Question: Is Building Facebook Fanpages Over-Hyped?

13 years ago

Hi Mike

I have actually found the opposite and that business owners are very receptive to the idea of a Facebook fanpage and how they can use them in their business.

I even had a client in the bar/restaurant trade ask me was it worth him still keeping his website as he now contacted most of his customer base via Facebook!

Business owners seem to be coming more aware of using Facebook as marketing tool. In radio and TV ads so many companies are now not promoting their website anymore but directing traffic directly to their Facebook page. The reason for this is obvious...the ability to connect directly and instantly with their audience.

We usually set up pages with businesses that offer a discount voucher or coupon for their product or service. They can then use this in their other marketing..."like us on facebook and a receive 10% off voucher" etc

As with all services that your present to offline businesses be sure to stress the benefits to them and how using Facebook and your services will bring them more customers and increased profits...that is what is important to them.

Thanks

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Frankie B Frank

13 years ago

We also find them very receptive, however they are not looking for much functionality - just branding and a "call to like" is usually all they want.

TBH I feel this is the best "budget" offering, especially with FB removing the top tab navigation.

Consistent business branding should be applied to all network under which the business operates (where possible) imo. Otherwise its like having a shop with no signage or a business card with no logo/company colors.

Thanks

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Danielm

13 years ago

I think if you explain it to them as "like a 2nd webpage!" then they won't see the point. I'm not saying you are doing this but I tried to explain them to someone who is totally technically / internet clueless and they weren't even sure of the differences between that and email.

I broke it all down, what is social media, why is it important, customer interaction / communication, etc. At the end they were excited and I have a new client but if I just said "its' Facebook! Everyone is on there, make a pretty page!" he would have stared at me confused.

Thanks
1 reply

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mak25

13 years ago

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

@Mark - The one Facebook website I did had more on there than they
have on their 'regular' website. And they have a fanpage already, just a
wall & info. We discussed how the 'big boys' are sending their viewers
to their Facebook page instead of their website. But still, no cigar. Next.

@spiderhouse - I agree. I think this is a good door opener. You say 'budget
offering'. Maybe that's my problem? What do you think is a good price point for a
4 page website on Facebook? $97 $197 $297? I would be curious to know what
folks are offering these for.

@Danielm - You're right. I don't offer these as a '2nd website'. Like you say, we talk
about customer interaction etc., how people search Facebook for local businesses.
It just seems that they see no added benefit for having a website on Facebook.
Any thoughts on that?

Thanks
Mike

Thanks
1 reply

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Danielm

13 years ago

Originally Posted by mak25

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

@Danielm - You're right. I don't offer these as a '2nd website'. Like you say, we talk
about customer interaction etc., how people search Facebook for local businesses.
It just seems that they see no added benefit for having a website on Facebook.
Any thoughts on that?

Thanks
Mike

I guess it just depends on their mentality towards their business. I talked to my dad about setting up some different things for his nonprofit and he said... wait, we have to interact with everyone? Oh Daniel, I barely have time to get our regular stuff done, I can't even imagine checking every day and being tied to yet another task I have to complete.

Thanks

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Steve Wise

13 years ago

In reply to the OP I think they're overhyped. The key to them just like a website is traffic and none of the WSO's out there that I've seen appear to cover this vital aspect. It's all to do with how great they look, click the like button to reveal a special offer, custom templates etc.

Thanks

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Hugh

13 years ago

"Benefits! Not features."

Hugh

Thanks

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Sondor

13 years ago

The issue with so many business owners is they think they can have a FB page and once it's in place that's all that's required.

Not the case...

Unfortunately, many of us perpetuate that myth in order to close the sale.

It's similiar to how so many business owners in the late 90's jumped on the website bandwagon thinking it was a magic bullet. Soon they found that their website did very little for them.

Enter SEO and conversion tracking.

The successful businesses who use FB and Twitter as a tool are constantly engaging and interacting with their community of fans.

Selling a FB page w/o the business owner understanding their requirement to nurture it, or w/o paying somebody (/cough...) for social media community moderation and engagement is like... Selling a sailboat with no sail.

Prediction: Social media community moderation and engagement will be the new 'seo'. Some businesses will 'get' that it's the key to making their FB pages a success. Others will eventually follow.

Ok, I'm sure somebody has a better analogy than the sailboat one, but you get the idea

Thanks
2 replies

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IMguy123

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Sondor

The issue with so many business owners is they think they can have a FB page and once it's in place that's all that's required.

Not the case...

Unfortunately, many of us perpetuate that myth in order to close the sale.

It's similiar to how so many business owners in the late 90's jumped on the website bandwagon thinking it was a magic bullet. Soon they found that their website did very little for them.

Enter SEO and conversion tracking.

The successful businesses who use FB and Twitter as a tool are constantly engaging and interacting with their community of fans.

Selling a FB page w/o the business owner understanding their requirement to nurture it, or w/o paying somebody (/cough...) for social media community moderation and engagement is like... Selling a sailboat with no sail.

Prediction: Social media community moderation and engagement will be the new 'seo'. Some businesses will 'get' that it's the key to making their FB pages a success. Others will eventually follow.

Ok, I'm sure somebody has a better analogy than the sailboat one, but you get the idea

Agreed...along with the fanpage the client should get a how-to manual because most have no clue what to do with it after they have it.

Thanks
1 reply

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Swys14 13 years ago

short answer...no

FB's viral potential is massive.
- Thanks
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Brealistic

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Sondor

The issue with so many business owners is they think they can have a FB page and once it's in place that's all that's required.

Not the case...

Unfortunately, many of us perpetuate that myth in order to close the sale.

It's similiar to how so many business owners in the late 90's jumped on the website bandwagon thinking it was a magic bullet. Soon they found that their website did very little for them.

Enter SEO and conversion tracking.

The successful businesses who use FB and Twitter as a tool are constantly engaging and interacting with their community of fans.

Selling a FB page w/o the business owner understanding their requirement to nurture it, or w/o paying somebody (/cough...) for social media community moderation and engagement is like... Selling a sailboat with no sail.

Prediction: Social media community moderation and engagement will be the new 'seo'. Some businesses will 'get' that it's the key to making their FB pages a success. Others will eventually follow.

Ok, I'm sure somebody has a better analogy than the sailboat one, but you get the idea

There ya go.

Any business who is serious NEEDS a facebook fanpage.

As Sondor said, the objective is to get your customers, "fans" to engage, connect with your business if you will.

If you think of a fanpage as just another website you will be missing the point.

There are too many benefits to have a fanpage vs not to(can't think of one)

The analytics facebook provides is simply priceless for starters. It blow google analytics out of the water. On a side note Google is in trouble. SELL your stock! LOL

The customer feedback is priceless as well

The viral nature, friends of friends of friends etc.

The key is to come up with a strategy to make your customers engage.

Here is a goog article by mashable to start you off with:

mashable.com/2011/04/02/5-facebook-marketing-mistakes-small-businesses-make/

(can't post links yet)

Thanks

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Mercury Labs

13 years ago

For me fan pages are great offline bussiness i speak to love the idea of having fans that they can send there offers to anytime, great for upselling to them such as viral ad ons and getting them fans etc.

Thanks
1 reply

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jasjotbains

13 years ago

Facebook fan-pages may be over-hyped in some cases,but we must understand that sometimes they can be very useful in the present day fast paced life to keep up with the latest developments.

Taking a small example,I liked this page where a guy was promoting his website,plus putting up videos of the latest Smackdown and Raw (WWE) shows.Not only does that help in me catching up on the latest action,it also helps him/her to promote their stuff.Win-win for both sides isnt it ?

Thanks
1 reply

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isbcsaurabh

13 years ago

Originally Posted by jasjotbains

Facebook fan-pages may be over-hyped in some cases,but we must understand that sometimes they can be very useful in the present day fast paced life to keep up with the latest developments.

Taking a small example,I liked this page where a guy was promoting his website,plus putting up videos of the latest Smackdown and Raw (WWE) shows.Not only does that help in me catching up on the latest action,it also helps him/her to promote their stuff.Win-win for both sides isnt it ?

Agreeing with jasjotbains, providing a right kind of mix to prospective customers like one mentioned here, can be beneficial for businesses.

Thanks

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scarab

13 years ago

Facebook in general is 'over hyped' IMHO. However most people go gaga over it. Personally I haven't delved into it much because of time constraints, I have enough irons in the fire. Maybe I can can get another 8 hours added to each day.

Thanks

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Danny Turner

13 years ago

Re: Question: Is Building Facebook Fanpages Over-Hyped?
short answer...Yes

Thanks
1 reply

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Bennette

13 years ago

Building the page is only the beginning.

The key to making money with the page is the relationship building and providing value to your current customers and potential prospects.

Get that right and having a Fan Page is one of the best Free tools you can use to grow a business today.

Thanks
1 reply

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mak25

13 years ago

Hey everyone - Thanks for some very interesting answers. Most seem to be on the useage of FB fanpages, with some great insight. But not much on the benefits of having a multi-page website as their default FB fanpage.

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by Bennette

Building the page is only the beginning.

The key to making money with the page is the relationship building and providing value to your current customers and potential prospects.

Get that right and having a Fan Page is one of the best Free tools you can use to grow a business today.

I agree with you Bennette. Is that something we should provide? How would we do that for them? Or do we just instruct them on the value of doing that?

Originally Posted by Danny Turner

Re: Question: Is Building Facebook Fanpages Over-Hyped?
short answer...Yes

OK. How about the 'long answer'?

I understand those who have the opinion FB is over-hyped. Everywhere you turn it's FB this, FB that, check us out on FB. It's certainly reached a fever pitch. But that's the whole point. That makes it just that much easier to talk about it with the local's. They ALL know about it. And it does have it's use. It's right now. It's been right now, and will be 'right now' for the foreseeable future. Why not capitalize on it?

I agree, for me anyway, it's a good door-opener to get started in offline. But I'm not sure at what price point?

My question is: Can anyone offering custom built FB fanpages for businesses chime in on how things are going for you? Would you mind sharing?

As with myself, I think others would benefit too from your experience.

Thanks
Mike

Thanks
1 reply

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mak25

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Sondor

The issue with so many business owners is they think they can have a FB page and once it's in place that's all that's required.

Not the case...

Unfortunately, many of us perpetuate that myth in order to close the sale.

It's similiar to how so many business owners in the late 90's jumped on the website bandwagon thinking it was a magic bullet. Soon they found that their website did very little for them.

Enter SEO and conversion tracking.

The successful businesses who use FB and Twitter as a tool are constantly engaging and interacting with their community of fans.

Selling a FB page w/o the business owner understanding their requirement to nurture it, or w/o paying somebody (/cough...) for social media community moderation and engagement is like... Selling a sailboat with no sail.

Prediction: Social media community moderation and engagement will be the new 'seo'. Some businesses will 'get' that it's the key to making their FB pages a success. Others will eventually follow.

Ok, I'm sure somebody has a better analogy than the sailboat one, but you get the idea

I agree Sondor. This something I was referring to in my last post, and am totally in the dark about.

Could you elaborate on that? What exactly is done to perfrom 'Social media community moderation and engagement'?

Thanks
Mike

Thanks
2 replies

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Bennette 13 years ago

Mak25,

There are a couple ways to do that.

1. If you're talking to them you would have to explain why they need a page, kinda like what you're asking now. You would talk to them about the why and benefits it will add to their business. Then you set it up and train them how to use it.

2. You would manage it for them providing the strategy that you recommend based on their goals that they want to achieve.
- Thanks
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Sondor

13 years ago

Originally Posted by mak25

I agree Sondor. This something I was referring to in my last post, and am totally in the dark about.

Could you elaborate on that? What exactly is done to perfrom 'Social media community moderation and engagement'?

Thanks
Mike

Hi Mike,

Sure, in a nutshell,

Moderation -

Presenting a warm and friendly yet authoritative demeanor at all times
Forwarding complaints to the company and actively following up with their resolution

Engagement -

Follow the 80/20 rule. Post 80 percent content that is interesting to the list and sell 20% of the time
An example of content is, say your managing a forumn for a pizza joint. You find (how to follow industry trends and news for those you support is another topic) there's a great story on regional differences in pizza crust in Italy. Post it. Get a conversation going about that post.

Provide analytics showing your client the penetration of social media. Track those Tweets and monitor your 'brand' mentions for Twitter. For FB, demonstrate the 'free' advertising from fans news feeds etc...

Essentially, you are providing social media monitoring, analytics, and CRM while also building their lists through working with them to drive customers to their social presences and engaging them once they are there.

Thanks

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jmbare

13 years ago

Originally Posted by mak25

I have a question for all warriors selling Facebook Fanpage Iframe websites
to local businesses for their fanpages.

Are Facebook Fanpages over-hyped?

Seriously. I'm sure I'm like some of you who bought some of the really great WSO's
pertaining to building these fanpages, the templates, the plug-ins, etc.

No complaints there. Great stuff indeed.

I built several of them for local businesses. Went and showed them what I did, and what their fanpage could look like.

They were all very under-whelmed.

Now these fanpages are very nice IMO, and they agreed with that, but they seemed
to think 'Why do we need that? We already have a website.'

Or they just plain didn't think it was a necessary thing to have. At any price.

So I got to wondering if others are having the same dilemma that I am?

How are you doing with selling these to local businesses?
Is it just my area? Or niche?

I chose restaurants with their menu, specials, coupons on their 4 tab fanpage with
header, banner, etc.

Anyone care to share? I'm a little dismayed at the intial responses.

I plan to keep-on-trucking, but some feedback from fellow warriors would certainly help.

Thanks
Mike

Hey Mike,

Are these businesses aware of today's technology. I've ran into the issue where I pre-built a fan page for a business that has not come to the Social Media stage and did not want the FB page because of the excuse, "I'll never join facebook" or "Whats facebook?".

You could explain to your customers how facebook is taking over the internet. Do a google search of another local company and I guarantee if they have a facebook page it will be in the top 5 search results. Also, explain how many users are on facebook and the future potential. If you have any previous successful clients, show them their page and tell the story how it has benefited them.

Best wishes,

Jered

Thanks

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jcbradley

13 years ago

Good topic here as i am also on a facebook info gathering of late. I also like to know if anyone out there is actually doing well with sellling fan pages. it "appears" to be an easy sell but im wondering if anyone is doing it on a large scale with sales people.

thanks,

chris

Thanks

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Extreme Social Media

13 years ago

Facebook Fanpages are priceless and worth their wait in gold. Education is critical which will allow the local business owner to make a sound business decision regarding the use of a fanpage.

If your still having this type of challenge please PM me and I can send you what I use to break the ice.

Good Luck!!

James

Thanks

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Question: Is Building Facebook Fanpages Over-Hyped?

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