Local Business Owner? Use Fan Pages To Explode ROI

Having a Facebook fan page is one of the best ways for local businesses to get new leads, new customers and repeat business. For local, brick and mortar businesses, it's absolutely essential. Believe it or not, not that many local businesses are on Facebook. While gathering leads for our offline Facebook fan page design business, we noticed that more than 50 percent of local businesses in our area (downtown Los Angeles) do not have fan pages. This means having a fan page instantly puts you ahead of your competition! Having a business fan page today is equivalent to having a website for your business 10 years ago. Fan pages help establishes immediate trust and credibility in the eyes of potential customers who don't know much about you yet. When they see that you have a lot of likes and fans writing on your wall, a switch is flipped in their mind and see you as a legitimate business. And up 60 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from and recommend to others businesses and brands they are fans of on Facebook, according to Mashable. One case study that I bring up time and time again is Rosehall Kennel's Facebook fan page. Rosehall Kennel is a family owned German Shepherd breeding business in Tennessee. Last December, Emily and her husband Eliot created a fan page for their business. They spent a few hours a week driving fans maintain it and encouraging active discussions. The page now has about 1,000 likes and lots of activity on the wall. Six months later, their fan page has generated over $15,000 in sales! They set a daily budget of $1.50 and have spent only $300 on Facebook. That's an ROI of 5000 percent -- absolutely insane. Of course, Eliot did spend time working on his fan page and had a systematic method of attracting fans, engaging them and converting them to customers. I actually recently had the chance to interview him via email, learning what he did to make $15,000 in six months using Facebook. This is an excerpt: What are some strategies you use to maintain active fans? I must keep my posts high on the fan's top news. That means I must consistently be getting good feedback rates... FanReach says that feedback rates need to be over 1 percent to get good posting positions. I work to have 1.5 percent to two percent more feedback within the first 24 hours. Many of our posts have feedback rates in the 3 percent to 4.5 percent range... I've actually noticed that when I make a poor post, I will lose fans! What were three things that you did that made the biggest difference in terms of getting likes, fan engagement and sales? 1. I took a Facebook Marketing class called "Fan Reach." The first lesson was free and I learned and put to use so much that I was hooked. I got in at the beginning when the classes were still in early promo so I signed up for the rest at introductory rates and found the classes and the forums very helpful. ...Fan Reach's 400 level course includes the case study done on our fan page that you have posted on your site. 2. I use the Facebook ads to get fans. But... I use a very low budget... only $ 1.50 per day. My reasoning... is that growth is good only if I can manage to keep the people engaged . . . meaning I must be able to respond regularly and promptly to comments posted on our fan page....I've found that about 20 percent of our fans came in through our web site link to the Facebook fan page and maybe as many as 30 percent have come from friend referrals so only about 50 percent have come through Facebook ads. 3. I post twice a day nearly every day. I've experimented with different posting times and found that I get much better response to a post made early in the morning (7ish) and late afternoon (4ish) than when I posted at other times. My guess is that many people check in on Facebook before work/school and immediately after getting off (or on their way home) from work. I want my post to be fairly high on their top news. Tony Thor is chief executive officer of Social Brawn.

Social Pro Daily

Local Business Owner? Use Fan Pages To Explode ROI

If you're a local business, having a fan page is one of the best ways you can get more business.

Tony Thor

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Tony Thor