Monday, September 10, 2012

Small can pack a big punch on facebook pages

If you're a regular reader of the marketing press, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only companies doing any marketing are the big ones. But with a million small businesses in Australia alone, we know that can't be true. So I'm always excited when I come across any list of "small doing it big" in any way.

I was reading this story on Social Media Examiner which features ten small businesses they selected as winners for their Facebook page. All are worth checking out for some inspiration.

Locally, I've seen that wool brand Jo Sharp has been doing some Facebook advertising and over a couple of weeks I've watched their likes go through the roof, and I doubt they've spent more than a couple of hundred dollars a week.

When I liked them maybe 2 weeks ago they had under 2000 likes. Now they've got 7,000!

That's a seriously impressive result. If you look a little further, they haven't even had their page that long - they started posting regularly in April last year. So what are they doing right? When I came across them I saw there were some free patterns, special offers, daily posts - and it was enough to make me 'like' them.

Now "craft" is a natural for social media - there's always something new to talk about. But that's the case with SO MANY industries, from fashion and beauty to food to finance. The important thing is to being talking about something every day - and showing that you understand your market by posting engaging items.

If I was advising Jo Sharp, I would give them a couple of tips to consider:

1. Advertising - chose the option to only show it to people who don't already like you (as I still see it even though I've liked them). Although if they're paying for "showing" rather than "clicking" this may not be an issue - but otherwise you don't want to be paying for eyeballs you already have.

2. Add a cover photo - it makes landing on there a little more lovely if you've got a gorgeous image.

3. Build in a means of collecting people's email addresses, to ensure you're capturing multiple means of contacting your customers.

4. Add a little more "interaction" as most posts are one-way. That is, ask for comments, encourage shares, that sort of thing.

But hey - I haven't managed to get 7000 like for any business yet, so they seems to be doing ok without me!