Reviewing Facebook’s strengths

Being visible on Facebook is important for a variety of reasons. The following advantages and strengths will help you further decide whether Facebook is the right fit for you and your business.

Setting up a Facebook Business Page

A Facebook Business Page is important when you have your own business. People utilize Facebook’s search bar to find more information on businesses, companies, and products, just as they do on search engines like Google and Yahoo!. If someone is looking for your business, will they find you?

Setting up a Facebook Business Page is easy, and www.facebook.com/help will always give you the most correct, up-to-date information on how to create one. As of this writing, creating a Facebook page takes no more than a few simple steps.

At www.facebook.com/pages/create you can select a type of business. I suggest selecting either Local Business or Place, or Brand/Product. Local Business allows your customers to leave reviews, which is a plus. But keep in mind you must put in a physical address.

Once you’ve selected a business type, you can fill out information and details about your business.

When posting on your Business Page, think about what your customers and clients find interesting. Experiment with different types of posts. Follow a 90/10 rule. 90 percent of your posts should be lifestyle posts, and only 10 percent should be about your product and business opportunity. People dread the hard sell from direct sellers, so shock them with your compelling content. Always be authentic and personable and aim to start engaging conversations with your fans.

I suggest posting once a day. Play around with posting different times of day to see what times work best for you.

But what should I post, you may be asking? Here are some ideas:

• Custom content: You want your posts to be unique, personable, and true to your brand. Designing your own photos, blog posts, reviews, or tips will keep your business page fresh and your customers engaged.
• Interesting facts: People share things that they want their friends to know. Interesting articles, tips, tricks, and other content are an easy way to end up in more peoples’ newsfeeds.
• A or B questions: Questions that require an easy answer help boost engagement. Use photos and ask your fans to vote on option A or option B. Always encourage them to share the post so their friends can vote too.

• Videos: Videos get a lot of attention on Facebook, and Facebook pushes them through into more newsfeeds and lets you play the video right there on the page, because the company doesn’t want people to leave Facebook and go to YouTube. Your videos should last 15–45 seconds. Post videos on your Business Page about your products, how to use them, and so on.

  Videos are also a great way to do your parties online (see the upcoming section “Hosting Facebook parties” for more). My daughter is a leader in the direct sales field, and for one of her Facebook parties in early 2014, she videotaped herself doing a home party. Not only did her guests love how interactive the online party was, it got a lot of attention from other potential customers and leads. Her bookings increased because of how fun she made a party look, and her recruiting increased because of how easy she made her job look. She still gets interest from the video, even to this day.

• Links to your website: Links to your website make for great calls-to-action. They give your fans somewhere to go after they’ve watched your videos and liked or commented on your posts. Posting links on Facebook also helps increase the SEO of those links on search engines like Google.
• Personal testimonies: Share what your customers think about you. Show off testimonials from past hosts and customers. When people know that other people love your product or service, they become more inclined to do business with you. You can also post statuses and photos where you ask fans to review your product by commenting on the status.
• Scheduling posts: Make your Facebook posts manageable. Pick an hour a week to decide what you are going to post to Facebook every day and schedule them on your Facebook page. This will allow you to keep a consistent flow of content on your business page.

Always ask for a call to engagement. You have to literally ask your fans to Like, Comment, or Share a post to get a post boosting action. For example, “Like this photo if you agree,” “Comment below with your answer,” or “Share with your friends and family!”

Likes, Comments, and Shares help get your content seen by your customers.

Using your personal Facebook account for personal branding

Using your personal account for professional networking is also a great way to grow your online presence and to spread the word about your business.

People used to talk about achieving a healthy work/life balance, but with the technology landscape changing, it makes it nearly impossible to leave work at work. We are in constant contact with those around us because of our mobile phones and on social media sites. So instead of trying to keep our personal and professional lives separate, more and more people are looking to integrate them.

When you are more candid and allow some of your personality to blend into your professional networking and conversations, you can gain likability, trust, and respect from your customers. People want to do business with people they want to be friends with, and you can use this style of attraction marketing to grow a loyal fan base.

When it comes to your personal brand, you want to show off the type of person your company makes you, not the products that you sell. Remember the 90/10 rule: 90 percent of your posts should be lifestyle-related, and only 10 percent about the product or opportunity.

People are often more drawn to the lifestyle and appeal of what your products give them. Women don’t want to buy cosmetics. They want to buy confidence, attractiveness, and self-esteem. It’s important that when you post on your personal page, you share the life your business has afforded you.

Don’t duplicate content on your personal Wall and your Business Page. Remember, your friends and family will most likely be on both. Instead, focus your personal Wall on how the business affects you personally and contributes to your lifestyle, and keep your Business Page more about the product and industry.

But what is your personal brand? Personal branding is the commitment you make to define yourself. Ask yourself these questions:

• What type of person am I?
• What type of leader am I?
• What type of friend, parent, or spouse am I?
• What words define me?
• What makes me great?
• What makes me unique?
• What makes me compelling?

By answering these questions, you make it easier to share your personal brand with others. In turn, when your customers understand who you are, it makes it easier for them to have a relationship with you.

Your personal brand is a great asset. It is how you represent yourself and how people identify you. But don’t confuse it with acting. You want your brand to be who you naturally are.

Here are some other things you can do to enhance your personal Facebook page:

• Update your occupation: In the Work and Education section of your About tab, update your occupation to your business. You can also link this to your Facebook Business Page.
• Protect your friends list: Your Facebook friends list is like your email newsletter list. You have the option in Settings to hide your friends list. Hiding protects your clients and stops other representatives from reaching out to your prospects and database.
• Celebrate moments: Did you achieve a new rank in your company? Earn an incentive or award? Celebrate it! Show your friends, family, and customers how much your company appreciates you as a salesperson. And when people see how successful you are, they start to wonder if they can do it too.
• Be Followed: This allows people to Follow your posts without your having to friend them or see their updates in your newsfeed. This is especially important if you run out of space on your friends list (Facebook currently limits you to 5,000 friends).
• Recognition: Give recognition to other people! Create conversations with people. Comment on their photos. Like their status updates. Private message them asking how their kitchen renovation is going. People want to feel noticed. And the more you interact with them, the more they will interact with you.
• Your “why” or “success” story: Share bits and parts of why you started your business to your friends, family, and customers on Facebook. Show your friends how your business has changed your life.
• Facebook lists: On the left-hand side of your home page, you have the option to create Facebook lists. Lists give you the opportunity to filter your customers and clients. Now instead of seeing status updates from everyone on your list, you can choose to see updates from just that group of people. Lists make it easier to like, comment, and share posts with the people who are most relevant to your business.

Hosting Facebook parties

Virtual Facebook parties are not meant to replace your home parties, but they can be a great option for booking parties as well as hosting parties with your friends and family who live far away.

Don’t overthink your Facebook and social media parties. Run your parties the exact way you would run a home party. It’s just on a different platform.

Building your audience on Twitter

If you don’t have followers reading your content, then your posts have no value. It is important to have a strong audience. Here are some helpful hints on building your audience:

• Have a plan. What is your message? What is your brand identity? How often will you post? What is your ultimate goal? If you never set a goal, you will never know if you have reached it. Having a plan and a clear sense of who you are on Twitter helps grow your audience.
• Be consistent. You have to put in the work and walk the walk. The only way to grow a presence is work. It will not happen overnight, so you need to commit right now to posting everyday.
• Be helpful. Always give before you ask for something. Show people that you are looking out for them, not for you. When people think that you genuinely care about them, that builds trust and loyalty — for you and your business.
• Find the people. Identify your target audience and find them. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Start conversations with potential customers and leads. Just make sure they’re authentic conversations. Don’t tweet them sales pitches.
• Use existing networks. Include your Twitter handle in your email signature and mention it in your other online marketing efforts (other social media platforms, email marketing, website, and so on).
• Talk the talk. Be relatable and use the lingo that your customers use. Positioning yourself as an expert shows them that they can trust what you offer.
• Respond to everyone. Respond to every reply and direct message you receive. Building solid relationships with people is important. And with our fast-paced culture, you need to move quickly and try to respond in real time.
• Participate in hashtag chats. Hashtag chats are scheduled chats on Twitter where you all connect using a hashtag. For example, say you sell food products and you want to do an online chat where people share their favorite pie recipes. You could start a hashtag, let’s say #PieTalk. You would encourage people to join the conversation and share their favorite pies by using the hashtag. This helps connect like-minded people in one area and gets you noticed.
• Promote others. Always lift up others in the community first and give recognition to your fans and team members. People love to be noticed and recognized, especially on social media. This will again help with getting you noticed and getting you loyal followers.
• Connect with stronger influencers. Always be looking for ways to cross-promote and tap into other people’s audiences. You want to look for the customers who will look up to you, but you also need to find who you are looking up to. Try to start conversations with them. If they reply or retweet you, that will get your Twitter handle in front of all of their followers. It’s also important to watch what strong influencers are doing, especially in your industry, so that you can see what works best for them and adopt it.

Hashtags everywhere

Hashtags are a great way to categorize your posts, photos, and videos into categories that are easily accessible to users. Originally created by users on Twitter, hashtags now work across almost every social media platform and are being integrated into large-scale marketing campaigns across industries. The power of hashtags is huge.

There are two main reasons for adding hashtags to your photos and implementing them into your business:

• Reaching more people. Adding hashtags to your photos is a great way to attract new followers and share your content with more people. By using popular and relevant hashtags, you can get your posts in front of more customers.
• Engaging more people. Encourage your fan base to use your company’s hashtags to categorize their own content. This will continue to build your brand awareness as well as find amazing customer reviews, testimonials, and photos for your business. For example, the hashtag #stelladot, for direct sales company Stella & Dot, has more than a million posts on Instagram alone!

Check out some of these other popular direct sales hashtags:

• #itworks, for Network Marketing company It Works, has over 1.6 million posts on Instagram.
• #jamberry, for direct sales company Jamberry, has over 340,000 posts on Instagram.
• #directsales has over 90,000 posts on Instagram.
• #MLM (multi-level marketing, also known as Network Marketing) has over 500,000 posts on Instagram.
• #networkmarketing has over 350,000 posts on Instagram.

Clearly hashtags are an important way to spread your message online. The next sections contain tips on how to use hashtags to grow your business.

Increasing visitors to your website

Unlike you, your customers will care more about your blog and your other social media sites than they care about your website. Because representative websites are created by the company whose products you represent, you have little to no control over what the website looks like, what it says, or what you can share with your customers. Having a blog gives you the content control that you lack otherwise.

On your blog, you will always want to have a Shop My Products tab that leads directly to your corporate website (check with your policies and procedures to make sure this is okay). If you continue to update your blog and share posts, it will increase your visibility on search engines like Google, and will ultimately drive more traffic to your company website (where you actually sell products and offer the business opportunity).

Increasing search engine visibility

Updating your blog with fresh content means you will be found more easily on search engines like Google and Yahoo!. And this is important when trying to beat out your competition.

Always use popular keywords in your articles that your customers are likely to search for. Remember, you’re not writing for yourself. The point is to serve interesting content to your clients. Using keywords, topics, and categories that your demographic is most interested in will help your blog be discovered.

Be consistent. Posting new content daily will help you find the customers you want.

Positioning yourself as an industry expert

When you share content that is interesting, engaging, and relevant to your demographic and customer base, you position yourself as someone who is knowledgeable and someone they can trust. The more you can show that you are knowledgeable in your industry, the more likely your consumers will trust you to supply what they need.

Don’t make your products the topic of your blog posts. Doing so will turn almost everybody off. Say, for example, you sell for a make-up company. Don’t write a blog post about your foundations. Instead, write a more general blog post about contouring and highlighting. Your customers are much more likely to search for make-up tips and tutorials rather than your particular product. If you supply them with information they want, they will continue to seek you out for advice. And of course, they will find your product tab on your website.

Creating customer relationships

Your blog will help you create deeper connections with your customers. It is important that your audience gets to know you as a person, because — and by now, I expect you can say it right along with me — people do business with people they know, like, and trust.

Large brands spend a lot of money trying to humanize their brand, whereas you come with that advantage built in. Show off who you are. Become a friend to your clients.

And just like on your other social media sites, your blog gives visitors the opportunity to comment. That allows you to respond and interact with your customers. One advantage blogs have over other social media is that your comments last longer than a tweet or a Facebook post and are more easily seen by everyone.

Selling through your blog

Whether you are selling online or in person, you need to forget the hard sell. The most important sales tactic you could ever master is authentically and actively engaging with your customers.

This industry really does enhance the lives of those involved, whether that be the income opportunity at the recruiting level, the social aspect at the host level, or the product benefits at the customer level. Sharing your personality and the benefits of your products is better and more profitable than directly selling to your customers.

Your primary goal should always be to build trust, likability, and credibility with your customers, as well as become a loyal and engaging community member. Once your customers come to know you as an expert and as someone they trust, you will never have to push your products on them, because they will be pushing themselves on your products.

Getting your blog noticed

The purpose of a blog is to get the word out there about your business and actually be seen by the people. And that means providing interesting content, not serving marketing material.

You want readers to “eat your content,” so to speak. This means you want your readers to consume what you say, share it with friends, and keep coming back for more.

Your content should always be solving a problem for the reader, sharing a great story, and cultivating a captivated audience.

Here are some helpful tips to getting your blog noticed:

• Be consistent with content. Decide what your brand is. Who do you want to be? How do you want to define yourself? If you know who you are, your customers know who you are. Determine what kind of content is most useful for your customers and deliver that. Is it tutorial videos? Recipes? Design tips?

  Whatever the content is, make sure it is interesting and worth sharing — otherwise, it won’t have any value for the reader. Then continue to deliver what you have committed to. It will make it easier for people to get to know you and to share who you are with friends.

• Use your social media. Include social media share buttons on your blog. This gives readers the opportunity to share your posts to Facebook, Twitter, and so on, as well as any photos used in your blog to Pinterest. Making your blog easy to share is very important.

  Also, any time you share a new blog post, be sure to share it on all your social media platforms as well.

• Use quality photos. People are drawn in by the way your blog looks at first glance. And again, you want your audience sharing your blog as much as possible, including pinning your images to Pinterest.
• Be SEO-friendly. What do your customers want to know? What are they searching for? Include those keywords in the title and body of your posts. The earlier into your post the keywords appear, the better your post will do on Google.
• Be friendly in general. Don’t let your posts sound like a stuffy press release. Be casual, with a friendly tone. Use contractions as much as possible and talk in the present tense. Write like you speak. This is important because you always want to appear relatable to your audience — like a cool, knowledgeable older sister.
• Be in the conversation. Talk. Talk a lot. Talk to everyone. Always respond to your readers’ comments, post comments on other blogs, and make relationships with other bloggers. The more you join the conversation and the community, the larger your presence will grow.

Don’t delete negative comments. If you delete them, the person will go post them somewhere else. And then you wouldn’t have the opportunity to change their mind. Be sure to always recover the situation and show your amazing customer service and personality. No one is perfect — not you and not our companies. But people will stay loyal to you, even through your mistakes, if you genuinely care about them and their experience.

Designing your own graphics and invites

• Red Stamp Cards (www.redstamp.com): Use Red Stamp to create invitations and announcements for everything from parties to special events. Click COLLECTIONS to see if your company offers pre-set templates. Red Stamp has limited font and text options, but with tons of templates, it’s easy to create something that can be shared via text, email, or on social media. You can also choose to send a postcard of your creation or a card with envelope for a small fee.
• Pic Collage (http://pic-collage.com): Use Pic Collage to create invitations, announcements, special event notices, specials, and product collages. You can choose to add images from your camera roll/photo gallery or add them from the web. Lots of editing options. Also great for adding text to an image or combining multiple images into one. Your creation can be shared via text, email, or on social media. Apple users can also choose to send a postcard for a small price.
• Canva (www.canva.com): Use Canva to create all sorts of images, especially for sharing on social media. You can choose from pre-set image sizes such as a social media post or Facebook cover or click on Custom to create an image of any size. Canva has thousands of layout ideas and images, and you can customize the images to fit your needs. Use it to edit or create images. Canva is free to use, and many images/layouts are free as well. Paid images cost $1 each, or you can purchase a package (such as 22 images for $20). Canva also walks you through a quick tutorial when you sign up.
• PicMonkey (www.picmonkey.com): PicMonkey is great for editing all types of images. Add text, resize an image, touch up a photo, add a border, create a photo collage, and more. You can also use it to create images. There is a free version of PicMonkey that includes tons of options, but some options are only available with a subscription. This subscription is currently $4.99 a month or $33 a year.
• Word Swag (http://wordswag.co): This $2.99 app lets you turn quotes or messages into amazing images that you can share on social media. Simply choose a background, add text, and then choose from tons of font styles that make your words come to life.

Organizing your material

• Evernote (https://evernote.com): The ultimate organizing tool for everything you want to save, share, and find. It syncs across all your devices and is perfect for staying organized on the go.

Keeping an eye on time management

• Wunderlist (www.wunderlist.com): The ultimate “to-do” list tool. Set tasks and reminders from your computer, phone, or tablet. You can create multiple lists, set priorities, get push notifications, and even share task lists with others.
• EasilyDo (www.easilydo.com): Easily Do is like a snapshot of upcoming events and random “things to know.” This intuitive app finds information from your email and other apps and uses it to help you keep important information in one place. It notifies you of upcoming flights and shipped packages, for example, and even allows you to schedule Facebook birthday posts without leaving the app.

Incorporating business services

• Flint (www.flint.com) and Square (http://squareup.com): Both of these apps are for credit card processing. If your company offers this to you for free, then you may not need apps like these. However, there may be a time when you want/need to collect payment with a debit or credit card, and these are two inexpensive options. Sign up for free online and then download the app so you’re prepared if needed.
• Quickbooks Online (http://quickbooks.intuit.com): Been hesitant to use Quickbooks because the software is expensive? Quickbooks Online is another option that allows you access to all the great Quickbooks features for a small monthly fee. Track business expenses and then give your accountant access to “view” your account so they can complete your taxes.
• Expensify (www.expensify.com): Helps you track business expenses, including mileage. Run reports and get your taxes done in a flash.
• MileIQ (https://www.mileiq.com): Automatically tracks your travel and allows you to designate trips as personal or business with one swipe. It’s the easiest way to track travel for business reimbursements and mileage deductions.