Dear Friend,
We're
excited about this month's newsletter.
In it we are showcasing our new focus for
the Medallion Fulfillment
& Logistics monthly newsletter newsletter - tips to help grow
your business.
I hope that you will find the first article on Facebook interesting reading and one that will help you to build your customer base as well.
Best Regards,
Gene Kent
President, Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics
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How to Use Facebook to Build Your Customer Base
by Jan Stewart, exclusively for Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics
A 30-second Super Bowl commercial cost $3 million; not exactly chump change. Granted, that 30-second ad had the potential to reach an expected 110 million viewers worldwide; but what is interesting is that, this year, Super Bowl advertisers were not as focused on the immediate marketing impact of their ads as they were on using them as teasers to draw viewers into interactive Facebook and Twitter conversations.
T
he
power of social media to connect with consumers,
drive brand recognition and build customer
base is changing the way businesses connect
with consumers. Social media marketing
capitalizes on the same type of good will
and loyalty that people afford their friends
to convert casual site visitors into product
consumers. Using special promotions, contests,
surveys, games, videos, polls and wall
dialogs on their Facebook page, businesses
develop a friendly, accessible, interactive
relationship with potential customers.
In effect, Facebook
humanizes your business, transforming
it from a faceless, corporate "it" into "one
of the guys," someone consumers can
trust and count on and want to do business
with.
As casual as this business-consumer relationship may seem, it is important to differentiate between a personal Facebook page and a business Facebook page, also called a fan page. Your business fan page should focus exclusively on your products and brand. Because Facebook requires accounts to be tied to a personal email, it's smart to open a separate email account for this purpose to keep your business and personal lives separate. Access settings on your Facebook business page should also be adjusted to prevent access to any personal information.
The Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" promotion is an excellent example of how interactive Facebook promotions build brand recognition and excitement. Doritos was a fading brand in 2007 when it first invited consumers to create their own Doritos commercials, then allowed Facebook fans to vote for their favorites, and aired the top vote-getter during the Super Bowl. Since then, the annual promotion has drawn thousands of entries (5,000 this year), driven hundreds of thousands of fans to Doritos' Facebook fan page, generated months of positive brand buzz, and made Doritos the best-selling tortilla chip in the U.S.
Savvy
business owners know that to sell a product
you have to take your pitch to the consumer.
Today, that means social media, and Facebook
is where the action is. Facebook boasts
500 million active users, 50% of whom log
onto Facebook daily. The average American
Facebook user spends about 15 minutes a
day on Facebook, more than double the amount
of time spent on all other web programs.
Advertising your product where it can get
that kind of attention at zero cost – Facebook
is free -- is a marketing asset you can't
afford to ignore. The real beauty of social
media marketing, however, is that each
consumer contact has the potential to explode
exponentially as fans share 'liked' sites
with their friends. According to Facebook,
the average Facebook user has 130 friends.
If just one visitor to your Facebook page
shares a link to your site with his friends,
traffic to your site can mushroom quickly.
You don't have to be a corporate behemoth to put social media to work for your business. Facebook is ideal for small business owners. It's free, business pages are easy to set up and there are hundreds of optional applications available to handle Facebook's more sophisticated features. Social media has the power to take your business to a whole new level and it won't cost you a cent. If your business isn't on Facebook yet, what are you waiting for?
About the Writer Jan Stewart
Jan Stewart is a professional writer for Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics, a family owned Los Angeles based fulfillment firm. She writes exclusively for Strategies for Success on topics of business tips, how to promote your business online, and establishing your brand in the marketplace.
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New Articles With Tips That Help to Build Your Business
This month we're introducing a new focus for our newsletters. We have hired a special writer who will each month offer tips that can help to build your business, help you to operate more frugally to generate more profit, or answer questions on how to use the Internet to generate more sales.
If you have a topic for our writer, Jan Stewart, just let me know so we can consider it for a future newsletter.