Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 255 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love you to take a screen shot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/255

Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? My guest was Peita D and her insights into having an Ideas Vault and your imagination capital were fabulous. Head back there if you didn’t get a chance to listen in already- click here to listen to ep 254 – www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/254

But before I get started, I wanted to give a shout out to this week’s podcast sponsor SellerDash.  Sellerdash develops high quality ecommerce apps and modules to boost profit, increase conversion and save you time.  With over 20 years of experience solving real world problems for ecommerce retailers, their speciality is in the freight and shipping space.  If you are in the e-comm space, then check out Sellerdash and how they might be able to streamline your business to save time and make more money! Check them out at www.sellerdash.io

And just finally before I get chatting to you about Facebook and all its goodness – I just wanted to tell you about my 4 week email marketing masterclass that’s happening in September. If email marketing is something that’s been on your list to learn and develop in your business – then this 4 week program could be just right for you! Take a look here: https://bit.ly/EmailMasterclasswithJenn

I was scrolling on Facebook the other day and I came across a post in a Facebook group that asked for tips and tricks on how to grow your Facebook presence “these days”.  It was a really interesting post (clearly because I am making a podcast episode about it now!) but interesting also because I think a lot of us small business owners have given up on Facebook for business.  We think our target audience isn’t there, we think Facebook is dead and we don’t pay much attention to it.  But the reality is probably quite different.  If this is you, you think Facebook is a waste of space or marketing collateral, I would encourage you to go to your google analytics and have a look at where your traffic is REALLY coming from.  Is it really Instagram or LinkedIn or your emails as you might think – or is Facebook in your top 3?

That’s your homework for the week – oh and coming back to me and letting me know what you found.

But let’s just suppose that you are keen to find out some ways to grow your Facebook business presence still.  Here’s a mixture of tips that were from this Facebook post that I mentioned above and some of my own.  Can I just say I did make a whoopie in that I wrote down some responses, but not the people’s names – so I do apologise for that.  Next time I will do better.

1. Daily engaging content. Weekly lives.  Focus on Growth, engagement and lead generation – this one was from a poster and I liked it a lot.  Makes great strategic sense.
2. Respond to every comment. Engage with your audience.
3. Go Live – this person was after my heart!
4. Make content that’s educational, fun and entertaining.
5. Start your Email list now – if you don’t have a place to give them the next step – they are lost opportunities. Obviously, I love this one!
6. Get into small groups and promote yourself once a week on the designated “promotion” days – create a lead magnet and share that. It is slow but it does bring in good quality leads.
7. Use your profile to grow first. This is interesting, by profile they meant your personal Facebook.  I have to say it is a growing trend I am seeing more and more of.  I’m open to it – how about you?
8. Run Facebook ads to your page and then invite them into your Facebook group.
9. Go like other pages that are in your target audience or good collaborators that might have your audience but aren’t your competition. I would call this my Hansel and Gretel strategy – sprinkle your breadcrumbs everywhere!
10. You will be surprised – keep creating content. People are watching – just not liking and commenting.  This is great advice and something I think more people need to be aware of.  Think of how you use social media – do you like and comment much? Probably not. So this is going to be true of your audience too.
11. Don’t oversell. Good advice.
12. If you have a group – don’t forget to tell people you have one on other platforms and invite them to connect.
13. Never give up. Best advice.

So what would I add to that? Probably these tips:

1. Tell more stories. People will do business with people they know, like and trust and telling stories is the best way to do that.  Stories about how you got into business, stories about what you did on the weekend, stories about why sustainability is important to you, stories about how you hate people with powerful driving lights because they blind you at night as they come over the hills (or maybe that’s just me!).  Tell more stories.
2. Make some interactive content with polls and quizzes.
3. Change out your Facebook cover photo – make it amazing and ensure it has a call to action – eg/ lead magnet or something like that.
4. Give some behind the scenes content – refer to my point 1 as to why – know like and trust.
5. Get strategic at getting your customers to help you market your business using UGC content – user-generated content.
6. Showcase and highlight followers and clients – like a “Fan of the Week” or something like that. Be generous.
7. AMA – ask me anything posts – again be generous with your time and responses.
8. Collaborations and Partnerships

But the most important thing, for me and what I would like you to do as well is to produce high quality, engaging content and use social media, such as Facebook, to get people off Facebook with an amazing lead magnet that they are prepared to give up their email address for.

So, those are some tips for growing your Facebook in 2023 and beyond. Nothing earth shattering but before you brush them aside and think, well I have tried them, I would nudge you and say, have you? Have you really tried them all?  Have you consistently gone live giving value or doing an ask me anything live? Have you consistently shown up week after week giving value in Facebook groups full of your ideal clients or customers – as well as “selling” on the days you are allowed to?

Consider this episode your nudge.

If you have one that I have missed, let me know. Join me and join in the fun in my Facebook group Like Minded Business Owners https://www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners – love to hear from you over there.

So, that’s it for episode 255. If you loved this episode and found it valuable, please take 30 seconds out of your day to leave me a rating and review if you want where you are listening.  One more goal of mine is to reach more people with this podcast, and you can help me achieve that, by leaving me a review!  Thanks in advance.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 256!

Thanks again to Sellerdash for sponsoring today’s episode.  If you are in e-commerce or have a business friend who is, go back out www.sellerdash.io – besides listening to this podcast, it could be the best thing you do today for your business!

Don’t forget to check out the deet on my email marketing masterclass https://bit.ly/EmailMasterclasswithJenn

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!