How to make use of Facebook to get more customers

Facebook page is an essential ingredient for the growth of your business, especially for a local one. You ask why? Read on to know more about growing your business with Facebook.

Do you know people who haven't even heard of Facebook? Well, I don’t think you’ll meet many like that. Even when we meet somebody for the first time, we befriend them on Facebook as well. What’s more- we’ve got countless people whom we don't even know in there. If we take the stats, it’s more than 2 billion! (2.89 billion, according to statista.com) And, the number is going up. Do you know what this means for your business?

Whether you own a local store or a growing brand, Facebook is one of the most effective platforms to connect to customers. From having all your potential customers in one place to converting them to loyal customers, social media- especially Facebook- provide huge opportunities. You already have a Facebook page for your business? If not, time is running out. Every business has got one. Plus, think about how many people you can reach, just with an account! Even a person tagging your account on their post or story can do wonders.

Even if your answer is yes, there’s still a lot more to do. Facebook opens infinite possibilities, you’ve to make use of it to get more customers and to grow your business. Everyone is using it, so you’ve to make use of the platform’s potential to stand out. What do we get from this? It’s important to have an FB page, that too in top notch shape.

For starters, let’s consider some questions you can ask yourself

• When and what did you post last time?
• Do you get Facebook reviews?
• Is your Facebook page attractive?
• Do you engage with potential customers/ customers through Facebook?
• Do you respond to comments on your page?

There are a lot of things you need to know to make use of Facebook pages well. Here they are

Take care of what you appear to be

There are a lot of things you can take care of on your Facebook page. Before we get into more tough steps, let’s look at some pretty basic stuff. It’s all about asking yourself these questions and answering them:

Does your profile photo reflect what you are doing? The first thing anyone notices will be your profile picture. Make sure it resonates with you well. Not only the profile, just scroll and see what other photos are in there. Ask yourself if they represent your brand well. Checking those pictures and posts in this new light, you may even think you need a makeover. Who knows?

The next thing of course is your profile descriptions. This is what you say about yourself. Is it clear enough? Does it explain clearly what you do and how can you help a customer? What does it say about your services or products? Audit all the information and see what goes right and what’s unnecessary.

Check if your contact information and other details are accurate and up to date. Extra care must be given in giving updated info about address change, or opening a new outlet.

Team up, folks!

Setting up your team to handle your social media accounts and customer support is a must as your brand/business grows. Even if you’re getting started and don’t have a big team, someone should be there to manage all the queries, interactions and leads.

Let’s start with some questions on this one too. Who can post on your page? Who answers the queries or replies to the messages on your page? Is the Messenger all set to go? Make sure you’ve an appropriate number of team members to handle messages and queries. Plus, there must be one or more persons taking care of the posts that can go on the page along with another supervising and auditing it.

Make sure they can access the messages and queries that flow to your page. Still, giving all your employees access to your bases is not a secure option. That’s why using tools like Cloodot to centralize all your interactions into a single inbox is a better choice. You can collaborate with your whole team and stay on the same page while handling chats and reviews.

team to answer queries, and customer support team

It’s all about interaction

Facebook Messenger offers a convenient space to interact with your potential customers. Not being too formal like email, messenger is a great tool to connect to your audience and convert them. If you haven’t set this up yet, go to your page settings and tick the boxes in the messages section under the General tab. Save changes to get started with Messenger. Once you get started, set up features like automated messages and greetings to make interactions more effective and quick.

Regular interactions work way more better with Messenger and you get to build long lasting relationships. Set up a greeting when the customers first try to reach out to you. You can set a custom greeting by going to Messaging on your settings. It’ll be refreshing for them to see things like, “hello, how can we help you” rather than a blank screen. Another important thing is to keep your customers engaged even when your team is not available. Automated messages can help you with this. Creating FAQs and answering them in the best way, you can set up automated messaging to make it convenient for your customers to get the information they need.

Apart from the messages, notice the comments you receive on each post. Reply to at leat some of them, if not all, to keep the interaction engaging. There will be a whole bunch of people who see and respond to what you say and you may receive negative feedback or comments as well. Instead of reacting the same way they do, remember the integrity of your business and calm down. How you deal with negative comments can tell a lot more about you than anything else. Keep in mind that there will always be people who tell negative things, however close to perfect you are.

Ratings, Reviews and Recommendations

An active social media user will definitely search for your brand, and -if you’ve an account on social media- how it functions. One of the most important things they look for is reviews. While looking for some brand or business on Facebook, you might have seen ratings and reviews on many such pages. If you get above 3 star rating on Facebook, you might be able to win more customers and stand ahead of the competition. Don’t worry, you’ll get there.

The first step you’ve to take to get going is to enable star ratings and reviews on Facebook. The next question is, of course, how to get more reviews. Mostly, you don’t get them without asking. It’s not bad news, because all you need to do is to set up a way to remind your customers about leaving a review. If that’s bothering you, let Cloodot help you out with one click review requests that makes your job as well as your customer’s much, much easier. Get some templates, add direct links and let them know how they can help you to function more efficiently.

One more thing, if you’ve got a number of reviews from other sites, don’t hesitate to publish them as customer stories on your page. Ask your customers if they’re okay with this and if possible, ask them to tell more about how their experience was. Most of them would surely love to get featured on your page (don’t forget to make it attractive!). You can create long-lasting customer relationships and attract new customers with this. Yes, it’s a win-win.

An engaging content, please!

There is lots and lots of content that’s flowing endlessly on the internet. All your customers see this everyday and being one of those boring and dull posts should not be an option. Posting something that’s been rolling on the internet for ages or something that’s so robotic and dry doesn't get you enough attention. You need to remember that engaging your audience first requires knowing them. Know who they are, what they like and what might interest them. After establishing your target audience, create content that’s relatable to them. Your posts can be of a wide range from educating your audience to informing them of a new update.

More than how regularly you post, focus on the quality of the content that you create. Whether it’s a photo of your product or a brief write-up about your new service, keep the standard and high-quality. Sources of your informative post should be reliable, images must be of high-quality and language should reflect your integrity. Don’t be too serious- add some lighthearted and humorous elements to your posts and you’ll definitely get more thumps ups. Engage with your audience in a dynamic way and make most of the space you’ve got. Ask questions to get more out of your audience. Do it on your own way.