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?