img src='http://rss.buysellads.com/img.php?z=1259904k=f7b7931ec28da9e4ff2580bfd4eddb18a=35779c=740775323' border='0' alt='' //a/pbr /pimg src="http://freelanceswitch.s3.amazonaws.com/previewimages/2012/Networking-and-Finding-Clients-on-Facebook.png" width="200" height="200" alt="Networking and Finding Clients on Facebook" class="imageborder alignright"/p
pYou#8217;re offering a service that#8217;s in demand. You know who your potential clients are. You#8217;re a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-marketing/facebook-fans-growth"engaging on Facebook/a as I outlined in my previous post./p
pIf you#8217;re doing all these, your Facebook fanbase will grow. But what next?/p
pMarketing consultant C. J. Hayden refers to marketing as a pipeline. Once a client is in your pipeline, you follow up with them, make a presentation of your services, and (hopefully) close the sale. But before you can do any of that you must fill your pipeline with prospects. You do this through your sales funnel. /p
pYour Facebook Page is an online hub for collecting contacts to pour into your sales funnel. It#8217;s a good place to make first contact before pulling prospects deeper into your pipeline./p
pIn this post, I outline some advanced strategies you can use to fill your pipeline on Facebook. These include strategies to:/p
ul
listrongBoost engagement directly on your Facebook Page/strong, in a way that helps you cultivate qualified leads, and move prospects towards becoming clients./li
listrongUse your Facebook Page as a networking and outreach tool/strong. With this strategy, you#8217;re not simply expecting clients to come to you. You#8217;re going to them./li
/ul
pspan id="more-35779"/span/p
pFacebook Pages are an ideal online networking tool. That#8217;s because Facebook is about casual interaction and conversation. As your fans and prospects interact with your Page, they come to know, like and trust you. This helps them feel confident that you#8217;ll be a good person to work with. Because of this, Facebook, as a long-term strategy, is a much more powerful tool than cold calling or emailing for building a list of prospects and finding your ideal clients. As lawyer Michele R.J. Allinotte a href="http://www.americanbar.org/publications/law_practice_magazine/2012/january_february/finding-friends-and-clients-on-facebook.html"explains/a:/p
blockquotepI find that clients who follow me on Facebook feel they already know me, so it is much easier to make a connection with them at the initial phone call or meeting compared to someone who cold calls me out of the phone book./p/blockquote
h3Boosting Engagement on Your Facebook Page/h3
pPreviously on FreelanceSwitch, I showed how a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-marketing/facebook-fans-growth"regularly posting to your Facebook Page/a fosters engagement with your fans and helps to grow your fanbase./p
pRegularly posting to your Page is the foundation of any strategy of engagement on Facebook. If you fail to feed your Facebook Page with regular updates, it will wither and die #8211; like a neglected houseplant or Tamagotchi #8211; whatever else you#8217;re doing. On the flip side, feeding your Page with regular updates can be enough to grow your fanbase and find clients. However, there is more you can do to grow your fanbase and increase the chances of fans becoming clients./p
pHere are three advanced strategies you can use as-is, or adapt for your business:/p
h21. Facebook Contests/h2
pHold a contest on your Page and offer your services, or a related product, as the prize. This increases awareness of what you do, and boosts engagement with exactly the right people: those who need your services./p
pHow people enter the contest is up to you. The simplest contest is where anyone who likes your Page is entered./p
pYou can ask your fans to do more, however, especially if you#8217;re offering a valuable prize. You could use the contest to help you develop ideas for your business. For example, you could ask your fans to come up with ideas for a tagline for your business, or share which of your services they#8217;d be most likely to use, or explain the problems they have that they need the most help solving./p
pAlternatively, you can use a contest to get your fans to engage more with your Page. A freelance gardener could ask entrants to post a picture of their best garden plant; a programmer could ask fans to share their favorite computer or programming related joke; a writer could ask fans to share an inspiring quote about writing or creativity./p
blockquote class="pullquote pqRight"pSet aside an hour a week to hold a Facebook surgery. Either pledge to answer any questions related to your niche that are posted to your Facebook Page during that hour, or take a selection of the best questions./p/blockquote
pEven choosing the winner can be a way of finding new fans for your Page. Do this by awarding first prize to the entry with the most #8220;Likes#8221;. Many entrants will ask their family and friends to vote for their entry, and some of these voters will become new fans of your Page./p
h22. Facebook Surgeries/h2
pSet aside an hour a week to hold a Facebook surgery. Either pledge to answer any questions related to your niche that are posted to your Facebook Page during that hour, or take a selection of the best questions./p
pIf you hold a weekly surgery, it#8217;s a good idea to decide in advance how much you#8217;re willing to share. You don#8217;t want to lose potential clients because you#8217;ve given away your best knowledge for free. On the other hand, don#8217;t keep everything back. The whole point of holding a surgery is to help your clients see that your advice works for them./p
pA bonus of holding a surgery is that it gives you insight into the biggest problems and pain points of potential clients. When you know these, you can adapt your services accordingly to put yourself in higher demand./p
h23. Time Limited Facebook Coupons/h2
pstrong /strongA strategy that works well for freelancers with a large roster of clients #8211; such as hair dressers, fitness trainers, life coaches, janitors, or landscape gardeners #8211; is to offer a time-limited discount coupon or code from their Facebook Page. This encourages fans to become first-time buyers, or if they#8217;ve bought from you before, it encourages them to book your services again soon./p
pCoupons can also be used to manage your workflow. For example, if Wednesdays are always quiet for your business, you could offer a coupon that can only be redeemed on Wednesdays./p
pFeaturing special offers regularly on your Page, whether it#8217;s once a week, once a month or once a quarter, is a way of encouraging fans to frequently check-in to see your latest updates./p
pNow, let#8217;s look at some ways you can use your Facebook Page to reach out to potential clients./p
h3Using Your Facebook Page as an Outreach Tool/h3
pOne of the arguments for using a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-marketing/facebook-groups-pages-profiles/"Profiles over Pages/a for promoting your freelance business is that Profiles are better for networking. While it#8217;s true that Profiles are a good networking tool #8211; particularly for sending one-to-one messages #8211; Pages can also be used powerfully for public networking./p
pThe aim of networking is to get your name out there and known among potential clients. When people know you, they trust you. So when they think #8220;who should I hire to do this job?#8221;, you#8217;ll be one of the people who springs to mind. As such, this networking strategy is about using Facebook to get your name and business known and trusted among potential clients. I#8217;ve used variations of this strategy to find a good proportion of my clients./p
pThe strategy works best if it#8217;s targeted. Begin by creating a hit list of potential clients and influencers in your niche. I suggest limiting your list to ten people to start with. If you#8217;re unsure who to put on your list, do some research. Though it#8217;s Twitter-based, a href="http://listorious.com/"Listorious/a is an excellent search tool for finding influencers in a particular niche, many of whom will be on Facebook as well. Similarly, a href="http://www.twellow.com/"Twellow/a provides a Yellow Pages style directory of Twitter users./p
pIdeally, you want to choose Facebook Pages that are managed by the person who will hire you. As such, this strategy works best if your prospects are small businesses, social media marketing managers, or high profile individuals with a Facebook Page./p
pOnce you#8217;ve created your hit list:/p
ul
liLog-in to your Facebook Page and Like the Facebook Page of everyone on your hit list./li
liLeave valuable comments on the Page of every person in your hit list once or twice a week. These should contribute to the discussion, and should never be self promotional./li
liShare status updates from their Pages on your Page that are relevant to your audience./li
liPost updates to your Page in which you tag the Page of people on your hit list. For example, share a quote they#8217;ve said, or use one of their success stories as a small case study. To tag someone, type #8220;@#8221; followed by their Page name./li
liPosting and tagging photos is even more powerful. For example, you could post the cover of a book written by someone on your hit list, tag it with their name, and explain in the photo caption how the book inspired you. If you#8217;ve met someone on your hit list in person, post a photo of you together, tag it, and explain in the caption why you appreciated meeting them./li
liShow up outside Facebook. Follow your hit list on Twitter. Retweet and reply to their tweets. Comment on their blog. Connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe to their email list./li
liOnce you get to know them, drop them an email to say hello. Ask a question, or share something valuable such as an article you know they#8217;ll enjoy./li
/ul
pAs with all networking, the key is not to overpower your hit list with your constant presence. You#8217;ll scare them away if you do that. Rather, show up regularly in places where they#8217;ll be pleased to see you, because they know you#8217;re a helpful, positive person who appreciates their work./p
pNetworking, even online, can be scary. But when you start #8211; and begin to see the results #8211; you#8217;ll be glad you moved past your fear. Not everyone you meet will become a client, but many will become friends and supporters. Now, take the plunge and start swimming!/p
pstrongHow do you use Facebook to network with prospect and clients?/strong Share your top tips in the comments./pdiv class="feedflare"
a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?a=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?a=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?i=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?a=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?i=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?a=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?i=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?a=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:wF9xT3WuBAs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?i=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:wF9xT3WuBAs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?a=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:D7DqB2pKExk"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/FreelanceSwitch?i=sUD9AmSXd58:5RzvV-flfSY:D7DqB2pKExk" border="0"/img/a
/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FreelanceSwitch/~4/sUD9AmSXd58" height="1" width="1"/
Online Marketing Search Engine Marketing Web Development e-commerce Design Web Design
No comments:
Post a Comment