Facebook groups are a strong marketing tool, allowing you to attract new customers and engage current ones with exclusive content, community, and support. These groups are a place to communicate about shared interests with certain people. You can create a group for anything, e.g., your family reunion, your after-work sports team, or your book club. 
 
With the power of Facebook groups for business, brands have an opportunity to build communities and long-lasting relationships with customers. As you have access to Facebook’s 2.41 billion active monthly users. 
 
There are three types of privacy settings to choose from for your Facebook group; Public, Private and Private and hidden. 
 
Public 
 
With a public Facebook group, anyone can see what members post or share. Any user who has a Facebook account can see the list of members, admins and moderators. 
 
 
 
Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organisations. It allows you to manage your online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. 
 
A Google My Businesses account can help customers find your business, and to tell them your story, you can verify your business and edit your business information. Whether you’re looking for customer traffic or web traffic, Google is the ultimate search tool, ensuring that when someone looks your company up on Google Search and Google Maps, they find it. Once they do, your listing shows searches where and how to visit your shop, whether you have a web or physical address. 
 
Are you winning business on a weekly basis through social media? 
Most people don’t win business from social media because they don’t have time, don’t know what to post, don’t know when to post, don’t know how often to post, and simply lack the discipline to post regularly. 
 
Social media is vital for a business as it increases the brands awareness, builds up your credibility and brand online. As well as drives traffic off social media to your website. 
 
Creating a social media strategy is essential if you want to win business consistently. 
 
This blog covers everything from why you’re currently not winning business through social media, and the four simple steps to create your strategy. 
 
 
LinkedIn is an online service with over 550 million users, 2 new members joining every 2 seconds. The platform is used for professional networking, but is mainly used to talk about business with other users. 
 
With targeted marketing campaigns on LinkedIn, you can receive seven times as many inbound inquiries from potential customers, rather than using conventional methods. 
 
LinkedIn is one of the most valuable channels for qualified leads, that allows you to engage with valuable prospects. You can access the broadest possible community of professionals, and target them with precision, something that can't be done on other social platforms. 
 
By creating a standout profile and building the right network, you are opening yourself up to career opportunities and potential sales. Your LinkedIn profile becomes an online version of you and it is a great way to give you credibility and will establish you as a trustworthy potential employee. 
 
 
 
 
Facebook has over 1.9 billion daily active users; meaning it makes sense for businesses to use Facebook to boost their business. With 80 million small-medium sized businesses on Facebook (an increase of 23% year on year) and 6 million of those choosing to advertise on the platform - there certainly is a big reason to choose Facebook as one of your main marketing channels. 
 
Facebook has a variety of features including Facebook ads. Facebook ads help businesses get more visibility for their Facebook content and boost traffic to their core website content. Since Facebook ads keep your audience engaged, it also helps your marketing strategy reach a new audience or market you never knew existed. Ultimately, if you advertise on Facebook, customers will get to know your brand, products, or services in a click of a button. 
 
In case Facebook ads are still vague to you, let’s talk about why you need to be investing in them. Here are some of the benefits of Facebook ads that you need to know. 
 
 
 
 
Facebook engagement is important, as it can help extend organic reach. 
 
Engagement helps boost your News Feed placement based on the Facebook algorithm. Likes and shares expose your posts to your audience’s extended network. 
 
Ultimately, engagement indicates that your audience is well engaged. An engaged audience that wants to interact with your brand is something every marketer should aim for. 
 
Facebook engagement is any action someone takes on your Facebook Page or one of your posts. 
 
The most common examples are reactions such as likes, comments and shares, but it can also include saves, viewing a video or clicking on a link. 
 
 
 
Ensuring you have set the right location for your FB ads is important to the success of that campaign. 
 
FB allows us to either type in the location area or drop a pin on an area to select where the people are who they should show it to. The location targeting also allows us to exclude people from certain locations too 
 
Once we have the location Facebook has four options for location targeting: 
 
Everyone in a location 
People who live in this location 
Recently in this location 
People traveling in this location 
 
Some of those opens are picked up from the data you enter and others from the GPS of your phone. 'Everyone in a location' is the defaulted option when creating a new ad 
 
Ensure you pick the location and option that best suits the people you are trying to advertise to 
 
TIME IS PRECIOUS 
 
Previously I did a poll asking what barriers stood in the way of people posting consistently on social media and time was a big reason. We get so busy doing the job we do that we forget to have a social media presence running as well. Having a social media presence is a major way to keep brand awareness and continue the supply of leads, enquiries or sales 
 
To maximise your time effectively you have a few options. Firstly find the time - schedule time into your diary and write your weeks worth of posts in one go and then schedule them to go out over the week. By doing the whole weeks worth in one go you make the most of the time and its blocked out in your diary every week. 
Secondly you get someone else to do it for you. This ensures the work is done and you don't have to worry about it at all. Complete peace of mind. Just ensure the person you outsource to provides quality 
 
So which one would works best for you? 
 
Personality captures the heart ❤ 
 
Bring a little personality to your business 
 
We all know the phrase "people buy from people" but yet businesses still refuse to add any personality to their marketing and social media 
 
True relationships, connections and trust is built through the "human" side of your marketing 
 
So how can you add personality to your social media business pages? 
 
1. Tell stories that draw your audience in, giving an inside sneak peak of everyday life 
 
2. Video content - Both pre-recorded and live video help people see you in a true light and showcase your personality 
 
3. Visual content with you in the picture helps show off who you are and make you memorable 
 
4. Ensure your content matches your personality. Don't write in a different tone to how you actually are or you'll put people off 
 
5. Add some humour where relevant to show you are friendly and approachable 
 
These are just a few ways personality can be added to your business socials which will make it much easier for your audience to know, like and trust you 
 
"Beauty attracts the eyes but personality captures the heart" 
 
5 TIPS TO DEAL WITH A KEYBOARD WARRIOR 
 
No matter how perfect you are at communicating or how perfect your product is; as your business or influence grows you attract more people and therefore you are more likely to run into a keyboard warrior. 
 
HAVE EMPATHY 
 
This is a hard one - but you know what; if you try to see things from their perspective, it does NOT mean you have to agree. It will help you in your reply 
 
It's easy to feel the need to defend yourself However, when it comes to the internet; it is better to keep calm. 
With 'do not engage' I am not saying ignore it completely (although - why not?!) but if you feel the totally understandable need to reply then do it with grace and avoid ANY words which could be interpreted as an attack. 
 
STAY CALM 
 
Rant and rave to the people around you about it but online to the person OR talking ABOUT the person in groups; stay calm 
 
STAY AWAY FROM DRAMA 
 
Some people just WANT drama, they need it in their life. So no matter how calm and collected you respond they will take their response overboard no matter what. 
 
With organic reach dropping from business pages and companies beginning to panic about reaching customers we ask has Facebook damaged your business leads? Have your enquiries dropped and has it affected your use of the social network? 
 
Firstly, as a business you cannot afford not to be on Facebook. The statistics don’t lie. Facebook has 2 billion active users every month and 70% of customers hear about a new business first on the social network. 60% of people polled on Facebook said they would visit a FB business page before the business bricks and mortar location with 80% more likely to buy if you have a positive Facebook presence 
 
So what can you do in your business to make effective use of Facebook? 
 
Many businesses create a Facebook page in the hope of leveraging a large amount of engagement which will drive leads, referrals and ultimately sales. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work, and with organic reach sitting at an all-time low of around 2%, many business owner’s pages fail and they stop posting valuable content. Facebook’s push towards a more social experience for users has meant that the main benefit of a business page is the ability to run paid ads which will put your sales message directly in front of your target audience. Without an advertising budget the majority of Facebook business pages fail to engage with consumers and end up abandoning Facebook all together 
 
So should we just give up or is there another option?