Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Continuing our week-long series on The Internet: It’s free, but do you get FULL VALUE? with the top 3 points to review about using Facebook

1- You’re you… you’re not you.

Separate your personal messages about your pets, your political or religious views, and so on, from messages you would like to send to potential suppliers and customers. If people want to follow messages from you and from your business, that’s their choice. Just don’t mix up your two personas: Personal vs. professional.

Understand the difference between Profiles, Pages, and all that. (Hint: Don’t click on the questions here, simply scroll down for the answers.)

2- Maximize your time, and your value to those who visit.

Give maximum value to your page. An excellent way to do this is to utilize the 5 graphics that show up on your page as “billboards” for your business. Take a look how UPproach does this. What does your page look like when others visit it? Click on “Profile” when you’re on FB and see.  6 Essentials for a business FB page.

3- Understand that you’re preaching to the choir.

Consignment, resale, and thrift shopkeepers have embraced Facebook in a big way, and that’s great. But do not rely solely upon your friends, fans, or followers to promote your business to their friends and thus build your shop’s visibility. To get your message out to your community, not only must you have a web site and blog, but offline advertising remains a must if you wish to continue to grab your market share. Spending all your effort on your Facebook page(s) could sidetrack you from properly promoting your business to new and exciting clients.  Here’s some expert advise about your online presence: Facebook is not the house. And Your presence on Facebook may lull you into a false sense of security, making you believe you are more engaged with your community than you actually are. And offline, where (hopefully!) most of your future clientele spends its time? Direct mail, postcards, signage, even newspaper ads and billboards must remain a healthy part of your marketing efforts.

You might like:

• How your resale shop can use Facebook Places.
• Ask questions on Facebook to get them involved
• Gimme some more FACE….
• Spring into Spring with a Facebook album.

Bonus tip:

Keep your FB apps cleaned up. For example, take a look at this explanation Dean Casey of thecomputerpeeps.com offered for something that happened to my personal page.

Later in this series, we’ll discuss Twitter, so stay tuned!

Add your 2-cents’ worth

This is just the 5-minute fix to getting more out of the way you use Facebook. There’s lots more to learn, and perhaps you think I’ve left out something vital. Comment below to add what you’d include in this list!