Social media is a natural match for direct sellers who want to reach more people in their businesses. Social media is a natural match for direct sellers who want to reach more people in their businesses. After all, the entire business model of direct sales is based on socializing! Home party and network marketing businesses thrive on word of mouth marketing, relationship building, and active participation. Direct sellers love to share their excitement about new products and the benefits of being involved in their company. They love meeting people where they are and inviting friends to join in. Most of all, direct sellers want to have FUN!
In addition to traditional selling and promotional methods, all of these can also be accomplished through social media today, and one of the most effective platforms to do this on is the Facebook Business Page, also called a Fan Page.
NULL Facebook Business Pages are distinctly different than your regular Facebook Profile that you get when you log in to Facebook. Your Profile is your personal space on the Facebook ‘web’ and you get to pick and choose who you let into your circle, what items people can see, and how much you want to see of theirs. Even though you can have up to 5,000 ‘friends’ it really is a closed network, and is not designed to be used for business purposes. In fact, most people are offended when they receive marketing messages from their Facebook friends, because their primary reason for being there is to keep in touch with people they know, and follow what is happening in their lives. A Facebook Business Page on the other hand, is completely public, you have no control over who joins in or not, or which items they see on your Business Page. Everything is visible to the entire Facebook ‘web’ and the greater Internet web on a Business Page. Of course, when you’re in business, public is a good thing!
Public, and being visible to “everyone” on Facebook means exposure to new people you would not normally be exposed to, and aren’t we all trying to create NEW business for ourselves?
Business Pages have this advantage and I believe every direct seller – unless company policy restricts it – can benefit from having one. Here are eight reasons why: Business Pages are indexed by the search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo because they are public. Profiles are not, because they are private.
This means that your Business Page becomes like a mini-website, another doorway into your business that the entire world could have access to with a few clicks.
Use some good keywords that people are searching for when you post and you’ll be on your way to establishing an online presence in no time. Business Pages are highly customizable, whereas Profiles are not. With the use of custom applications, you can create various sub-pages, product pages, a page about your Why story, or about the benefits of hosting a party with you or joining your team – just about anything is possible! This cannot be done on the Profile. People who “Like” Business Pages are opting in to hear about your business. They are taking an active step to participate in conversations with you as a businessperson, to hear the occasional marketing message, or to find out your latest specials or new products. This means that those who are on your Business Page are highly qualified leads – they want to hear from you! They’re looking forward to hearing from you. When someone befriends you on Facebook, they are not necessarily interested in your business, but on your Business Page, they are. Business Pages can be personalized so that you have your own home on the web even if you do not have your own website or blog. With company-replicated sites, our options for expressing ourselves are limited – sometimes the only thing we can edit is our contact information, with a few exceptions. Through your Business Page, you can share your stories, give advice, share helpful information or articles about related topics, and be of service to your community of readers in ways that can’t be done through a shopping site. Business Pages give you a chance to engage and interact with your existing customers and potential customers. As you share information with them, they comment on or “like” your posts and you are able to respond and have two-way, or even group, communication about the topic.
This leads to rich interactions which build trust and rapport with your visitors.
On a Business Page, everyone shares something in common to start with – the love of your product or business opportunity. There is a lot to talk about, and your readers will enjoy interacting with you. Business Pages create raving fans for your business. When you post a video, a link or a photo, clicking the Share button is so easy for your readers to do! As long as you are posting items of value to everyone (not spamming!) your community will share your interesting information with their friends, which exposes your business to even more people. On a Profile your friends will share to their friends as well, but you will only receive exposure for your personal Profile that way, and if their friends are not your friends already, the only way for them to find out more about you is to request friendship. With a Business Page, your readers’ friends can easily click your Business Page name, and click Like to get involved. Business Pages are measurable. When you manage a Business Page, Facebook installs “Insights” which are statistics about your Business Page and is not available for personal Profiles. Facebook will tell you how many times your Business Page posts received comments or “likes” as well as how many people came on to your Page or left, and where they came from. It will give you a chart over the last month that shows interesting facts about the success of your Business Page, and you can easily monitor and adjust your activities. There is no such thing on a Profile so there is no way to measure your success other than watching the number of friends go up and down, which is a very poor gauge. It’s about connecting with people, not collecting people, so understanding the engagement and reach numbers is what counts! Business Pages are free! There is no better value for your time or money as a direct seller marketing online than creating a Facebook Business Page.
A basic Business Page can be created in under 10 minutes, which cannot be said for a website or blog. With over 900 million people using Facebook now, this is a tremendous value for you time.
Start a basic page at Facebook’s Business Center. Watch my tutorials online to teach yourself how to customize it even further or join my online courses for ongoing support and to keep up with the changes as they come through. Take advantage of the opportunity we have within Facebook. It is not going away any time soon, and creating a Business Page presents a fun, free, and fabulous additional doorway into your business. For more information and training about Facebook Business Pages for direct sellers, visit my website at http://www.mybusinesspresence.com
Downloads
Read Offline …
Listen Offline (MP3) …
