So instead of viewing your Facebook page as a mere marketing portal, you owe it to your customers to view it as a relationship – and as soon as a person has taken the leap to ‘like’ your page, you’ve essentially started dating. Which means it is important to know how to keep your Facebook page status from becoming ‘single’.
However, many companies end up in one of 2 scenarios we are all familiar with in dating.
Scenario 1:
Your significant other is upset with you because you don’t tell them “I love you” enough. In your defense, you’ve shown them (or at least you think) that you love them.
Scenario 2:
Your significant other accuses you of using “I love you” as lip service They tell you those words mean nothing without actions to show it.
In either case, your Facebook page status will end up single unless you change your behavior.
As a business that needs to generate leads, being in either situation can be crippling to your social media presence. The solution then is to do both. Say “I love you” and show “I love you.”
In marketing speak, we call this direct and indirect content.
Direct content is sales-driven and the goal is to generate leads by leading customers to a landing page, eBook, or other content with a clear ‘call to action.’
Indirect content is easy to consume and doesn’t assume any ruse to get the customer to ‘do’ anything. It’s a way to engage and showcase who you really are. These can be posts of employees, an interesting quote, or even a simple question to your customer base.
“[We] give ourselves the opportunity to warm them up to the idea of doing business with us without shoving our software down their throats.”
– Brittany Leaning (@bleaning) Social Media Manager, HubSpot
Engagement Goals for a Dynamic Relationship
Let’s look at how different engagement goals can keep your relationship dynamic.
1. Encourage Comments
Your customer base has opinions and knowledge that they want to share. A post that fields a question about your business or industry can encourage a real discussion between your company and your customers. In any relationship, we all know that communication is crucial.
2. Create Shareable Content
Increase engagement with a direct value-proposition by posting an interesting slide from a presentation that links back to its origin. If what you give them is valuable, not only will you have reached your customer, but they will also be willing to share.
3. Lead Them to Water
Sometimes it’s important just to show them what you’ve got. Post pictures of your product or service and lead them to a purchase, download, or other company landing page.
4. Get Likes
When you post content that is visually enjoyable or has relatable content, you can keep your customers happy. When you show that you care about the things they care about, you remind them that you exist as a part of their lives.
Maintaining a healthy relationship with your customers doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, it can be enjoyable.
The end goal of your company’s Facebook presence may be to drive business, but it takes real engagement to prevent churn. Keeping a good mix of communication goals helps to show your customers that it’s worth maintaining an engaged relationship with your brand. If you want your brand to stay relevant amongst all the other companies fighting for your customers’ attention on Facebook, it is critical to keep this Facebook page status principle in mind.
However, just like dating isn’t constrained to these two principles of communication, neither is Facebook. To learn more, read our e-book “How to Attract Customers with Facebook”.