There’s little doubt in our minds about the biggest trend online this year; it has to be social media marketing and in particular Facebook. Social media has taken off for businesses in a big way and there are now web consultants specialising just in this area. If you are in two minds about social media due to a lack of knowledge about how it all works, just jump right in and give it a go.
Social media is one of those things that you won’t really ‘get’ until you actually start doing it. Once you do, you’ll quickly realise just how important it is going to become. There are now 1,132,600 New Zealanders on Facebook over the age of 18. You can reach these people in three ways: you can create a Facebook group, a Facebook page, or advertise. That’s a lot of potential! With advertising you can target specific ages, interests or relationship statuses. As an example, there are currently 40,000 New Zealanders on Facebook who have a relationship status ‘engaged’. That’s a ‘no-brainer’ marketing tactic if that’s your target audience.
So here’s how you get started with Facebook and import an RSS Feed from your blog
- Go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages
- Click the ‘Create a Page’ button
- Select your business category from the drop down box
- Give your page a name
- Tick ‘do not make this page visible’ (keep it private while you are building it)
- Now login to your Facebook account, or create a Facebook account if you don’t have one
- If you are on Twitter you can link your page to Twitter
- Change the page picture (it could be your business logo)
- Write a description about your page
- Click on ‘Edit Page’ under your photo spot
- Under ‘Notes’ click ‘edit’
- On the right hand side look for ‘import a blog’
- Paste your blog feed url into the url box – for example it will be http://www.yourwebsite.co.nz/feed/ (if you use WordPress)
- Click ‘Start Importing’
- Confirm the import by clicking on the ‘Confirm Import’ button
- That’s it! Once you are ready for the page to go live go back to your settings and publish the page, then make sure you become a fan of your page (so your network will see this)
- Next add a Facebook logo ‘badge’ and a link to your page on your website
- Now all you need to do is keep adding new content to your blog (which will automatically update your Facebook page) and supplement this with direct comments to your Facebook page.
- Then sit back and watch your network grow!
If you get stuck or need some guidance, the team at TML Web Design can set up your page for you, import your RSS feed, add your images and publish your page. Just give us a call on 03 366 3340 or email info@tmlwebdesign.co.nz.
