Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brenda Griffin on August 21, 2013 at 10:44am

I think it is worth it but you have to pick and choose the best social media for you, whether it is yelp, linkedin, etc.  You need to post often, "like" other business pages, send invites to others to like your page, etc.  If you have other social media profiles find out where you get the most traffic from and promote that profile.  I have so many it's hard to keep up.  I believe your posts should be sharing valuable information and not all sales.  When you are just selling, people stop listening.  Good luck.  Assign it to your son and give him things to post.  (ha, ha)

Permalink Reply by Lugenia's Skincare Studio on August 25, 2013 at 9:22am

Hi Brenda, thanks for sharing! You know, I mostly report skin care info, make up tips, etc. and I very seldom discus the business. I will take y’alls advise to create a profile on other search engines, but I don’t think FB is a productive way to market my business. Oh well, only time will tell. Thanks again!

Permalink Reply by Monica Grajales on August 21, 2013 at 10:46am

Hi Lugenia

what a great question!! I will offer my advice based only on my own experience.

I went from no social media to being almost an expert! I have dedicated so much time to SM (social media) that I feel confident in giving my advice.

I too had a FB page for over a year. I also have twitter, pinterest, stumbleupon, tumblr, linkedin (for myself AND my business), blog, website, EVERYTHING~! Yes, you should have all these accounts because this increases your SEO.

The question is, should you "maintain" these accounts? Not so much.  You can connect many of these accounts  together so when you post on one of them, the others automatically post on your behalf. You will save lots of time!

The FB page didn't work for me.  I advertised on FB and whenever the ads went out, I would see a spike on "likes" (the ads were set up to be local with specific demographic).  However, NONE of them turned into clients. So what's your reason to have "likes" if not to increase your clientele?  I then started noticing that people in countries as far as Brazil, Hungary, South Africa were liking my page.  Perhaps they were people who were friends with the locals who had "liked" my page.  However, will they ever come to my little skincare studio in South Tampa to get a facial??? NO! :-)

So, what I did was for a month I began to announce that the page was going to become inactive and that those interested in continue to follow and support my business should join a closed FB group (that I had created).  A handful of people joined the group. I went from 200 likes to 34 group members. Those are the ones that give me business!!  The FB page is still up but inactive. I want to keep it there for SEO purposes.  The more my business name is on cyberspace, the better. But I manage my group instead. It's an active group meaning that people comment and share and participate. With the page, I could've had the most awesome contest, raffle, game, question, etc, and NO ONE was engaged. Plus, out of 200 people, FB would only allow a handful to actually see my postings (like 20 tops).  So if I was doing the work to reach 200 and only 10% was actually seeing the post but not even engaging, that was just too much work.

If you want people to find you, create account profiles on every single search engine (google places, yahoo, google plus, yellow pages, smart pages, yelp, etc).  All these accounts will increase your SEO.

Hope this info helps.

Permalink Reply by Lugenia's Skincare Studio on August 25, 2013 at 9:10am

Hi Monica, thanks so much for sharing, and man, you broke it down to an understandable science! Ok, now you said that FB didn’t work for you, so you decided to deactivate your business FB page, then you created a closed FB page for your clients to follow. What did you mean by “creating a closed FB page?”

 

Also, you made me laugh when you mentioned receiving many likes, but not receiving any appointments from the likes, because that is exactly what I am experiencing. :-(

 

So, this week, my goal is to update and/or create accounts with companies you suggested, i.e. Google places, yellow pages, smart pages, yelp, etc.

 

Yes, your information is extremely helpful! Thanks again for sharing, I truly appreciate it…and one more thing, I’m glad that I’m not imagining the lack of FB activities, as it pertain to gaining new customers.  

Permalink Reply by Monica Grajales on August 25, 2013 at 12:52pm

I created a closed FB group. Groups are different from a page. A page or fan page, as they call it, is open.  It's sort of like your gateway to your website.  You can have "likes', post paying ads, like other pages, it helps you do a lot of things. You should have a fan page and perhaps post something on it a few times a month just for SEO purposes.

A FB group is just that a group.  You invite people to join the group. You can make the group open (everyone can find you and join but there is little control). You can make it closed - by invitation only and you decide whether or not to accept a person.  If someone posts something on your group, FB will ask you if the post can be published or not.  You can also have a private group where no one can find you. It's also invitation only, with more control.  The cons of the group is that you cannot like other pages. But you can communicate directly with your group members, which is something I like. Those who request to join is because they really want to follow you, not just "like" you.

Good luck! :-) and you're welcome :-)