If you own a small business, and you’re reading this post, then you’ve probably already realized the value of using social media to connect with your current and prospective customers! These days, if your business is not active in social media, then you are missing a large percentage of your customer base. Statistics show that since the year 2000, newspaper ad revenue has decreased 64%, plummeting from $63 billion down to only $23 billion in 2013. At the same time, Google ad revenue skyrocketed from around $2 billion in 2003, to over $50 billion in 2013.
Here’s the first big mistake (and the one we see most often).
Kingston 1. Using a Personal Profile for your Business
While some social media sites don’t distinguish between personal and business, many do. Facebook does not allow a business to use a personal profile for business. Recently Facebook has made many changes to its Rules and Guidelines. Many business owners aren’t aware of all the rules. They find out they should have been using a page instead, only after their profile has been deleted.
We know of several small business owners that were highly successful with their Facebook marketing, until they woke up one morning to find that their account had been deleted. They had used a personal profile to interact with their customers, and overnight all of their hard work had vanished. All of their contacts were gone with no way to retrieve them. Many business owners don’t realize that this is against the rules, but pleading ignorance to Facebook won’t get your profile reinstated.
We’ve also read of businesses who were using both a personal profile and a business page to connect with their customers on Facebook. When Facebook shut down their personal profile, this also eliminated their access to the business page. So they lost everything.
The Solution:
If you haven’t established your account yet, do it right from the beginning and set up your business on a Facebook Page. You will need a personal Facebook account first, in your own name (per Facebook rules), and then you can create the Page.
If you’re already using a personal profile for your business, you will need to convert your personal account into a page. Facebook has a migration process that will let you make this conversion, and all of your ‘friends’ will become ‘likes’. The benefits of a Facebook page will far outweigh the risks of using the personal profile. Again, you will need a separate personal account to manage your new page.
Here’s the 2nd mistake we see most often:
http://thmiii.com/comments/feed 2. Requiring “Share” in a Giveaway or Promotion
Every day we see another promotion pop up on Facebook that goes something like this: “Win a free gadget! Just comment, like, and share for your chance to win!”
Facebook is very clear on this point: You can not involve personal profiles in your promotions. When you run a promotion or giveaway on your page, it is against Facebook’s policy to require sharing as a means of entry. You can ask your fans to ‘comment’ or ‘like’ (as a means to enter), but not ‘share’. Sharing is definitely a great way to get more exposure for your promotion. You can suggest that fans share it, but sharing can not be a requirement in order to have a chance at winning. This is another violation that can get your page deleted.
The Solution:
Be very clear in the wording of your posts so fans know that sharing is not a means of entry, such as “Like or Comment to enter our giveaway, and feel free to share with your friends.” Another great idea is to ask fans to like or comment, then click a link to enter. This link should take them to your website where you simply ask for an email address to be entered. This process allows you to build your mailing list. Always be sure to include an opt-in for receiving additional emails.
K.C. Stone – storyrulestheworld.com
We help you tell your story online.