Time commitment: Medium – easy set-up to develop then regular updates every week/two weeks.
- Facebook is a social networking site with roughly 2.89 billion monthly active users worldwide. The site allows businesses to create pages and share information about their products and services.
- These pages can be promoted with Facebook ads or a link from your website to attract ‘fans’. A fan is a Facebook user who elects to include the business page within their Facebook social network. Note that pages are different from your own personal profile.
Tourism businesses can build online profiles and create groups that other Facebook users can join. Facebook groups allow users with the same interest to share information such as special offers and events. Having a Facebook page for your business helps to build trust online and, as it is linked with other social media channels, helps with your online profile.
Set-up your page: When you set up your page, you can request a web address like facebook.com/greattourismcompany, which makes it easy to find. To maximise the impact, include this address on your business card, website and other marketing materials. Remember: your page is an extension of your business. It’s an easy way to share updates and more with the people who matter most. Remember to add a good profile picture (a logo or something quite obvious), cover photo and be accurate in your ‘About Me’ section. What will users gain from liking your page? Use this as an opportunity to sell yourself.Some tips on getting started with Facebook:
- Identify your audience: Think about who you’d like to meet, and introduce yourself. Not only can you reach more people through Facebook, you can reach the specific people who are most likely to become your customers.
- To build your audience, encourage your current customers and supporters to like your page. They’re the people most likely to see your posts in their news feed.
- Invite your friends: Let the people in your life know about your page so they can support you by liking it. This initial audience helps you establish credibility and spread the word right away.
- Offer incentives if people like your page, e.g. they need to like a page to enter a competition.
- Share your Page—and be sure to like it yourself. Be a spokesperson for your business and get others to be your ambassadors.
- Invite your business contacts: Upload a list to send people an email so they know about your new page.
- Remember: it’s not about the number of likes. It’s more important to genuinely connect with the people you engage with on Facebook. If you do, they’ll help tell your story.
- Create compelling content: As you post updates, photos and more, think about what your customers find interesting and inspiring.
- Experiment with different kinds of posts. Does your audience love photos or prefer when you share useful links? You’ll find out quickly.
- Be authentic: Share what you're genuinely excited about and your customers will be excited too.
- Be responsive: When people comment on your posts, show that your business is listening and that you care. If you need more time to answer a question, let them know you’re looking into it.
- Be consistent: The more regularly you post, the more opportunity you have for connecting with people and building trust. Setting a schedule for your posts can also help maximise your team’s time.
- Make successful posts into successful promotions: When you notice that a post is getting a lot of engagement, promote it to reach even more people.When people like, comment on or share your posts, their friends are also eligible to see those posts in their news feed.
- Ask questions: Use current fans as ambassadors to help promote your product or area.
- Think about advertising: Facebook Ads are a low cost option of targeting specific markets. To boost your posts - click Boost Post at the bottom of your post and choose your audience and budget based on how many people you want to reach.
