How to Tuesday Have Success on Your Company's Facebook Page

Written on February 22, 2010 by Susan Payton

I like Facebook Pages, and I like writing about them here and on Mashable. I think having a Facebook Page for your business is key for interacting with your customers and contacts. So when I received the report, The Key to Driving Retail Success with Social Media: Focus on Facebook by Kevin Ertell of ForeSee Results, I was eager to see what the studies were showing on successes for brands using Facebook.

They weren’t surprising to me. Consumers are showing strong loyalty to brands with good Facebook presence. Just take a look at True Lemon or Mashable. Their fans love them and are eager to interact with them on Facebook.

So ForeSee did a study of  10,000 visitors to the biggest e-retail websites in the United States to see how they are interacting with brands on Facebook. Here are some highlights:

• 56% of shoppers to top e-retail websites who interact with social media websites have elected to “friend” or “follow” or “subscribe” to a retailer on a social networking site like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
• Facebook is, by far, the best place to reach shoppers—both because it’s where they already are, and it’s where they want to hear from retailers.
• Customers mainly interact with retailers on social media sites to learn about products and promotions—a marketer’s dream come true.

Interestingly, only 61% of these people follow five or fewer companies on Facebook. This surprised me a bit, since I am a Fan of many pages. However, I only really interact on the pages that interest me most. So I guess having a lower number of pages per consumer means they can focus more time on your page.

While consumers used Facebook the most to interact with brands, they also used Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and LinkedIn.

And here’s a good fact, so listen up. Consumers told the researchers what they wanted when visiting a brand’s Facebook page:

• 49% wanted to learn about sales or special offers
• 45% wanted to learn about products
• 5% wanted customer support
• 1% had other unspecified reasons

So brands, this is what your customers are demanding on Facebook. Are you paying attention? Does your current Facebook page reflect what your consumers want?

Here are some of my own suggestions for how you can add depth to your Facebook Page and encourage interaction:

• Include articles or links to blog posts on relevant topics
• Ask questions to get dialogue started
• Respond to each and every comment or request that needs an answer
• Be prompt! Responding 2 months later does nothing for your reputation
• Post videos and photos of products and even staff and fun things
• Update daily

How are your Facebook efforts going? Got questions? Ask ‘em!

Posted in Social Media, Marketing & Networking

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