With Facebook’s another change Timeline, a lot of changes has been incurred. Like every time, everyone’s still wondering – the changes are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and whether they actually like it or not. As facebook always make sure it gets better with every change, timeline is proving to be quite interesting and useful for businesses. As big brands have hefty money to go for paid advertising, let us focus on small businesses. Here are some advantages of timeline and tips to flourish your business without having to spend much:
Tell them what you have been doing till date…
Timeline has introduced one of the best features ever for businesses. With ‘History’ available on your timeline, you can now easily inform even the first time visitor of your happenings, which adds value to your organization. Hence, make sure every progress made by the company is posted to your timeline. Remember, people are watching!
This is also one of the most cost effective way of image building.
Highlight the update
With the feature to highlight an update, you can choose to give more importance to a particular post which you think your visitors should not miss. Here is an example of it:
In the example above, you can see how the weightage given to the highlighted post is more compared to the other posts.
A better view of the highlighted post:
Highlighting can be used when you are introducing a new service or launching a product, as these posts grab the visitor’s attention immediately.
No more complaints on the wall
Your fans and visitors will now be able to message you on facebook, in the same way you message to an individual. This option was introduced with timeline. Earlier, people had no way to communicate directly with the brand they followed which lead to the furious posts on wall, at times. As people can send direct messages to you now, there is a possibility of people sending their complaints to your inbox, as it will be a personal communication, making it available only to you and no other visitors.
‘Offer’ your fans
This new feature allows you to give discounts and special offers to your fans. As a start-up or a small company, one cannot afford to promote with facebook ads. Offering coupons and discounts will gain you genuine customers. And as your customer base increases, with ‘word-of-mouth’ publicity, you never know, your sales will be sky rocketing in a short span of time.
Small Business? Here are a few ways to get attention on Timeline
Get people to read all your posts: One way to get people interested in your history is come up with small contests that will take your fans on a timeline ride. For instance, the picture below:
If we look at the picture above, one can ask their fans when ford model T was introduced. This will have them search for the answer, taking through your timeline. Doing this will give an insight of your progress to your fans as well as visitors. History, hence plays a vital role in image building.
Link your cover photo to the posts below
More number of likes is very much important for small businesses, as this is the easiest way to reach to the masses without spending a penny. When someone lands on your page, make sure the page is interesting enough to make the visitor hit ‘like’. Livestrong is the best example of this:
In short, timeline is all about being creative. It has made sure that you cut down your expenses yet gain lots of fans and then convert them into buyers. It’s all about attracting your target audience now.
