How To Attract Referrals From Your Personal Facebook Page

Before we get started, I want to be clear.  We are not talking about posting about our business on our personal Facebook page.  I am very much for keeping our business separate from our personal  when it comes to social media.  I firmly believe that my Facebook friends do not care about marketing and that my business page followers don't care about what I'm doing this weekend.  That being said, there are some actions that we can take on a daily basis that will lead to business referrals.  Before I confuse everyone any further, let's dig right in. Here are 5 things you can do on your personal Facebook page that could lead to business.


1. Connect your profile to your business page:  This one seems like a given, but you would be surprised to see how many business owners do not have a link to their business page on their personal profile.

This is what I mean:

In the "about" section under "work and education" you can tag your business Facebook page (I hovered over the link to show how easy it is now to go to my business page.  This is important because new connections and old friends like to know what we do and they just might need our services. They can't refer us if they don't know what we do.

Note:  It's not linked properly if you see a briefcase like this:

2. Like and Comment:  The great part about Facebook is that we don't even have to post personal status updates to be effective.  A simple "like" goes a long way.  It sends a notification to the person that sent the status and everyone (including those we're not friends with) can see that we like it.  Also, on computers, activity is displayed on the right hand side.  Commenting does the same thing and our profile picture gets exposure too.  Just be careful to only like and comment on positive statuses.  After all, as business owners we are always "on the clock" and we are what we like.  Adding value to positive discussions will make us likable and people love to do business with those they like.

3. Check-in:  A "check-in" is an easy way to get exposure in the news feed as well as promote other businesses.  I would advice not to abuse this.  People get "unfriended" easily if they check-in EVERY time they go somewhere.  Use this in moderation.  Also, it's a good idea for business owners that have a brick and mortar to check in to their own business page (every now and then, not everyday) and say something like, "ready to take care of clients/customers today!". It's a friendly, passive reminder of what we do for a living without shoving it down our friend's throats.


4. Stay away from politics etc:  It can get really tempting to jump into an argument about politics or religion on Facebook, but my advise is to keep scrolling.  We never know who is watching.  It could be someone that was going to do business with us or refer business to us, but has a different opinion.  My suggestion:  Have these discussions offline.


5. Be consistent: These steps above only work if we are consistent and are doing this on a daily basis. If we are seen everyday in a positive light, then referrals will start to come our way. People will like us first, then our respective businesses are a bonus of who we are.


Even though I am not big on mixing personal with business when it comes to social media, there is a game plan to using your personal page to attract referrals.  I hope this helps and please feel free to add comments below if I missed anything!