The second phase

Its interesting looking at the growth of The Selling Cafe Facebook Page and how i have been able to work on different aspects to really impact on its development.  The page has been active now for 9 weeks and it has 605 likes and page reach is around 3000 (it goes up and down daily). 

The first 4 weeks i was concentrating on just getting the page seen and i was spending everyday basically promoting it.  It was when i hit 300 likes i decided it was time to start to change my focus to getting people interacting on the page.  

This is the comparison between month one and month two:

The amount of interaction has gone from a maximum of 50 to over 200 so it seems my strategies are working. 

This issue of photos not being seen is slowly improving - the written posts are still hitting around 150-200 of a reach, but the photos have now started to hit around 50 - 70 of a reach so again my strategy is beginning to work.  I have to get those photos out to get the products seen.  

I have also started to work on building the community feeling and the sense of working together - This is my main vision - a real sense of teamwork and the fact that together we are stronger.  I have already started to work on the joint benefits as well - i have negotiated a few discounts for page members for things like packaging costs and printing costs too.  

I am feeling quite satisfied that i have the page heading in the right direction - it is following my ethos as well as hitting the right targets for the facebook algorithms to allow the content to get out......

Next steps are important - things are still delicate and needing close monitoring, but i also want to work on getting sales for page members.  To help with this i will be adding links to the selling cafe blog which will go to the selling albums of members - i also want to look at if its possible to add buy now links to the blog - i don't see why it wouldn't be possible when i can add them to websites....

So the page is still very much in the second phase now and this will continue for a while i'm guessing - a bit longer than the first phase i imagine, but i am starting to look at phase three now as well - i'm sure the sales will come as long as i keep working on good customer service and getting the products seen. So far so good :) 

Keeping on Building

Well it has been a little while since i posted here so i thought it was time for some updates! 

The Selling Cafe fb page has started to generate interest and new likes without me having to promote it so much - it has been hard work but its great to see the page building up like this! We now have 557 likes and more importantly the page reach has been increasing as well.  

I have noticed some worrying statistics related to the picture sharing which are very much restricted in their reach.  The written comments are hitting around 150-200 of a reach but the photos are only hitting 20-30 of a reach.  I did some research and discovered this is a new setting by facebook algorithms and it is going to have a major impact on business pages.  

I am trying to work through this at the minute and am continuing to take a multi-dimensional approach to sharing pics - we are relying on these to get sales after all.  Another problem highlighted recently on fb in general is the increase in blocking of accounts and closure of personal profiles which are used for business.  Its obviously another round of the fb strategy to get more advertising revenue in my view.  

So what am i doing to counteract these problems? 

Well, i am still very much in the experimental phase of building the page and i have been trying various options.  I have tried event pages, sharing pics on a Saturday morning as an online sale type option, and have now opened a new group as well.  I am learning a lot about the best approach to take from these experiments and now i'm getting to the point of being able to settle on a 'best practice' option - i don't like changing things around so much, but in the early days its important to try out certain things and change if they are not working effectively.  

Now the page is growing with a little less work on promotion than before i can start to work more on the strategy and vision of the page and the business ideas i have.  I can't just leave the promotion side to take care of itself of course i will just be stepping this back slightly to allow for the next stage of development to take place.  

The focus still has to be on gaining page interaction, but i don't want to lose the point of the page by posting unrelated items just to get people involved.  Its a bit of a fine line to walk - its tempting to just post things because i know they will get involvement happening but that is not how i want the business to grow - it is at an early developmental stage so i do have to keep my eye on where i want it to go rather than simply focus on the here and now.

Today i find it useful to remember this quote:   

Its ok for things to take time, even in todays high speed and need for instant gratification.....

Its starting to work

Ok so in my last post i had got to the point of 300 likes, now how do i get interaction happening? Today i can see a bit more interaction happening - sometimes just like clicked on a pic or status, but yes i am getting more comments now too.  Its not a huge change in my view but i can see a little bit of a difference i think.  I wonder what the stats say today.......

There does look like a bit more interaction today but it is hard to tell from this random selection of post stats.  I should really be looking at all the stats and comparing them so the other details are:

At least this is showing the total reach and the post reach have both increased overall and its improving across the mon - wed section - post reach is down though on a saturday which is my online sale day so that needs to be monitored closely.

This chart is showing a small general trend of more interaction with obvious peaks.

All this interaction is fine and dandy but i also need to consider sales figures - thats what i'm here for after all.  Sales are happening and enquiries have started too but it is still slow.

Action Plan

Record the number of sales in general and the total amount if possible.

Add some more selling albums to established selling groups

Do some leaflet drops

Keep doing what i'm doing and monitor well

300 likes, now how do i get interaction happening?

Yes i made it to 300 likes on my facebook page!! I am delighted to have met that little target for the business now - its all starting to come together :)

On my post slow-and-steady i mentioned the need for interaction on the page and to be honest i am still struggling with this a bit.  Yesterday i posted the items for sale on both the event page and the facebook page which did seem to get a bit more interaction than the week before - i have been wondering if using the event page is a good thing or not.

I have a feeling the lack of interaction on the page is not because people are not interested in what is being posted, but they are simply not seeing it.  The changes made on facebook with regard to promoting, and the paid advertising in my view limits the reach of the page posts a lot.  Considering i have 300 likes for the page the reach of the posts is not that good at all: (click the pic to view it larger)

So, what are my options? 

Well as you know from my post advertising-budget, what-advertising-budget? i do not have any money to spend on advertising - i have already spent money on business cards and printer ink for leaflets and i'm not seeing any return on that as yet (its early days i know).  

Ok so if i'm not willing to spend money i have to figure out a way around this.  The 'problem' as far as i can tell is people are liking the page ok, but they are not using the extra tick boxes needed to ensure posts from my page are showing up on their news feed or notifications.  My solution is to post the following pic on the page: 

This might help a little bit, because if i keep posting it hopefully it will get seen and encourage my likers to tick the boxes.  It is not the best option though as it is being posted on a practically invisible page - I have to go outside of the page and directly to the people who have liked it and let them know what to do.  

This is not the easiest thing to do unfortunately. Due to the way facebook pages are set up i cannot message people unless they message me, unless i use my personal profile.  Some of the people who have liked my page are linked to my personal profile so i can use this as a way to get in touch with them, but i don't want to sound pushy so i have to figure that out really.  

Its not easy having a small business page on facebook these days with all the new 'options' but i know it is worth persevering.

How about you? Have you set up a business page and found it hard to get going? Are you getting interaction on the page or not? Do you have any tips to share? I'd love to hear from you :)  

Slow and steady

Well its been about 2 weeks since my last update so i thought it was time for another one!

At the minute i am very much still in the promotional phase of business development - of course promotion is ongoing with any business, but in my view the initial promotional phase is perhaps one of the most difficult to do.  It feels a bit like throwing a fishing line into the middle of a lake in the hopes of catching a passing fish.......

I am certainly not that experienced in these matters (though i do have some limited experience of promoting other pages on fb for example).  I am trying a few options at the same time which seems to be generating a bit of interest in the page.  I am running a few promotions such as a giveaway and a 1p auction, and am playing some games on the page as well.  I am offering a featured seller option to a different seller each day and i am posting the selling albums link to various selling groups.

So far there have been a few sales on the page, which is great :) I am also sharing the this item is sold pic each time there is a sale - hopefully this will encourage the sellers to keep using the page.

I do feel like i am struggling a little bit to get interaction on the page - i know i need to get the likers to comment or like pics to help spread the word, but its hard to know how frequently to post on the page.

So far i have managed to get up to 246 likes, which is not bad for a few weeks worth of promotion......I'm feeling a bit impatient to get to 300 likes, but i know slow and steady is a better way to build the page properly.

I have now also got my business cards - i am using these mostly to send to ebay customers with a purchase, but i will also be giving them out at car boot sales etc. I have designed a simple leaflet as well, but not printed these out yet - thats my next plan.

For now i think i keep doing what i am doing - i'm getting more sellers adding albums which is great - i think the variety of products will help to bring the customers in :)

Linking Facebook Page to Twitter

Linking your facebook page to your twitter account makes it a lot easier to spread the word about what offers or events you have going on, and even those product pics etc too.  I had linked a previous page this way and found it worked quite well. The Selling Cafe  is now successfully linked and it was pretty easy to do:  

If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will

be able to decide whether to share updates with 

their Twitter followers, and you also will be able 

to control what type of updates to share: status 

updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of 

them. If you have multiple Pages, you will have 

the option to link each of those Pages to 

different Twitter accounts. 

http://www.facebook.com/twitter. 

I would just suggest you consider what posts will be like on both platforms before posting - sometimes it just doesn't work well on Twitter when you post something on fb........welcome to all my new likers for example! It just takes a little bit more thought when the two accounts are linked! 

Advertising Budget.........What Advertising Budget?

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to make a decision about when starting a business is about how much to spend on advertising.  We all know how important it is to let people know the business exists - we cannot make any sales if people don't even know we exist right?

But how do we advertise? There are so many ways these days, including a lot of free options.  Social Media does provide a great opportunity for advertising and promoting for free - it is also one of the most powerful.  Because it is free however you have to remember there is a lot of competition for customers, and some people may just get fed up with being 'sold at' all the time.  How best to promote a business page on social media as well is far from understood by most of us.

As i have already made a start on getting-word-out via social media it is tempting to just focus on these methods.  It is even more tempting to do nothing that actually costs money when the social media methods are free (unless you decide to pay for an advertising package).  Just one-week-on however i found myself making make-shift posters and cards to hand out while i was at the car boot sale.

I do not have a lot of money to spend on advertising and promotional materials, but i know i do need some.  I have no option but to start off cheaply which many people will say is a mistake.  When i have no option however is it not better to do cheap rather than none? We will see!

So, my cheap options are to get some basic business cards printed - I personally find Vistaprint a useful resource for budget range promotional materials - they offer many discounts and options to gradually upgrade to higher quality items.  A lot of people don't like using a big company like this who, I have to say, appear to add costs at the end sometimes, but for me its a quick, easy and cheap way to make a start on promotion.

I have ordered 500 basic business cards with double sided printing for £15 inc postage.  I have also bought some multicoloured paper for printing off some leaflets to distribute locally. This paper cost me £3, and no doubt i will be spending some more money on ink for the printer......

So far then my advertising budget is £18/£0 - a common situation for many of us i'm guessing.

How about you? have you got no advertising budget? have you tried starting cheap? What would you advise me to do?

One week on

I am very excited to be writing this update as everything i have been working on so far has been coming together nicely :)

Last week i was working on getting-word-out about my new business and doing some of the background development work.  I had my action plan to work through and keep me going in the right direction.  Over the past week then i have been working on the following:

Promote fb page to get up to 200 likes

I have been ticking along with this, it was a bit difficult at first but it seems to be starting to take its own promotional course a bit more now as fb is intended to.  Today i have 197 likes on the page so i am quite pleased with that - not far off target at all.

Plan how i am going to hold the online car boot sale

This caused a little bit of a dilemma for me - i had decided to share products on the page for the sale, but i had internet problems during the week and had no access.  I didn't know if i should go ahead with the sale as i hadn't been able to promote it much AND the weather forecast was pretty good for the weekend.  I was trying to decide between doing the sale online or going to do an actual car boot sale - in the end i managed to do both! I was able to use my phone to post pictures to the page for the sale and sell some items at the car boot sale too - best of both worlds :) I was a bit more limited by using the phone but i was glad i was able to do as i had said i would even if i wasn't the best it could have been had i been home on the laptop.

Add customers to my contact list on email

Yes i managed to do this without any problems.

Figure out how to link my fb page & Twitter to my blog to

send the updates to both at the same time - i have done it

before so hopefully i will remember.

 This step i haven't quite managed to do yet - i have been able to link the blog to fb, but not to twitter.  I'm not great with twitter and i don't use it as easily as i do fb, but i will hopefully start to develop skills on this.

Additional points/notes/learning from this week

I did manage to generate some good interest in the FB page by thinking outside the box - I arranged a fun and novelty giveaway and people seem to be really taken by it.  This reminded me about building up a personality for the brand The Selling Cafe and the USP.  It also reminded me that people buy from people - the main USP i have is me.  I'm a bit quirky and random at times and when i let that reflect on the page it worked.

I was at the car boot sale - the perfect place to promote the page and i had no promotional materials.  I did a bit of an on the hop promotion by drawing a sign and writing on the back of some of my other business cards.  Not very professional but it actually worked quite well :)

Next Steps

Following up on my action plan i will be aiming to:

Promote fb page some more to get up to 300 likes
Think about when to hold the next online car boot sale
Add the new customers to my contact list on email
Link twitter to my blog/fb page
Try to use twitter a bit more frequently
Sort some promotional material for the page

I hope the next update is as good as this one has been :) I love the fact it seems to be heading in the right direction!

Getting the Word Out

Ok so i have decided on the business i want to pursue (this time) and i have a name for it - The Selling Cafe.  I have a long term vision which involves premises and other people etc, but for now i will be focusing on trying to sell online and at markets, car boot sales etc.

The Selling Cafe will not focus on any specific type of product - i've tried that before when i was trying to sell handmade goods, but the joy of this is i can *try* to sell anything, so hopefully it will be flexible enough for my ever changing ideas.

Selling has been a constant aspect of my many business ideas so it makes sense this latest one will continue with that.  I know i need to have a USP (Unique Selling Point) to make the business different from the many others out there - i do have the idea that will make it unique but i need to develop that a bit more.

At the minute i am trying to concentrate on getting the word out about The Selling Cafe and so far i have an ebay account, a facebook page, a Selling Cafe Blog and today i started a twitter account as well.  I have been playing around with developing a website as well, but money is an issue so i've been looking at doing this myself (i've designed and developed a few websites before).

I am making some regular sales on ebay and have found opening a shop on there has helped a bit - i'm limited to 100 items a month right now but hopefully i can increase this in time.

I am working on connecting all my 'outlets' and so far i have my ebay account linked to my facebook page via a shop app, the rest i need to figure out how to connect.

I feel like i am struggling a bit to get followers on fb but i know it does take time to build this up.  I am planning on holding a weekly online car boot sale on the page so i am hoping that will help to build up a bit of a following of both sellers and buyers.  Today i have 155 likes on the fb page so would like to aim for at least 200 on there by this time next week.

The blog i have just updated with a new template and am much happier with that.  My vision for the blog is to add pics of items i am selling but offer blog followers discounts and special offers.  That blog was a bit of a mishmash of 'business development posts and selling posts so i've decided to separate those (hence starting this one).

The twitter account i am hoping will help me to promote the blog, fb page and ebay accounts, but i'm not very familiar with twitter yet.  I know i can also have a pinterest account but i am conscious of spending all my time on social media accounts rather than selling, so i will let that sit right now and might review it again later.

Action Plan

Promote fb page to get up to 200 likes
Plan how i am going to hold the online car boot sale
Add customers to my contact list on email
Figure out how to link my fb page & Twitter to my blog to send the updates to both at the same time - i have done it before so hopefully i will remember.

Right, that gives me a direction for the next few days - wish me luck :)  

Its the Start of Its a Business Thing!

I have tried to set up a business a few times in my life.  Some have been successful for a while, some have been a downright flop! This blog will hopefully allow me to talk about what i'm doing business wise now, ask for other peoples help and opinions and post any useful bits and bobs i come across.

I find blogging generally helpful and well its good to have a record of what i've tried to do :)

Hopefully i will get a few people dropping in so i'm not talking to myself ALL the time LOL!