One of my biggest pet peeves is when a person, or a business, just blasts out: “Like us on Facebook!” or “Follow us on Twitter!” without explaining the reason why. Humans are selfish beings, so as business owners we need to give people the “selfish” reason why they should like our page.
For instance, I would like local business owners to like my page on Facebook and follow me on Twitter because I’m offering them value, such as tips on how to grow their business through online marketing. They get something of value for themselves, by following me. That’s just my example — your reasons may be different! Here are five different reasons you can give people for why they should follow you on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
1. The first reason is to get tips! Say you own a landscape company. You might say to people, “Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook because we’re always giving tips on how to have a beautiful, luscious, green yard.” I would “like” that in a heartbeat!
2. The second reason is events. Maybe you have a brick and mortar business and you’re hosting an event, with bounce houses, things for kids, etc. You might can tell people, “Hey, like us on Facebook so you can keep up with all our fun events!”
3. Reason number three someone should like your business page is to keep up with your specials. There are a lot of service businesses that like to give out specials, such as beauty salons or auto repair shops. Specials are a great “selfish” reason for someone to like your page. “Hey, give us a like on Facebook, because we’re always posting about different monthly specials!” Your customers will say, “Oh, yeah! Sure, I want to keep up with your specials. I’ll go ahead and give you a like!”
4. The fourth reason why someone should like your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter is to keep up with special closings, inclement weather, etc. This happens a lot. We’re here in Texas where it can go from sunshine to rain to ice in the same week! So one thing we can do is to communicate to our clients whether or not we’ll be open, which might save them some trouble.
This is important for holidays, too. When people follow you they can see by a quick glance if you’re going to be open on a holiday or not. Let’s face it — people don’t want to call you to find out if you’re going to be open! They want to be able to check their Facebook, or look on Twitter and know if it’s a good time to pay you a visit, or stay home and save themselves some time and trouble.
5. The last reason I want you to explain why someone should like your Facebook page or follow you on twitter is because of customer service! Tell your current and potential clients: “You can follow us, or like us on Facebook, and actually message us if you have a question, or comment. We can reply back to comments right here, and you don’t even have to call us!” Again it’s funny, we live in a day and an age where people want to use their smart phones for everything except calling! So give them this avenue to be able to provide customer service to them.
One caution, though: If you’re not able to keep up with your social media stream and actually be able to reply back to these comments, do not put that out there as a selling tool for you! If you do have someone monitoring messages and tweets, etc., then yes, go ahead and throw that out there! “Hey! Follow us on Twitter, because you can always tweet us with a question or a concern, and we’ll get right back with you!” Our clients love that we are able to do this for them so they can focus on running their businesses.
Again, I hope this arms you with enough reasons that when you say “Hey, give us a like on Facebook!” you’ll be able to give your customers some concrete reasons why. This way you’ll grow your pages organically with people who want to like your page, and who are not just giving you the “guilty like.”
I hope this helps you grow your online presence! Please share this with a business owner who would love to connect with more local residents. As always, please feel free to add your comments below!
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