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5 Keys to Promoting Your Local Business

As a local business you have an unquestionable advantage among the segment of your targeted audience living in the neighborhood.

 

Your customers are already there, and all you need is to inform them of your brand so that they would become interested and intrigued enough to check it out.

 

As every field of marketing, promoting your local business in social media requires several tricks.

 

We know all of them and we’ll be glad to share the knowledge with you!

 

1. Respond to your fans’ requests

 

Page Responsiveness feature  is the latest Facebook’s feature intended to let customers know how active is the page in engaging with its audience.

 

Page Responsiveness feature is available only for pages that have reached more than 1,000 followers.

 

If you allow your followers to contact you via the messages, you will get the possibility to receive a special responsiveness icon.

 

However, in order to receive the icon you need:

 

- Respond more than 90% of the messages received;

 

- Respond faster than in 5 minutes (Facebook calculates the median time for all the messages).

 

Be responsive. Most of the complaints from the customers are connected with the long waiting period. Keep in mind that 40% of customers expect a response within an hour, and 32% within 30 minutes.

 

Responding to all the queries really fast can give you an advantage over your competitors. So make sure your customers know you listen, care and respond.

 

To make sure this is under control, get several of your team members stay online constantly with the notifications turned on, so they would know right away of any requests or messages received.

 

To motivate the team offer them some perks or bonuses if the Page Responsiveness icon stays active on your Facebook page constantly.

 

If you are a page admin, you also get the option of responding to a page comment with a personal message, which is much more convenient.

 

2. Don’t waste time

 

Facebook has “Saved Replies” feature that gives the page admin the ability to use templates for communicating with followers and potential customers.

 

Remember to  add images and personalize your response when you’re using a template, so that a customer would still feel needed and respected.

 

Saved replies option will save you a significant amount of time that is usually needed to answer all the queries one by one.

 

Make sure it doesn’t look impersonal and impolite: before writing a reply thoroughly read the customer’s query or request so that your answer will be relevant.

 

Think before clicking send.

 

3. Make your Newsfeed work for you

 

Since you’re dealing with the local customers, you should give them an opportunity to call you from the Newsfeed directly.

 

Facebook has a Local Awareness initiative allowing you to connect with the audience living near your place.

 

But making calls available is not the only thing you can do. You can choose ine of Facebook’s call-to-action buttons to motivate them for the same thing.

 

Use your location. Offer deals for locals, draw maps, run events.

 

4. Respect accidental customers

 

 Place Tips is a new Facebook feature allowing you to send informational messages to people checking in near your location or having the location settings activated in Facebook mobile apps.

 

Place tips feature has already started bringing money to many businesses.

 

That is a good way to get to the targeted audience with the help of marketing messages.

 

But to send the message you need I to contain at least some useful information.  That is why the quality and regularity of the content that appears on your page is crucial.

 

That is especially important with the so-called walk-in customers who walked into you store by accident but can become customers – and the returning ones, too.

 

Play your cards right to get the advantages of your location.

 

By the way, Place Tips can be used to create offers for the customers that dropped by because of some accident or sheer luck.

 

The things you will offer, of course, will depend on the type of business you’re running.

 

5. Make sure to create events

 

Facebook’s  Events feature got a serious recalibration procedure lately: now it is separating public and private events.

 

Facebook promises to introduce even more changes, especially related to showing the users more of the public events their friends plan on attending.  

 

Very soon a drop-down menu called “Related Events”  will appear. It will suggest other events that you may be interested in judging from your previous activity. It will also allow to share events within the Facebook Messenger app.

 

This is great news for the local businesses since the events are cheaper, easier to organize them. But also mark the fact that information will travel ear-to-ear, which can raise your brand awareness.

 

Improvise depending on your sphere: free training session for a sport club, a small bottle of vine for a wine store.

 

Turn your imagination on to attract the potential customers!

 

Of course, every list of tips on Facebook marketing includes a necessary first step: start from filling in your About section on the page.

 

Include your website, business address and all the phones.

 

Then you will be sure your customers have all the means needed to find you.

 

And the next step is simple: create the product customers will be willing to return for. 

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