I learned a valuable lesson this week. It turns out my web designer knows what he is talking about. So does Darren Slaughter. Both of them have the same opinion that driving traffic to my company Facebook page isn’t doing me any favours. Up until last week, I disagreed.
Here’s what happened. I had some stunning before and after pictures of a kitchen we recently painted and I wanted to share them with my Facebook friends and customers. It was one of those knock them out of the ball park transformations that could convince just about anyone to paint their kitchen cabinets, even the greatest wood lover out there. I uploaded them to a photo album on FB, wrote a couple of comments, clicked share and yammo, everybody is looking my photos.
I should have been happy watching my fabulous painted kitchen cabinet transformation get shared and shared again. Traffic to my Facebook page was brisk. But here’s the problem. Guess how many new likes I got? Or more importantly, how many requests for estimates did I get? Not one. All that traffic, all those “wow” comments and “likes” and yet none of it translated into a lead or a new customer.
So what do I think went wrong? Well, if I had listened to my web designer or to Darren Slaughter, I forgot about my website. I should have taken those amazing kitchen transformation pictures and posted them on my blog along with a smart, well written article about how we could transform your kitchen into a thing a beauty. All that traffic should have ended up on my website where a potential customer could have learned all about Warline Painting and who we are and what sets us apart from the competition. Instead, it went to my Facebook page where lots of people looked and liked, but moved on.
That’s Facebook. Click. Look. Like. Next.
Facebook is an excellent tool for communicating with your existing customers and even indirectly exposing new people to your company. What it doesn’t do however is sell your services. Facebook is a brand builder, not a lead generator.
Ugh. I hate learning things the hard way.
I love posting our before and after shots on Facebook. I enjoy the immediate response I get along with the interaction with customers, friends and peers. I like seeing our number of followers grow. It’s also a great way to let my audience know about something I want to share (or sell).
I just have to remember to do my sharing on my website. If I had used my blog, those viewers would have been exposed to my other articles, my gallery of photos and all the content I have worked so hard to write, all designed to convert traffic into leads. Also, if I had used my blog instead of Facebook, those photos and my article on painting kitchen cabinets would have become part of the content on my site and helped increase my SEO rankings.
It’s not too late and I will still write that article and add the photos to my website but I should have just done that in the first place. All those Facebook friends that shared my before and after photos already aren’t likely to share the same story twice.
So here is my new advice to myself and others using Facebook for their business. Post your daily updates and events on Facebook but save the big stuff for your website. Use Facebook to announce you’ve got something great to share and drive that traffic to your website, where you can actually convert a like into a customer.
