Description

Someone told you that you could generate business by putting your company on Facebook. Well….how’s that working out? Simply creating a page on Facebook doesn’t guarantee anything! In fact, receiving a bunch of “likes” doesn’t guarantee success either. In this video, Eric Spellmann shows you how to convert all of those fans into customers. From engagement to website funneling, he explains the secrets to social media marketing using Facebook.

Transcript

Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice! I am Eric Spellmann with ericspellmann.com. And today we’re going to be talking about Facebook. Specifically, turning likes into customers. Because really that’s why you are using Facebook if you’re a business. You want to see more people walk through the door. You want to see more people buy from you. So we’re going to ba talking about that in this video. So here we go.

First, understand why people use Facebook in the first place. Understand the psychological reason. You’re saying Eric I don’t want to get all psycho-babbly here. No! Trust me if you understand this you’ll be well on your way to knowing how to drive people through your door using Facebook.

The main reason people use Facebook is NOT because they’re nosy. It’s not because we want to know everything there is to know about what’s going on in people’s lives. No. The main reason we want to use Facebook is because humans want to be heard.

We all have an innate desire for our opinion to matter. We want to be relevant. And so when people get on Facebook, they know they may not be able to stand in front of a room full of 20 people and speak publicly, but they will get on Facebook in front of 300 friends and say what they want and be excited because their opinion got out to all those people! That’s why people use Facebook. Remember it! That’s why you use Facebook.

What we can do as business owners, is give them a megaphone. That’s what this is about. Giving them a megaphone to be able to shout what they feel is important, to be able to shout their opinion.

And the way we do that is by allowing them to comment, by allowing them to engage. That’s rule number one. Talk to them! On Facebook, this is not a one-way megaphone; this is not a one-way thing. Facebook is meant for two-way conversation. Whenever you’re on Facebook and you see someone comment, respond to it, reply to it.

Even if it’s just “Hey thanks” for the comment. Answer their questions. People will learn over time that they can reach you on Facebook, and your Facebook will grow. And therefore your customer base will grow.

Number two, offer exclusive content. And what I mean by content is something they can’t find anywhere else. Something compelling, something that they want to read or even a video they want to see.

Knowing that if they go to your website they may not see it or if they go somewhere else, they may not see it. So only by going to your Facebook page and checking it out, will they get to see these things. One of the best ways to do that, is through a Facebook contest.

And I just did a video on this, so be sure and watch it to make sure you understand how that works. But a Facebook contest is something that only occurs on Facebook. And it works! I can’t tell you how much traffic I’ve generated through the Facebook contests I’ve run in the past. They are great.

Number 3, point them home. And what I mean by that is get em to your website! Remember your website is like the hub of a wagon wheel and all the other forms of online marketing are like the spokes of that wheel pointing them to the center.

We want them to go to our website whether it be to put something in a shopping cart and buy it or whether they hit our lead generator and generate an email where we can call em up and ask what they need? Get them to your website!

What I mean by that is every comment you make, every post you make should have some sort of link that gets them to your website in some way. A huge amount of my traffic comes from Facebook and it’s because I am pointing people there.

Create calls to action that will get em there, people. Incentivize em with content. For instance, you may start a blog post. Take the first paragraph of your blog post and you put it on Facebook and then you have “read more”. And they click on that link on Facebook and they go to your website to read more. We call that a teaser.

Point them to your website, incentivize them with information that you know they want to read. Not a bunch of advertising, don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying you need to advertise heavily. You need to give them good content!

Number four, get their email address. People, get their email address I’ll say it again. I get more business through my email newsletter than all my other forms of advertising combined. And that’s because on Facebook I’m always looking to get them to sign up for my email newsletter. You know the difference between the email newsletter and all other forms of online marketing? All other forms of online marketing basically require you to lure the customer to you.

Convince them to take some action to come to you, but not email. Email you’re sending that proactively to them. And they have to do something with it; it’s sitting in their inbox. They have to read it or delete it but they have to do something. And if done well, you can generate a tonne of business through email and Facebook can be one of your great areas to capture that. So get their email address.

Remember the trade. And I have a whole video just on this people. People will not just give you their email address because you asked for it, but they will trade for it. I mean think about every time you go to a conference and you go to a vendor area with these vendor booths out there and you see a fish bowl on there with business cards in it.

You happily put your business card in there too. Why? Just because you want to give em your information? No. Because you want to win the iPad or whatever contest it is they are having. That’s called the trade. You’re trading your personal information for a chance to win something. That works on Facebook too! Whether through a Facebook contest or through some other promotion you come up with.

Always use an email newsletter service. Especially once you get a large number of email addresses like me. I have tens of thousands of email addresses. Theres no way I could use Outlook to send all that so I use an email news service and the one I use is MailChimp.

But there’s also another one out there called Constant Contact. They’re both really good. And if you have more questions on how to use email to drive traffic to you, be sure and watch my video that I did on setting up an email newsletter.

Now it all comes down to this. If you’ve missed everything I’ve said until now, remember these 2 key points. Number 1, people do business with people, not businesses. The reason you have customers is because of you, not because they said oh that business name sounds cool, I will do business with that business.

No, they do business with people. People do business with people. And when you go on Facebook, you’re showing the “people” version of your business, you’re showing the “people” side. People chose someone over another because of people. Remember that. Also, people would rather do business with an expert, not a salesman. In other words, on Facebook I don’t want you to do a huge amount of advertising.

I don’t want you just giving all sorts of discounts and promotions and just inundating them with virtual pamphlets. I want you to teach em something. I want you to make them a better consumer by helping them make a better decision about your product or service. I mean heck that’s what I’m doing with these videos.

This isn’t just some academic exercise, I actually do this and I am seeing huge results. That’s why I am sharing it with you. Because you can see those same kind of results in your business.

Well speaking of business I’m Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates. And as with all my videos, if you have any questions at all, feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to help if I can. Also, don’t forget my sister site computertips101.com.

If you have maybe an aging parent who is new to computers or maybe you’re new to computers I have a whole bunch of videos similar to this where I teach basic stuff about using it. And it’s totally free as always. Well I’m Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates; I’ll see you in cyberspace.