So many businesses are on Facebook, they’ve been desperate to get on there. They see the big audience and think – yep that’s for me. They think, what a great way to engage with customers, what a wonderful way to get customer feedback on products and services, what a perfect way to tell my customers and their friends about special offers, events and activities.
They’re absolutely right, Facebook is great for all of those things
Do you know the sad truth though – they’re probably doing hardly any of them, well.
The result, customers are switching off, when they do post something they aren’t interested anymore, they’ve slipped off their list.
You see, being on Facebook (or twitter, or LinkedIn or Google+, or YouTube….) and doing it badly, is absolutely worse than not doing it all.
When customers like a business on Facebook, they are taking a step (admittedly a small one), to engage with that business. Maybe they’ve been enticed by an offer, maybe they just want to see what the company does, and subconsciously, they’re waiting to see what information they receive, what offers they get, what questions they might get asked.
It might start well, some polls about their favourite product, a competition, and regular content, ‘yeah it’s worth following these guys’, and then it slows down. The customer doesn’t realise it at first, and then they might think – I haven’t seen anything from ‘businesses in a while, are they still in business. Yep, it’s that serious – no activity on social media – no business.
It’s not that they don’t like your business, it’s just that your lack of activity says something about your business. Everything is the same, nothing has changed – there’s no point going to see them anymore.
So what’s the lesson – If you’re going to be on Facebook (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest), then be on it. Commit to it.
How do you do that – you make a plan, you decide what it is you want to say and how regularly you want to say it, and then you deliver. You run regular competitions, you ask questions, you respond to comments and you post general stuff about the business. Why, because you’ve said you will, and if you don’t you’re letting your customers down, and your competitors will.
Need help putting your social media plan together? Drop us a line at Digital Glue, and we’ll talk to you about how you can make the most out of your social media.
