What a Difference a Month Makes

In my last post The Second Phase I had more or less just started to see some results from working on the interaction on The Selling Cafe Page  and the general page reach.  I had reached 605 likes and all was seeming like it was on track to where i wanted it to go.

Its now just over 1 month since those last statistics were published and definitely time for an update! Things have progressed extremely well i have to say.  Without looking at the stats i know the page is much more active and i have several developments underway - to be honest i'm quite surprised it has only actually been a month!!

So what do the stats say?

The number of likes today is 737 - up by over 200.

Last month interaction was up to a maximum of 200 from a maximum of 50 in month one.  This month the maximum is hitting almost 400.  There is a clear inactivity for a few days over Christmas but the rest of the month has a reasonable amount of activity going on and seems to be around the 100 level on average.

The post reach for December seems to be averaging out around 500-600 with a few higher peaks showing. Considering the likes are just over 700 i seem to be maintaining a reach that is not far off the mark on this right now.  I'm very pleased with this as many pages are struggling to hit even 50% of their likes level in reach terms right now.

Looking at the individual posts more closely the written posts are now hitting between 150 - 300 which is a decent enough increase from last month but the photos are still hovering around the 50 - 70 level.  This is not good news and i do need to do some more work on this ASAP.  The rest of the stats are showing things moving in the right direction though which is a relief. 

With regard to the sense of community - this is working very well.  There is a great sense of camaraderie with a group of around 20 people at the minute and i think this will really give us a good solid foundation.  The group is extremely supportive of each other and the general comments indicate there is a very big reduction in the feeling of isolation.  To be honest this side of things literally could not be better at this point.

Sales being generated from the page are extremely difficult to measure as often i am not privy to that information and its difficult to know where sales have come from specifically.  I do know for sure there have been several sales on the page though which i'm glad of.  At the minute i am considering changing part of the selling aspect on the page itself though - this issue of photos not being seen is forcing me to look at alternatives.  I have started to work on the blog now and have sorted links for Twitter from the fb pages.  Buy now buttons have been added to the blog and some of the sellers goods have been publicised on there so far.  I do want to get a basic introductory post completed for each seller and then it will be used for updates and announcements.  Another main development in regard to the blog is i have started a mailing list, so i am now actively capturing contact details.  

Overall i feel the foundations of The Selling Cafe have been set pretty well.  I am happy with the page progression and i have several additional themed pages working at bringing buyers into the loop.  There is now an auctions page and a £1 page.  The auctions page has just hit 300 likes and is proving popular, and the £1 page is just new with just 23 likes but again it is generating a good amount of interest from people who are there specifically to buy.  These pages will be used interconnectively to pull both sellers and buyers in and hopefully this will result in sales.  

So, it seems we are progressing well into phase 3 of the plan now - the selling part - the foundations of this are being laid down and i am reasonably confident of the multi-pronged approach being a good one.  

An additional aspect of providing advice and guidance has started to bud now as well.  This isn't something i deliberately aimed for, but with the changes happening on facebook pages right now it is becoming more and more obvious that pages are having to learn how to use their pages more effectively.  Luckily i have been developing my own knowledge about how the pages work for quite some time now, so my level of understanding is proving useful.  

Next steps? 

Obviously i need to continue adding to the group of members - the community needs to keep growing.  I am using a slow but steady growth model for this - i am adding to the group literally just a few members at a time, but i am now using a multi-level progression to membership.  

The main focus now will be on those activities which should lead to sales:  Overcoming the photo restrictions on fb has to be the top priority.  Luckily i do have a plan in mind!