Candeo Creative and 44° North put on our monthly Social Hub on Thursday, March 14. Social Hub is a social media support group where local business owners can gather at the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce and talk about the subject matter at hand. This month the topic of discussion was Facebook.
Facebook is the most used social media platform around the world, so there are bound to be questions and concerns about it. One topic that was brought up was how to run a contest on your business page. The way you should run one is through a third party application. Facebook requires people to use a third-party application because it does not want to look like it supports or is affiliated with your contest. If you do not use a third-party application to run your contest, Facebook has the right to take down your page if the contest gets becomes too popular. They usually only monitor large companies for this, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
Look for apps online that will accommodate the type of contest you will be running. Some examples for you to use are Fanzilla, Short Stack or Wild Fire. These apps offer free and paid services varying in price. You should also make sure that these apps are accessible via mobile devices and offer flexible contracts. Facebook mobile users are twice as active on the social networking site than non-mobile users.
Another topic that came up was how to handle complaints on Facebook. Let’s say you own a restaurant and a customer had a bad experience dining with you. This customer then goes on their Facebook and complains about how much they hated it or even goes as far as to write on your own business page.
The proper way to respond to this complaint would be to quickly acknowledge their comment and respond no matter what. Always make your responses positive and ask if there is anything you can do to change their mind. You should never delete a comment unless it is blatantly hostile or is causing arguments within your Facebook community.
Other new features that we discussed were the new e-commerce apps and the new offer feature. The e-commerce apps allow businesses to sell their products directly on their Facebook page. Here at Candeo Creative we use an app called Ecwid to sell jewelry for Lisa Shinkan: Artist, Jeweler and Metalsmith. This is a great way for businesses like Lisa’s to sell their products and show what inventory they have.
The offer option is another new Facebook feature. Right now it is only offered to a select number of businesses that have over 100 likes, which Facebook randomly chose. You can have people claim offers to your business, which they can then share with their friends.
These were just some of the highlights of the Facebook Social Hub this month. Check out our events page to see what’s coming up!
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