Fabulous Outburst By Rep Weiner
Thank you, Leah Jones for finding this nugget.
Why Facebook Shouldn't Be Your Only Digital Strategy
It's hard to pass up. 500+ million people all over the world are using Facebook. They are uploading photos, commenting on status messages, playing games, exchanging solid information and telling their friends and family, 'I'll Facebook you'. The suite of tools, along with add-ons available to any sized business is an efficiency lover's dream. I use Facebook daily. I provide ideas for how businesses can use Facebook. I also continue to help the 'little guy' navigate through how Facebook can help their enterprise. I firmly believe that Facebook is a valuable tool for communication, marketing and lead generation.
What amazes me, however, is the amount of effort that businesses put into Facebook versus their own sites. Your website is your entrance into the web. It's your home page. Your front door. Even if your small business doesn't have the bandwidth to support a full, content rich website, you owe it to your customers to have a place where they can find you. Facebook should be a complement to the digital marketing you already do - not the only thing you do. In the last month, I've received questions from local business owners around the topic of Facebook. A good majority of them choose not to have a website, but instead, create a Facebook page.
At any given moment, Facebook has the right to change any portion of its terms and conditions. This means that Facebook page owners must adhere to them immediately, else run the risk of being flagged, losing their content or, perhaps, customers. Part of what we do as practitioners is to ensure our partners, clients and friends are kept abreast of those immediate changes. Now imagine the bakery next door to your house.
The owner of the bakery may decide that, given the limited time she has, that Facebook will be the main source of her marketing activities. With the ability to reach out to customers in her neighborhood, why have a website? The owner spends a Saturday afternoon creating a page, adding in key business elements and asking neighbors to 'Like' the bakery. After one month, the bakery reaches 1,400 likes. Not too bad for a niche local business! Daily specials are mentioned, new products are introduced and thank yous abound. 'Likers' start coming into the bakery and saying, 'Hey, I love your page. I asked a question on your wall. I also come in about twice a month'. The owner starts to wonder, 'Is there a way I can use Facebook to keep track of this person?' Not exactly.
Facebook doesn't have the ability to export all of the 'likers' of your page. Of course, the owner can manually copy and paste the names of the likers into a database, but that's not efficient. Had the bakery owner created a website using a simple blog template, they could easily have set up a database with their customers' email address (yes, I'm sure you can do this via a Facebook app, too) . The owner could even set up profiles for each customer, enabling a customized login for, say, cupcake lovers. A customer could visit the bakery website, login to their profile, check out this week's flavor and share this information with their Facebook friends, via Facebook connect. The bakery owner now has a solid log file of who visited, how long the customer stayed on the site and ultimately, see if their customer shared content on Facebook. Add in a system for taking pick-up orders and the owner just created a 360 degree ROI model.
Should you use Facebook for marketing your business? Yes.
Should Facebook be the ONLY thing you use? No. Your website is the front door. Facebook is the tool shed or coach house.
How a Copy Machine Really Works
Kudos to Brian for finding this terrific video from The Engineer Guy. Deconstructing a copy machine and the breakdown of how copies are made.
Blog Break
I've been on a mini break of sorts with my writing and overall local observations. Look for this to kick back in high gear soon. Along with the job openings.
