Facebook is a great tool for your business! not simply because other businesses are using it, but because your customers are. Depending on the nature of your business, your customer’s demographic varies and the beauty about Facebook is that is covers pretty much every possible demographic.

Before starting a Facebook campaign, you have to ask yourself: who am I going to target? how can I collect fans? and what content would be valuable for my community?

Your target audience are split in two: your current customers and their friends. With that alone you have a reach effect of millions. So you always start by funneling your current customers to like your Facebook page, and this could be achieved by using the Vbout software. Once you build some followers, you have to update your page with valuable content that communicate your business best with your followers. This could be done trough photos and videos of your store, food, staff, people, etc.. Media always triggers high customer engagement which turns into more impressions across the social graph. This means if i like a photo that your store posted, 400 of my friends will potentially view that photo. You can also try some pop quizes posts for some free prizes, coffee, drinks, etc..

Here are few tips for maintaining a Facebook business page:

• Make sure you create a Facebook page and not an actual account. I took over so many clients where the business had a Facebook account with friends!
• Always use your business logo as the profile picture. Ask your designer to give you a square graphic of your logo, if it has a landscape format.
• Your cover image is very important! you can communicate a message through it, whether a holiday banner, catering special or an image of an event. Your fans get the update on their wall each time you change your cover image. This will increase your visibility and exposure.
• Create offers and polls to engage your customers and get likes and comments.
• Cleanup your page from outdated content, like old holiday banners. Facebook have a hide feature where you can hide a post without deleting it, so you can keep your comments and likes.
• Properly categorize your galleries. For example, create albums for drinks, food, people, events, decoration etc.. and each time you upload images place them in the right album.
• Use a smartphone to take photos. You can assign a staff member to actively take images and upload them to your Facebook page. Each time you do that, some of your fans will see the post and remember you. If i am hungry for instance, and i saw a picture of a freshly baked pie posted on my wall from a pizza shop i fanned, i might just call in a pizza delivery.
• Don’t overpost, you can loose fans! normally 1 to 2 posts per day are enough. Just make sure to do it at a good timing. If you own a spa, it makes no sense posting something at 10 pm, but if you own a bar, 10 pm might just be right.
• Always reply to good or bad comments. Customer who post something on your wall expect a reply, so don’t disappoint them.