Use Facebook to Grow Your Brand
Make it easy for your audience to find you!
NOTE: FB changes A LOT, sometimes weekly, so keep in mind that my advice and videos may become outdated very quickly. Just adjust and go with it.
Use Your Personal Profile to Send People to Your Business Page
There are things you can do to refer people to your business pages. Start with your personal profile. You can't sell from there, but you can provide links that visitors can click to get to your business page and other social media.
After you make your tweeks on your personal page, feel free to post a link or screen shot so we can see what you've done. Our members are great at offering constructive advice.
Sales funnel (also known as a revenue funnel or sales process) refers to the buying process that companies lead customers through when purchasing products. A sales funnel is divided into several steps, which differ depending on the particular sales model.
If you're looking for free photos for your profile banner, try these: Stocksnap, Pixabay or Pexels.
To get the "Click here to visit my page" at the top of your side bar in your intro, edit your intro information. It's the same place you enter your personal information like where you live, where you're from etc.:
You have a choice of wording. You can identify your role as owner, creator, or as I have, choose "Click here to visit my page."
Beef Up Your Business Page
Even though Facebook has been disappointing lately, having an online presence, whether it be a website and/or Facebook business page is important. You won't get it perfect or have everything right away, but get it going and add to it as you discover your preferences and needs for your business. For now, focus on having a place you can send people to, a place you can show who you are and what you do. You are putting a face to the name. The more human you can make your brand, the more people will begin to trust you. You need people to trust you in order to open up their wallets.
I have two videos showing you some of what I have. Like you, I am always working on improving what I have online. Since I'm rebranding, I have to take it a step at a time, just like some of you.
I started out with a blog, Love My DIY Home, added a FB business page, a FB store, The Red Shed, and then put together Furniture Flipping Blueprint after I grew Furniture Flipping Forum, my free FB group. At that point I needed to rebrand because I was all over the place. So I rebranded by putting everything under my name on this page: ValFrania.com. I decided I wanted to get my name out there and then connect up all of my ventures under that name.
Name/Brand recognition is imperative in this business. Along with that name or brand, we need to develop a reputation that will draw people in. This includes quality of work, look and quality of our sites, how we present ourselves in dealings with customers and online "friends," etc. It all works together. If we look messy and careless online, people will assume we are messy and careless in every area.
It takes time to change everything over, so don't get discouraged if you decide to make changes but have to do it slowly due to online rules and time constraints. If you are new at this, don't think you need to implement everything at once. Take your time, do what you can do easily and quickly and then take time to evaluate and plan. It's easier to do it right the first time than try to rebrand later. Of course you can't know what's in the future, but one thing is sure. Plan to win. Plan to grow.
I started out with a larger vision, all things DIY, but narrowed down to flipping and teaching flipping. It's called "narrowing your niche." A little planning and dreaming is good. Consider what you are now, where you want to be, and how that all will play out in the future.
If you decide to change your business page's name, you have to do it a little at a time so FB will let you change it. They don't want business owners building a following with one business and then switch to another, keeping the same audience. I changed it mine small increments, got approval and then a week or two later I asked for a change again.
So let's say your business page's name if All Things DIY and you want to change it to Furniture ReDesign by Julie. First you'd change it to DIY by Julie, then DIY ReDesign by Julie and then Furniture ReDesign by Julie. It will take you a few weeks to do so, but if you take your time, FB won't balk. If you can't get approval, it just means you've changed it too drastically and it hit a FB tripwire.
After you get your Facebook all set, pick two more avenues of social media exposure. It is said by most social online sales gurus that we must choose no more than 3 avenues and that is what we must focus on or else we spread ourselves too thin. So, besides Facebook, what two others would you pick if you could only have three total?
I encourage you to focus on those three, faithfully keeping tabs on gaining followers, interacting, and consistently posting on those three to keep them fresh and active.
I focus on Facebook, Hometalk (since I have a blog, it gets me traffic), and Instagram. Jillian helps me with my IG account because of my commitments on FB.
Shoring up your Facebook is quite simple and one you must tailor to you and what you enjoy doing. As you make progress, post on PRO what two others you focus on or plan to focus on, and then tell us what you will do to "beef them up." It's up to you to decide what that means. In the future, I'll do an overview on Instagram for you.
I'm sure whatever you choose or already have chosen, someone in our group will be able to lend a hand if you have questions.
Instagram and Pinterest may be the way to go since they are very visual and our niche tends to hang out there. But it's totally up to you. You may want to try a few out before you settle on 2. It can become overwhelming, so to set up a posting schedule really helps. I would also suggest you interact with others on your social medias to get conversations going with possible customers. The more time you spend reaching out to your audience, the better your brand gets out there.
Remember, fellow furniture flippers are NOT your audience. Those who may buy your pieces are. Develop a following of your future buyers. Many focus on just getting "likes" on Facebook from anyone, but if you get "likes" from other flippers, Facebook will assume they are your audience. Your goal should be filling our Facebook audience with the right people.
Keep working at it. It does take time to get your brand out there and to build an audience. When is the perfect time to plant an oak tree? 200 years ago. Get going and build that audience. It takes time to build an audience of the right people, so get to it now and watch it grow.
