Facebook, a Jaunty Jackalope, and Small Business Success

Aug 13, 2012

Facebook, a Jaunty Jackalope, and Small Business Success

This week, one of the bosses at Verticalwerks has headed out of town for some well-deserved R&R. In order to prepare for his absence, we had a meeting last week where we eventually asked him where he was headed for vacation.

He tried to hide his destination from us, but we badgered him until he told us, to which a colleague replied, “Ah, jackalope country.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I had never heard of a jackalope. After they mocked me soundly – and with much giggling – I found the photo on the left of what I like to call The Jaunty Jackalope and promptly displayed it on the Verticalwerks Facebook Business page.

Isn’t a Jaunty Jackalope Inappropriate for a Facebook Business Page?

Verticalwerks is all about helping small business grow through creative vision mixed with technical expertise and just a little bit of magical fairy dust (we can’t tell you where we get it). Does this mean that The Jaunty Jackalope is inappropriate for our Facebook business page?

Absolutely not.

In fact, it is more than appropriate for this particular social media outlet.

The Purpose of Facebook (Hint: It’s Not Self-Promotion)

We’ve gotten a few questions over the last month or so regarding how we post to the Facebook business pages of our clients, which is a service we offer for a couple of reasons.

First, posting on a Facebook business page helps your brand create and maintain an online presence, which takes time to build.

Second, posting on a Facebook business page helps your brand reach a segment of the population not otherwise connected to your small business.

Last – and MOST IMPORTANT – posting on a Facebook business page allows you to build relationships and engage current and prospective customers.

To be totally honest, these people do not care about your business. The saying by John C. Maxwell reminds us that, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Even though Facebook is online and it seems counter-intuitive to use your Facebook posts to show people you care, that is exactly what you’re doing.

How do you show you care? Post about things other than your business. Include articles and photos from other sources that you find funny or interesting. Post about broader topics that people are interested in – for example, if you’re a dentist, post about a wide range of health and fitness articles to hold people’s interest and not just about dentistry. If you have a pizza restaurant, post photos of unusual and delicious foods and not just pizza.

Facebook business posts are about reaching people, not just about promoting your small business. I know this seems weird, but it’s true.

The Circle of SEO Life

One client remarked that the posts we were making to his Facebook business page were outside the scope of his small business, which was partly true. However, there is a method to our relative madness that directly relates to the Search Engine Optimization essential to building an online presence for any small business.

The graphic below represents a very simplified view of how different elements can be used in order to help a small business gain relevance with search engines in order to be found and experience growth:

 Search Engine Optimization for the growth of a small business is definitely a circle of life (albeit quite different from the one referenced in The Lion King), and all elements work together.

  • First, we start with a well-designed website (if you don’t have a website, stop reading and call us immediately).
  • Second, we place optimized content on our clients’ behalf on their blogs as well as relevant, third-party websites.
  • Third, we post all of the content onto social media outlets, which only helps the relevance of the website and social media outlets with the search engines.
  • And last but not least, these actions lead people and search engines to the website.
As I pointed out earlier, this is a very simplified cycle, and because technology changes all of the time, our plans of action change all of the time. This is what makes us good at what we do.
Along with a little fairy dust…

 

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