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Would You Become A Fan Of A Business On Facebook?
Like it? Tell your friends!
If one more person sends me a message asking to become a fan of their page on Facebook so as they can get to the 100 fan mark (so as they can clain their vanity business URL) I am literally going to have to pull what hair I have left out.
Last night I had a chat with Peter who is a landscape gardener and John a photo blogger. Myself and John came to the conclusion that we would never become a fan of a landscaping company even if it did belong to a friend and that the whole fan page thing for small business was a little flawed.
Facebook fan pages on the whole are a really great way of showing off content but I do have a couple of small issues with them that small businesses especially should be wary off…
1.Does anybody really care about your small business on Facebook?
Using the example of Peter’s Landscape gardening page is there any value in him acquiring fans? Even if he produces the best content ever are people actually going to care enough to interact with it? Is he going to get business out of it? Direct sales? I’ll be totally honest here and I like Peter as a guy and follow him on Facebook and twitter but I have no interest in seeing anything about landscape gardening in my personal stream, I’m just not into it, I live in a flat. This is the problem…who wants to become a fan of a chemist, flower shop or accountants? If they made great content like videos and photos maybe but chances are the won’t. I won’t say don’t do it but I will say don’t do it just for the sake of sending out links to your friends through the page.
2.Is it really a good idea to pay for ads on one part of Facebook to send people to another part?
So just think about this for a second….Lots of people are currently paying Facebook a handsome daily sum to send Facebook users from one part of Facebook to their shiny fan page!!! Now the big winner here is Facebook! There is no doubting the power of fans and a fair price can always be put on their acquisition as they add value and can interact with your content but are fans really going to help a small business? My feeling is that they are perfect for a big brand who have the marketing budget but I would question this sort of tactic for acquiring fans for a small business.
I think Facebook fan pages are a super tool and advise most clients to get one but just make sure you can give them the time they deserve and please don’t come asking me to become a fan to get to 100 fans only to abandon the page and never update it again 
Our Facebook fan page with lots of cool content is here, become a fan
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It’s my belief that every business can succeed through social networking. While yes a landscaping business probably wouldn’t appeal to you or me, there is always an audience that are going to be interested if the content is good enough. It’s very niche specific, but then again SEO businesses, etc are also niche specific while appealing to a certain audience.
For Facebook, what’s the point of paying for the ad service if it doesn’t convert into sales. Basically people are trying to drive traffic to their sites/products. It can work, but you need to work hard at providing valuable content.
We have a competitor whose Facebook fan site gains about 100 fans every 2 days. According to Quantcast they only have about 7K visitors/month to their website. I suspect that they are buying fans. Does anybody have feedback ofthe worthiness of paid fan building services like it?
A Chara Donagh,
that is about as logic as figuring out the final digit of the mathematics ratio Pi [ie: 3.141592.......]. Not every business can succeed through [inverted commas] social networking – or – is it a case that one can but; the number that that is equal to in time that must be spent is infinite…?
One of the points made in conversation with Niall was that one may get to know you through social media or at a bus stop, coffee shop etc… but if ones sole motivation behind their thinking is sales, profit and their own personal economy – that will come across. And that is not the trait of a person I would wish to work with. In my honest opinion, if people could be sociable first – the network[ing] may come quite easier as a bi-product.
For me personally, there simply wasn’t enough writing gigs in Ireland available and after I left my post at the farmers jounal I needed something to keep me sane in that department. I love writing. I love horticulture. But I went to meet Niall and John because I think their nice guys [albeit both with very bad senses of humour]. We spoke and talked and had a nice, well earned bit of a break from the daily routine, with a bit of banter thrown in for the craic… who could ask for more really?
I am good at what I do. The sales do come. But if [m]any have come from my weblogging I would be pleasantly surprised.
That said… I’m just waiting for the day someone buys my website for €54 billion
beir bua
peter
Well exactly, I agree! Being sociable and engaging with others on networks is the way to go and if netwroking comes as a result of that then great. Sales and profits should never be the sole motivation of anyone. People online are sick to death of those that engage in such a way and from what I’ve seen they never work.
Donagh
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