you’ll get by being active in these pages have little interest in your page or your business.
What’s a Facebook fan worth? Well, that really depends on how you get them. If those fans are truely interested in your products or services and are engaged on your page, they’re worth their weight in gold. If however, they’re an artificial fan… well, you spent time and effort with very little return on that investment.
But, how do you get fans onto your page that are really interested in your brand? Facebook Groups! This is where people with like interests gather. They might be interested in tropical plants for example. If your business has anything to do with tropical plants, you should be there too! First, figure out who you want to reach. What does your brand have in common with them? Then find those groups and join the conversation! Remember, when being active in these groups, post as yourself using your personal profile. And add a link to your page or website! If people like what you say in the group, they’ll visit your link and maybe, just maybe, they’ll become a real fan and join in the conversation on your page too.
Social media isn’t about people being social with brands, it’s about people being social with people!
Tags: social media marketing
