The only problem with this is that they may be missing out entirely on the bigger picture of Facebook value addition. Let’s just be true to ourselves and face it; many of your customers who liked your business fan page didn’t really look it up intentionally across the social media circles to like it. Most of the time, they just stumbled upon it by seeing their friends or people they are in the same circles with like it. If you still are in denial about this, ask yourself of the many thousands likes you have on your fan-page, how many have you actually done business with? A fraction at best.
After you come to terms with this harsh fact, our next agenda will be to analyze the situation and somehow reverse it.
Many of the people who stumble upon your page just don’t care enough about you, and most of your fans have probably already done business with you. Take a practical example of how you use your personal Facebook. I highly doubt that you will go out and “Like” random pages for businesses you don’t know about out, (with the exception of some inspirational brands). When on Facebook, you are more likely to ‘Like’ things that we can associate with, and truly like and use it in our real world.
So what is the real value of Facebook?
The fact of the matter here is that your next customer will be somehow be connected to a current customer. The real value of Facebook will pertain to translated business growth and the addition of new customers. In social media marketing, it isn’t about getting random strangers to like your page, it’s more about being seen out there and having more exposure to the friends of your fans. When a person sees a friend of yours like a page, you are more likely to trust and respect his/her judgment, and thus feel more inclined to like that page as well.
This as we say it, is the best thing that can ever happen to a business, because it will get fans who are actually identifying with it. Lets take a practical example, when considering buying a motor cycle, there are very high chances that you will consult that friend of yours who is a motor cycling enthusiast,and also seek his opinion on the best type of bike to buy including the best place to buy one. If it happens that the friend you wish to consult with isn’t very close with you, and you feel awkward to ambush him out of the blue with such a request, you will most probably spy on his Facebook time-line and look at the motor cycling pages he has liked and commented on. This also means that he is also highly likely to check out that store when its time to make the bike purchase.
Client and customers, from various studies conducted, have admitted to actually reading comments on a fan page, to determine the best place to make a purchase. This is because the comments will usually entail merits, demerits and experiences that other customers went through during the purchase, and this highly shapes the inclination to making a purchase. Businesses have to learn take full advantage of the social graph, and what this simply means is that human beings interact with others who are similar to them on many social levels. Motor cycle owners will most likely have friends or acquaintances who have a liking for motor cycles. So when a company builds its rapport with one motor cycle customer, they are in essence building a rapport with several other of his acquaintances.
Subsequently, when we see our friends on Facebook like a restaurant page, and make good comments about it, it is highly likely that a couple of your friends who see it will have aroused interest in them for the place. The fact of the matter is that we are friends with people like us and thus spreading your message through social circles. It is, therefore, your best bet to building brand awareness with new customers who will be highly inclined to identify with and be interested in your product. This is the hidden real value of Facebook in friends of fans, which is a sort of online “word-of-mouth”.
Many businesses are always striving to have new engagements on Facebook, but they just aren’t sure how to; the most simple answer to this is through your existing fans. A really simple strategy you can use for your current customers to generate awareness with their friends is encourage interactions on the current fan page content to build awareness, feature customers on your Facebook, and increase mass momentum with events and provide incentives for sharing.
