How will The Baby Sense Company turn Facebook fans into customers?
Talk to any small business owner about social media and you always get the same response. They want more fans and more followers. However, what do you do then? How do you convert those fans into paying customers?
Meg Faure director and founder of The Baby Sense Company and Jeremy Pepper a social media and public relations consultant in LA are currently facing this exact challenge.
The Baby Sense Company is a natural fit for social media. Meg is well recognised as an expert on child care and her Facebook page and Twitter account are full of questions from inquisitive parents. Using a budget of less than €400 a month The Baby Sense Company Facebook Page has grown to over 32 000 fans and over 2400 followers on Twitter.
She has found a way to earn a small income from the page by offering sponsorship to companies such as Johnson & Johnson to promote exclusive content. Yet what she really wants is to see a much larger percentage of her fan base actually become customers.Meg runs all these accounts herself as well as a Pintrest page UStream account and a blog and posts fresh content whenever she has a chance. She often engages with her fans and offers the opportunity for them to ask her questions on a regular basis. Meg also makes a point to spend at least one hour a month on her page where she holds a ‘Facebook party’ where fans can ask her anything they wish.
So what’s the plan?
The primary goal is to grow Baby Sense’s online community seeking out possible paid sponsorship with focus on Facebook as that channel currently has the strongest community. However Baby Sense’s social media strategy must span other channels such as YouTube Twitter UStream and email and will fit into Meg’s current budget and limited time.
Planning ahead is important so creating an editorial calendar for Facebook and Twitter is essential. It allows for the promotion of products and events and the community knows when to tune in. The current ‘corporate’ tone on the page needs to change as well. A more conversational engaging tone needs to be used to create a ‘Mom to Mom’ feel.
Posts should always contain a call to action (share a story, discuss an experience, ask questions that the community will have opinions on) and should be around 100 – 150 characters. ICON’s advice is to get to the point with short attention-grabbing statements. If and where possible let your image do the talking. Remember people on Facebook are bombarded with a wall of chatter from family friends and brands. They don’t have more than a few seconds to see your message and move on.
U-Stream is an interesting channel to use as it is not as commercially known as Facebook or YouTube but her efforts to continue to engage audiences on it should certainly reap rewards. It is a way for her to give back to her customers and discuss topics that relate to her business but are also important to her customers.
Last, but by no means least, a newsletter is too important to ignore for community-building. It does not take long to keep your subscribers returning again and again by alerting them of fresh content on YouTube, Facebook, UStream and Twitter.
Do you want your business represented through social media? Want an insight into how you could be using social media more effectively? Contact ICON today for a coffee and chat about why we can help your business.
Inspired By Mashable