Tip #6: Facebook Success

Entrepreneurs want to know how to promote their products and services on Facebook successfully. Here’s the key:

Talk about your business

AND

your personal life.

Take a moment and guesstimate the percentage of your posts that are about your business and those about your personal life. What’s the ratio?

I suggest the 50/50 rule. Make roughly 50% of your posts about business and the other 50% about you as a person.

“Status Update” ideas to spread the good word about your business:

Let people know how excited you are about your new product. Invite people to read your latest blog post. Ask people what they want to see more of from your business. Solicit testimonials. Tell people about a free resource in your field of expertise. (Offering information on resources outside your own company increases your credibility and trustworthiness.) Solicit feedback on how you could improve your business. Give away a “Tip of the Day” or “Tip of the Week”.

1) Unless your a major corporation with a strictly corporate presentation, your Facebook friends and potential customers want to get to know you as a person. If the only time you’re posting on is when it’s about the business people are going to get tired of hearing about it. They didn’t sign up to be marketed to, they signed up to stay connected with people and organizations. Be careful of overselling.

2) Be careful of over-inviting. People don’t want to be bombarded with Facebook invitations to your events. Use discretion and consider only sending invites to events you want to highlight. Post about the great book you read last week, the funny joke you heard, how much you’re enjoying the sunset… you get the idea. Don’t forget to make it fun. Even when you’re talking about business, keep it engaging and mix it up. Offer some free tips and/or resources along with your updates about products and services.

3) On the other hand, if you never (or rarely) talk about your business people will forget (or never know) what you do and you’ll lose out on potential sales. Social media allows you, the entrepreneur, a unique opportunity to market to potential customers where they hang out instead of trying to convince people to come to you. Take advantage of this opportunity.

4) Important Note: Leave your personal drama offline. If you are combining the personal and professional in social media you have to forfeit the right to air personal grievances, drama, negativity, or just plain “TMI” (Too Much Information) about your personal life. Otherwise you come off as very unprofessional. Your customers will be turned off and they will turn to someone else.

5) Most of all, remember to play around with it.

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