“How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business Without it Costing a Penny!” by Victoria Player
In this day and age it’s likely that the majority of your target audience have a Facebook profile. But don’t be mistaken by thinking that Facebook is only used to connect with old school friends and family members. It does in fact offer a number of features that will help connect you with your target market, drive traffic to your website and generate new leads for your business without it costing a penny. In this article I show you how.
1. Create a Facebook Group
Your target market has common interests. My prospects and readers are interested in growing their business and attracting more clients. Perhaps yours are interested in improving their relationships, making money online, dressmaking or weight loss. In the same way that people do a search for information using Google, they will equally join your Facebook group. By doing so, these people are indicating that they are part of YOUR target market and interested in what you do. They have defined themselves as potential prospects.
This is exactly what I did in the run up to launching the Women Entrepreneurs Club. I created the Women Entrepreneurs Club Facebook group and started a number of discussions that touched on common interests. I now have over 460 members. The beauty of this is that when people search for groups using the key word “Women Entrepreneur” and they see other groups with just 11 members, which group do you think they will join? By the way, it’s worth using key words for your business within your group name. This will show up in Google.
2. Brainstorm Discussion Topics & Content
In order to build a community around your area of expertise you must first begin to generate curiosity and interest. It falls to you to build this interest and get the discussion going. So begin by brainstorming discussion topics and content that directly relates to your members interests and challenges. You might decide to share snippets of info from other people’s blogs, videos, audio classes, articles or useful online resources. Better still share your own content that directly relates to and demonstrates your area of expertise. Include links back to your website where people can find out more. This will also improve your organic Google ranking.
It might be worth mentioning here that I’ll be explaining this in-detail within the next “Women Entrepreneurs’ Club” monthly Expert Training Call. We’ll discuss what to do once you’ve got people to your website and exactly how to turn those visitors in to a list of IDEAL prospects and clients.
3. Invite New Friends
Next you need to invite your Facebook friends to join your group. This is when your group goes viral! When people join, that activity will show up in the feed on their profile page. If you are short on friends locate other groups where your target market hang out and invite them to become your friend.
4. Promote Your Website or Blog
Next you need to place a link to your website or blog in a prominent place on your Facebook group page. Do the same within your email newsletter, website or blog driving your readers back to your Facebook group. People will appreciate you giving them a place to connect and it builds a sense of community.
Again locate groups on your topic or related ones and post an invitation for people to join your group. There are three ways to do this. Use the Post a Link feature OR add something to the Discussion Board OR post a comment to the Wall. BEWARE: please DO NOT post too many links in one place or in a short time frame. You will either be barred from the group or have your Facebook account disabled for being spammy!
This simple and FREE strategy has been my greatest and most consistent source of targeted traffic to my website. So with just a little consistent effort I guarantee that it will work for you too. Good luck and let me know how you get on! 🙂