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Is Facebook The Right Platform For Your Business?

Have you ever thought about how many people are on Facebook? Not just friends, family and neighbors but around the world. One of the great things about Facebook is that you can advertise to your customers but in such a way that they are engaged and open to receiving your messaging vs. feeling like they are being advertised at via email..etc. This is key in getting people to share your information and expand your following. You want to make that like button tired!

Have you ever thought about how many people are on Facebook? Not just friends, family and neighbours but around the world. Here are some Facebook facts (as of January 27th, 2015):

  • Total number of monthly active Facebook users: 1,310,000,000
  • Total number of mobile Facebook users: 680,000,000
  • Total number of minutes spent on Facebook each month: 640,000,000
  • Percent of all Facebook users who log on in any given day: 48%
  • Average time spent on Facebook per visit: 18 minutes
  • Total number of Facebook pages: 54,200,000

That’s a lot of stats to open up a blog post with but the potential is so staggering for business I just couldn’t help myself. Imagine if you were able to harness even 1% of that audience: 131,000,000 potential customers. You might not need that many to make your business successful but it sure would be great if they were talking about you!

Creating the right content?

When you are designing your Facebook social media strategy, ask yourself two questions:

  1. Is this useful to my followers / fans / clients?
  2. Does this represent what my business is about?
    If you come across a great article, a post from another Facebook page, or video then post it up. Scheduled content is great but don’t let that prevent you from being spontaneous!

Like most business owners, you might struggle with what to say to 1.3 million people. You can use Facebook to promote:

  • extended business hours
  • special offers
  • events
  • new staff
  • new products or additional services or community organizations you support
  • workshops or seminars

How do you get them talking? Well you can also share:

  • client success stories
  • pictures and videos of your products, services, events or workshops
  • testimonials from satisfied clients
  • blog posts or articles with helpful tips and advice
  • infographics, inspirational quotes, funny helpful cartoons (75% of content on Facebook is image based)

People share posts on Facebook that they are passionate about and want their friends to benefit from. I see posts about workshops I want to go to and then share them with my friends to see who would like to come with me. If a friend asks me who my chiropractor or dentist is, I share their business Facebook page. It can be that easy. But if you don’t have a business Facebook page, you can’t be shared, liked or commented on.

Now that you know about all of the social aspect of Facebook, here are some of the on line benefits:

  • Drives traffic to your website and improve your overall SEO
  • Easily engage with your community by connecting you and your staff to your customer base
  • Have an edge over competitors who aren’t engaging with their customers online
  • Oh and did I mention it’s FREE!

One of the great things about Facebook is that you can advertise to your customers but in such a way that they are engaged and open to receiving your messaging vs. feeling like they are being advertised at via email..etc. This is key in getting people to share your information and expand your following. You want to make that like button tired!

Like I mentioned in my post on Pinterest, Facebook also has its own lingo.

If you are new to the Facebook vocabulary, here are some basics:

Like – Clicking ‘Like’ below a post on Facebook is an easy way to let people know that you enjoy it without leaving a comment. It leaves a trail to their Facebook profile and can show up in their feed for all their friends to see.

Share – When a person shares something on Facebook, it will go onto their time line for all their friends to see. With the average Facebook user having 130 friends, this is a pretty fast way to get the word out. 1 follower to 130 friends in their network who then re-share can reach 16,900 people.

Timeline – This is the stream of information that shows up for each person’s profile for all to see. Anything that you post will show up on your fans time lines and they can share right from there.

About – You want to make sure that you have all your information here. Website, address, phone number, etc. You can add links to your appointment bookings and more.

So as you can see this is a great platform for any business but for health pro’s this is a great way to get your information and expertise out there. And it is FREE! Take advantage of it!

Happy Posting!

Namaste