info/thoughts on using faceb@@k for promoting business

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I am opening a pop up shop from next week ( signing lease and getting keys monday) opening saturday:eek:

I have started putting together a basic page together, so I can send it out to my friends/contacts etc.

As I have been thinking about this for a while, i have been be-friending like minded people etc..

I just wanted some general feedback and thoughts on this way of promoting something etc, and also is it worth paying for it to be one of those advertising ads, to advertise the page? dont know how much it costs etc..

and before anyone jumps on me, yes I am notifying my current insurance company to add the shop to it, and yes it will be declared earnings, it will just be another income stream for my ltd, vat paying company ( lol... thought i would add the last bit, so no one goes off the topic etc:D)

paulwf

It's good you've mentioned that as I read a very interesting opinion piece about Facebook this week.

Since Facebook went public and they started turning up the dial on the money making machine one of the things business pages have noticed is that each post is reaching less and less people. Some of my posts are only seen by 10% of the total page fans. Facebook uses an algorithm called Edgerank to decide what shows up in feeds, supposedly so that people don't get swamped with useless updates.

Now...at the same time the "volume was turned down" promoted posts started to appear, i.e. you can pay for a post to be seen by more of your fans and there is also the option of it being shown to friends of fans.

Personally I now don't pay for adverts on facebook to get more fans, what is the point if only 10% then see each post? It might only work out around 20p to gain a new fan but in effect it is £2 per fan that actually sees your posts.

However, I'm now using promoted posts for when there is important news as to me it makes more sense to pay to spread an important post rather than just attract new fans. Promoted posts are very cheap (£1 to £5 sort of range if you have a couple of thousand fans, you can stop it at any time).

Facebook as a business tool isn't what it was. It is still THE platform that everyone uses but I think anyone with a business would be wise to capture other info where possible such as email addresses for newsletters and have a presence on twitter. Instagram is starting to take off too.

podperson

Agree with the above post - I have a page on Facebook and my 'reach' has dropped by a ridiculous amount. I find it extremely frustrating that people who have liked my page now don't see my posts unless I pay a fee to 'sponsor' the post. Am currently looking at other methods, like Twitter and Google+

paddyrg

Pop-up shop, by nature spontaneous purchases and who gives a toss about long-term loyalty as the shop will vanish and move. Marketing and PR stuff is all about building long-term relationships and brand identity. I wouldn't overcook it to be honest.

paulwf

podperson wrote: »

Agree with the above post - I have a page on Facebook and my 'reach' has dropped by a ridiculous amount. I find it extremely frustrating that people who have liked my page now don't see my posts unless I pay a fee to 'sponsor' the post. Am currently looking at other methods, like Twitter and Google+

I got as many followers on Google+ in 6 months as I can get on Facebook in a week. It's a lovely platform but just not worth the effort.

patman99

Facebook report over 1 billion 'users'. However, as their system is set-up in such a way that when you close an account it simply moves from being 'viewable' to 'non-viewable' but will still show-up in the 'registered accounts count', you can assume the number of live and active accounts is probably closer to 500 million.
Take-away the users with multiple accounts and factor in a recent security analyst report that 4 out of every 10 accounts are set up by fraudsters intent on ID theft, and the true number of real users are probably closer to 200 million.

Twitter is probably a better tool for business promotion. If you know all your friends twitter account names, then you can 'follow' them. Each time you tweet a new message, they will receive it instantly, as will all their followers and all those who they are following.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

paddyrg wrote: »

Pop-up shop, by nature spontaneous purchases and who gives a toss about long-term loyalty as the shop will vanish and move. Marketing and PR stuff is all about building long-term relationships and brand identity. I wouldn't overcook it to be honest.

The -pop-up shop is also there to gain some feedback, and will actually see if it is worth leasing a shop long term..

It will also drive a small % of customers to our main factory which is about 15 miles outside of the city centre.

Paul interesting...

I was thinking I could do/have a quick bullet type impact, to get the word out quickly... besides leafleting target potential customers...

podperson

Have you thought about setting up your opening as an event on Facebook. Invite all your friends - maybe offer a discount or special offer for FB people - and then ask them to invite all their friends etc. Hopefully you might get a bit of a rolling effect and you will start popping up in friends of friends newfeeds etc. A few clubs in my area do this when they have special nights on and they seem to do ok off it to say it's basically free advertising.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

podperson wrote: »

Have you thought about setting up your opening as an event on Facebook. Invite all your friends - maybe offer a discount or special offer for FB people - and then ask them to invite all their friends etc. Hopefully you might get a bit of a rolling effect and you will start popping up in friends of friends newfeeds etc. A few clubs in my area do this when they have special nights on and they seem to do ok off it to say it's basically free advertising.

Could do the opening day ( saturday) as an event..

I know this is [EMAIL="faceb@@k"]faceb@@k[/EMAIL] topic, but I have seen people doing an ebay listing to advertise an event..

E.G model train show, so they advertise it in model train section..( I am using this as an example, nothing to do with my business)

COOLTRIKERCHICK

If I am going to look at pay a few ££££'S for this type on online advertising, is it better to do it on gumtree? I have placed an ad on the events calender thing,

podperson

The only things with Ebay is that because you're doing a local event it may not be of interest to most people out of the area who are on there - but if you put it under 99p then it's free to list so no harm in trying.
I use Gumtree quite a bit and it can be really good - you also don't need to pay in most sections unless you want your advert in the 'featured' ones at the top - and even then it's not that much.