Monthly Blog Post: Are You Using Facebook to Your Advantage?
Maureen Anderson – Next Day Floors
I’ll admit that at first I did not know how Facebook was going to help my company and I had no idea how to get started. But I thought it can’t hurt so Next Day Floors Facebook page was created.
Don’t worry! Facebook makes it pretty easy to create a page. My greatest tip is, before you create your page, gather as much information (who you are, your mission statement, target areas, demographics) as well as many images as you can and lay a plan out on paper. This will make creating your page less stressful and time consuming. Facebook makes it quite simple, just follow the prompts they give and with your preparations ahead of time, you’ll have a page created in just a matter of minutes. Okay – so maybe it took me hours, but I’m faster now and you will be too!
Once you have your Facebook page up and running, the hard part begins with building your following with “likes”. I started out just uploading our commercials or writing a post about what our specials were and “Boosting” the post. Boosting a post is paying for Facebook to push your post out to your target audience’s Facebook wall and hoping that your content makes them come to your page and “Like” it. Don’t get discouraged, it takes a while to get your likes built up. We are still a fairly young page, but we now have a little over 4,800 followers in our demographic area and we continue to grow.
I have found that our followers are moved more by personalized posts, such as pictures of our employees celebrating work anniversaries, birthdays and even our Christmas luncheon. I believe people are looking for a connection. To feel their loyalty is warranted and that we are people just like themselves. I know using Facebook, we will never sell flooring products directly from our page, but we are building a relationship with potential buyers and we have already seen a few buyers come to us because of one of our posts.
Our page has evolved over time and we’ve found our niche. We post daily, but have a few days of the week set aside for Tuesday Tips, What’s New Wednesday, Friday Fact and even Sunday Funday! Don’t be afraid to use emojis and hashtags and don’t forget to add a link to your website, you never know who might click over.
All in all, with a calendar, a pencil, lots of images, a little imagination and a couple of minutes a day you can build a loyal Facebook fan base who will check in with you daily and share your post with their friends and there is your potential sale!
Maureen Anderson
Vice President, MAFCA
manderson@nextdayfloors.net
