Facebook  – everyone is doing it! If you don’t already have a Facebook business page, now is the time to create one. The longer you hold out, the more catch up work you’ll have to do. Your competition is leveraging this powerful, ever-expanding social media platform, so if you aren’t involved, you are falling behind.

Mac And Cheese Marketing has pulled together some “How-To” basics to get you started with Facebook marketing. The process is actually quite simple and just requires some planning and time to post information. Here are six ways you can start to build your own Facebook community and strategically utilize this hot web marketing tool.

Optimize Your Profile. To get started, you’ll need a personal profile on Facebook before you can create a business page. You don’t have to share a lot of personal information in your profile, but keep in mind this is another way to feed traffic to your business page. If you let a marketer or a “web-savvy” friend or relative create your page for you, beware that your profile and page may not be linked together.  Ideally, your “job” at the top of your personal profile links to your business page.

Build Your Community. After you create your business page, you’ll need people to “Like” it. The first step is to send out invitations to friends, family and customers you find on Facebook. To build your community further, offer customers an incentive only available via your Facebook page. This can draw additional traffic and encourage more people to “Like” you. The more “likes” the more marketing power you have.

Know Where to Get Content. In addition to news about your store, new items and sales, you’ll want to post local news items on your business page to keep your community interested and engaged.  Your local Patch.com is a source great for local news stories. Search YouTube for local interest videos, where you’ll often find videos created by the town newspaper(s).

Have a Schedule. Nothing is more snooze-worthy than old, stale content.  Develop a schedule for updating your Facebook page. Independent jewelers should identify the holidays best for generating sale. Invest time in determining the topics and content you want to post within the 2 to 4 week period prior to the holiday. End of year is not the only holiday time—remember Valentine’s Day, Mother’s/Father’s Day, all those summer anniversaries, and of course graduation.

Create an Event. Creating an event on Facebook and inviting fans is another chance to engage with your customers. Even if you don’t hold store-wide sales, you can still create an event on Facebook.  Holidays, trunk shows, and new inventory are great reasons to send out an event invite. But don’t limit yourself… try a demonstration day or an appraisal afternoon.

Integrate Facebook with Print Marketing.  Everyone needs a reminder even if it’s to “like” your business page on Facebook or post a review after a purchase.  That’s why we recommend your printed materials also have reminders of your Facebook presence.  It can be as simple as the Facebook “F” icon on your bags, or a QR digital link on your business card (those squares that look like collection of black and white dots), or a link on promotional postcards. Promote Facebook so that you can build your connection to customers and stay top-of-mind.

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