A resale shopkeeper posted something on a private Facebook page that I thought intriguing. So I wanted to “find her [business page] on Facebook.” Guess what? It took me 5 tries to actually find her shop on Facebook… because FB’s search tool is not the world’s most stunning example of utility.
“Find us on Facebook” is an alliterative phrase, it’s not all you need!
Sure, you can SAY and PUBLISH “Find us on Facebook” all you want… but will they? Unless you make it easy, most Internet users won’t. Maybe they don’t know how to search Facebook. Maybe they don’t even know how to Google. And few casual users will try five times, like I did, to make contact.
Lesson: Use your Facebook URL.*
To find your Facebook URL,
- sign in to Facebook
- Go to your business page. Not the news feed page, but the one with your pretty cover image on it, the page where new folks can “like” you. Look in your browser’s window for the address, the URL, that this page has. Like this: https://www.facebook.com/2Good2BThrew?ref=hl
- To clean up your URL, note that the ending of that URL (in my example, the “?ref=hl”) is simply a tracking memo, and isn’t necessary. It’s usually the question mark and anything that follows. To test, try deleting that section in your browser window and reloading the page. If you see no change, the short version is what you want. Example is the web address, the URL, of TGtbT’s Facebook page.
So now you can give potential clients your actual Facebook URL, and not risk losing their attention and enthusiasm by having them have to mess around finding you.
Much better, huh?
.
* Something else I have realized: Not everyone (maybe you?) knows what a URL is (or will Google it to find out.) A URL, which stands for “Uniform (or universal) resource locator” is the address of a World Wide Web page. Example: The URL of my Too Good to be Threw web page is http://TGtbT.com. Actually, that URL will take you to my home page. URLs vary by the page, so, for example, my Products shopping page on TGtbT.com is http://TGtbT.com/shop.htm.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Recycled-Sallys-Maternity-and-Kids-Consignment/113435572035844
This is mine. Not going to tell people that whole string of nonsense. Good thing there aren’t many similar pages to mine.
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Wow, that is a mouthful, isn’t it? Luckily, you have a much simpler option. “To participate in our FB fan page, just go to our web site [luckily yours is simplicity itself!] and connect with us from there!”
And if you google “shorten your fb fan page url” you’ll find all sorts of suggestions on how to get a “better” URL. It’s much simpler now than it was even a year or two ago. Let us know if you succeed!
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recycledsallys, you can pick a much shorted address for your facebook from your tools option on facebook, they only let you do it once I think….
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5 times? Impressive. That is 4 more times than me. There are soooo many great people there that I would love to emmulate and/or get ideas from, but at least 50% of them I can’t find their store FB page.
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Exactly, Beth! “Regular” folks, that is, a shop’s target market, are NOT going to persist like I did. Heck, even you, who’s looking for ideas that will MAKE MONEY rather than that ‘”normal” person who’s curious about a resale, consignment, or thrift shop to SPEND MONEY at, are not motivated enough to search and search.
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