When I first started out on Facebook back around 2007, like many it was a place to connect with friends and family. The great part about Facebook is it’s a way to connect with friends and family that I haven’t seen in a long time or that live further away and made it difficult to stay in touch with.
Facebook has changed a lot over the years but no matter how it’s used it’s still a great way to connect and for us business owners, a great way to get our message out there and market our businesses.
All of that said, what’s best for your business?
There is no question that as a business you need to have a Facebook Page. This is where potential customers and clients will find you and see what you have to offer.
Having a great strategy and using your page to provide value is a perfect way to position yourself as an expert in your industry and if you have your Page optimized, you will be able to attract the right customers and clients in your target market.
Although you do need to have a page to grow your business online, a mistake businesses often make is instead of creating a page they use a profile instead.
Over the years Facebook has cracked down on the way businesses use it’s platform and promoting your business on a profile is not what Facebook wants. Using this method could put you in “Facebook Jail†or even have your profiled shut down.
What’s the difference and why does that matter?
No matter what business you have, the objective you should have is to obviously grow your page and attract customers. Doing that with your profile acting as a page will be difficult as you have a limit of 5000 “friendsâ€.
Now, that’s not to say you can’t use your profile to market yourself and let your page represent your business. The one thing you want to establish is how you want to create your personal brand.
You may not think it matters but how you act online and how you use your personal profile can go a long way in getting clients or losing them.
A great example of this was back when I worked at the Beer Store I was part of a team that combated misinformation about how the Beer Store system worked, how the pricing worked and how it worked for the bars in Ontario. I will say this, I can now see things from both sides now and have changed my stance on how things are run as I support small breweries and bars but I worked for the company and had defended them by stopping all the misinformation that was out there.
There was a tweet from a local bar owner back then and it bashed the pricing bars had to pay for their beer over what a home consumer would have to pay. That resulted in a heated “debate†over Twitter.
The same goes for how you react to posts Facebook as well but for this instance, I will talk about my experience on Twitter. Now this “debate†went on for some time and we both decided we wouldn’t change the others mind so we just stopped and went our separate ways.
After this had happened, fast forward about 10 some odd years later at a networking event after I had started Russtek, I attended an event at a local brewery and the brewer there, a friend of mine now came up to me and without knowing me and asked “are you Nick?â€.
Hearing this gentleman come up to me, I was confused as to how he knew me as I didn’t recognize him. I just figured it was from another event. He recognized me from that “debate†on Twitter all those years ago. The lucky part for me is that it didn’t reflect badly on me but it was something he remembered me for.
As entrepreneurs and business owners, this is something we have to be mindful of and our personal profiles and actions online can hurt us in the long run if we aren’t professional.
On the other side of that coin, having an optimized profile that shows others who you are and what you do can drive traffic to your Page and even your websites/funnels if you have that info in your “About†section and on your cover photo.
The bonus to having an optimized profile is it will help others get to know you and your business if you are in other groups and providing value. This will bring us to the last part of this blog, Groups.
The big difference between Pages and Groups is your Page is open to anyone to visit and a lot easier to find. That said, your page can provide a ton of value but it’s not always the best platform to really build a relationship. You can still do this but having a Group that is associated with your Page, you can use that to really build relationships and a community around your business.
This is something that companies like ClickFunnels does and Rachel Pedersen does with her SMU program. Those groups have built such a community they respectively have a following that calls themselves Funnel Hackers and the SMUcrew.
So what should you start using when it comes to your business?
I would start out by growing your page and providing value to your target audience. Doing this will position you as an expert in your field and once you have established yourself, the next step is to have a Facebook Group when you can really work to build relationships with your audience.
This is something we have recently done as well for Russtek and although our group doesn’t have the same name as the business, it’s a group where entrepreneurs can help each other create momentum in their business and grow together!
We would love to have you in our group so we can help you grow as well!
If you’re ready to take action and create Momentum for your business, click below to join our Facebook Group!