Ep. 6 Biggest Mistakes on Facebook

How to be SMART AF with your Facebook Business Page

Are you struggling to grow your business with Facebook? Torie and Sean go over the biggest mistakes businesses make and some quick-win strategies for your Business Facebook page. There’s a SMART AF way to use Facebook to grow your business.  

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 06

[00:00:00] Sean: Well, should they come to my hut so I can give you some free pizza. 

[00:00:03] Torie: I’ve got free pizza.

Hey, Hey. Welcome to Smart AF I’m your host Torie Mathis. We have got a great show for you today. So let’s get started. I have talked to a lot of business owners about Facebook because. I just think that there is so much opportunity for every single business owner to build relationships with their clients, which is super important to reach so many more people than they ever could using any other preferred medium for free, for real.

Yeah, definitely for free. And to actually make sales. It is the most amazing tool. I mean, you can love it. You can hate it. It is one of the most amazing tools for your business. Hands down, Sean Mathis. 

[00:01:07] Sean: So all you got to do is post random pictures and say, buy my shit. 

[00:01:14] Torie: Not like that. Yeah. There’s some really big mistakes that people make with Facebook. I think it kind of ruins the gamut of way overcomplicating things or having somebody paying way too much to somebody to post stuff that doesn’t matter. Or they don’t do anything. Like you have to be consistent on social media. Some people will just go to your Facebook to see if you’re in business.

Have they made any posts lately? Yep. Cool. What are people, what are they saying? What have they been doing? Like if somebody has like a couple of posts on there. Cool. And you get like a little feel for them. I am much more likely to buy from somebody even like go to a restaurant. If they’ve made a couple of posts like I love checking out a restaurant’s Facebook page and seeing what they’ve done.

What are people saying to see their food? Yeah. You see who works there? You can see the specials that they have. There’s so much opportunity to connect. For people who want to see pictures for people who want to see reviews for people who just want to read about it. You want to see the menu. There is so much opportunity, more opportunity probably than you have for your website because for your website, people have to know the website.

Like for Facebook, people just go to Facebook. Like so many people are on there. And I know that there’s a lot of younger people that aren’t on there, but there are enough people that I would say any business, trying to sell anything to people over 30, 35 years old. Could just make a killing and could you so well, and build such a following on Facebook that it’s not either. 

[00:02:51] Sean: Well, like Facebook and restaurant specific, like you were saying, make it shareable.

Like if it’s a pizza joint and a pizza looks absolutely delicious and it’s like you know, tag your friends and, you know, 10 of you come in, you get the pizza for half. I think it’d be anything like that, but what’s going to happen. They’re going to tag and share with their friends and now you’ve just reached even more people. You didn’t pay for any of it. So it’s that compound effect. And I mean, you gotta, you gotta start in one spot and let them, let them find you in another way. 

[00:03:31] Torie: I think for things that you do on Facebook, you have to be doing them for a reason. Like I’m going to do a, because I want B and C to happen. And I think that people just are like, I have to post it.

So they post these random things we have. So we saw just the other day that somebody was posting and I think they were paying somebody to post for them. They’re paying monthly for somebody to post for them. And it said, They said if you haven’t left us a review yet, do it right away. 

[00:04:01] Sean: The picture, first of all, that’s with this post is like a couple sitting on the couch. I think I think there’s a, I think it was an adult and like a kid sitting on the couch tying shoe or some shit I get, it makes no sense. It didn’t, it didn’t say anything about 

[00:04:21] Torie: and what they did, what they, and it might’ve been, you know, it could have been for the pizza place, like leave us a review if you haven’t yet. Like it literally made no sense. There was no link. There was no, there was no real thought behind it of like, what is this going to do? Where’s this going to lead somebody once they see this post, what do I want them to do next? Like, obviously they were saying, we, we want you to leave us a review. 

[00:04:45] Sean: But they didn’t make it easy.

[00:04:46] Torie: Like they know they definitely there’s no link. There was no like, here’s where to review that 

[00:04:50] Sean: review. Like what do you want me to do? 

[00:04:52] Torie: Comments, leave a comment right here. It was a little weird, but I think a lot of people do this. Like they just don’t know what they’re supposed to be posting or how they’re supposed to be posting.

[00:05:04] Sean: I mean, the concept of this particular one is fantastic. Ask for reviews. But you have to make it easy for them. So if you want. To leave you reviews on Facebook, you know, add the link, that’s going to take them directly to your review or give them, you know, give them some sort of perk for leaving the review or, you know?

[00:05:24] Torie: Sure. So we had a client that, that one of their goals was that they wanted more reviews. Facebook, Google and Yelp, or it was something like that. One of the sites. And so we came up with a campaign and had a plan that they, we offered an exchange that they would be entered into a raffle type thing. And they had one once a quarter. And it was for some really good stuff that if they left a review every single time, And I want to say we got them at the dentist. 

[00:05:54] Sean: An electric toothbrush. 

[00:05:56] Torie: It was a really nice electric toothbrush and people left reviews. So not only were we putting that out on Facebook where people could see them and go, Hey, that’s kind of cool. They’re doing something, you know, with their customers. We also emailed that to their list and we got so many reviews for them. It was amazing across everything and like reviews matter. That’s social proof. People want to, people want to do business with businesses that are already doing business with people like you see them eating the pizza.

You’re like, I want a pizza too. Like I want the toothbrush. 

[00:06:26] Sean: And plus you’re, I mean, you’re going to get seen more when you have that higher review number. Even like if Google business, like Google’s not even going to. Show your reviews until you have, I think it’s at least. Like you could have four reviews. Nobody’s going to see them until you have at least five. So you might as well get on there and try to get your friends and family at least to leave a few reviews to get those numbers up. And then it’s, it’s never-ending. Like you, you have to constantly ask your customers to leave reviews cause otherwise. Going to wind up having nothing but bad reviews all the time. Cause those are the ones that jump on there and they want to give you a piece of their mind, whether it’s warranted or not. 

[00:07:12] Torie: But I think like on your Facebook page, asking for reviews, like sure. You can do that every once in a while. And like, that was just an example that we had this week. So I definitely wouldn’t say like, everybody goes out and like asks for reviews every single day or anything like that, but definitely, that’s something that you could post on a Facebook page, and then it would make a lot of sense. But I think when people go to someone’s Facebook page, they want to get a feel for the business.

They want to know what’s going on. So things that are just already happening, like, let’s talk about let’s, let’s use a pizza place. Like a pizza place is a really great example that you could post things all day long. That would be amazing. You could have so much fun with that. Whether it’s your employees that are coming in, pictures of the restaurant, pictures of the food, for sure.

People. Being there. I mean, if you made events that you are going to have, they’re like, there’s so many different things that you could post about what’s going on that would get people interested and make it fun where people want to engage with it. Because when people engage with your posts, that means that they, they not just see it, they engage with it.

Meaning they like it. They comment on it, they share. That is the magic in Facebook. When you can get anybody to do that, Facebook goes, oh, people like this content, Facebook wants people to stay on Facebook longer. So they want to show that content that people are engaging with two more people. So the key when you’re posting on Facebook is to get people to engage with your content.

[00:08:36] Sean: The easiest way to do that.

Ask a question. 

[00:08:40] Torie: We’ve gotten some really fun ones like with the museum. I, I always anything I can, I can send a Sean and be like, there’s something you could do with that. Like, you’ve come up with like some of the coolest ones and you don’t have to piss people off though, because I’ve seen people use this as like they’re going to be controversial or they’re going to be so that they can get bad engagement because any good engagement is no, don’t do that.

You do not have to do that. You can do fun stuff you can do silly stuff. You can do stuff that has to do. 

[00:09:08] Sean: For pizza. You know, take a picture of your Hawaiian and then take a picture of some other specialty pieces you have and have people vote. Like, all it is is they’re going to, they’re going to say one or the other because chances are, they’ve got an opinion.

Yes. And all it is a win for you. 

[00:09:26] Torie: In anything that people will have a strong opinion, like how gross pineapple pizza is. Like, people will comment on that all day because pineapple pizza belongs in the trash. I would come, how would I begin? 

[00:09:39] Sean: She doesn’t I’d make it like I’m competition that at the end of the week, whichever pizza got the highest note that one’s like half off on Friday or something.

And each one, I need you to give him a code or something and send them to your website to get the pizza ordered online or, whatever the case may be, or go in and show them the post on your phone. Like, look, I, I commented on this, you know, I want my pizza. You know, what’s, what’s better half of your asking price of the pizza or zero, you know, and then all those other people that are going to come at some other point, cause they liked it and pay full price, order drinks, and order all the other crap that goes with it. When you’re eating. 

[00:10:24] Torie: It’s definitely a way that you can keep in contact, especially with things that are going on right now to let people know, like with this whole, like, are restaurants open? Are they taking online orders? Can we come in? What’s your hours? Like you can post that all the time and you can do it in fun ways so that people know what’s going on with your business.

And I think people are worried about posting too much on social media. And for me, I honestly think you cannot post too much. 

[00:10:49] Sean: Posting too much. ’cause like, you assume that everybody, it now good luck with that. The odds of them seeing every single one of your posts, every single time, super, super slim. 

[00:11:03] Torie: Even if you look at people that have like these posts that reach like millions of people, if you go and look at probably their last hundred posts, most of them are duds.

Every single post is not going to be a hit, but the more you put out there, the more often don’t put shit out. But the more often you put stuff out, the more likely you are to have one that is going to get more engagement and things like that on there. 

[00:11:26] Sean: Put it out with some sort of intention still, no matter what it is like, what was the same?

We’ve always said seven to your home, right? You, you post that picture or whatever it is if it’s just a picture of fine. But what do you want them to do with that? 

[00:11:38] Torie: What do you want them to do? So when we say send them to your home, we used to always say, you know, whenever you put them out there, send them back to your website.

You want them to go and do something? So what do you want them to do like on Facebook? Obviously, sometimes you don’t want to send them back to your website. You do want them to engage or answer a question because there’s, there’s lots of cool stuff in the background of Facebook that happens there, but you need to make sure that you understand that you can tell people to do things on Facebook and that they will do them, you know, leave a response, leave a message, go check this out.

And, and a really great opportunity that, that every business has on Facebook is to post videos. Like Facebook loves videos, Facebook people like watching videos. They’re lazy. They like to sit there and, and be able to be entertained and engaged. And I think any business can show videos, whether it’s of just going to the pizza place, it could be 

[00:12:27] Sean: You do a Facebook live, of your chef right there.

I have some other employee filming another employee, making a pizza. And hopefully, they’re doing everything correctly for sure. 

[00:12:41] Torie: But like, especially if you had something fun, like try to toss them out, bruh. I dunno. Like there’s fun things that you can do with that. And any business can take advantage of the power of Facebook to grow their business.

You just got to do, don’t be shy, do it, but have intention have a plan with it? Don’t say, Hey, leave me a review and then not let them leave a review. Don’t just post a picture and not say anything. What’s the next step. What do you want them to do? Where do you want them to go? What do you want them to know?

And doing every post with a little bit of intention definitely will make a big difference. I think a great thing also for people to post is questions that people have. And again, you can’t post too much because people aren’t going to see these, but whatever, the, whatever, the questions you’re getting, and I’m not sure what people would get for like questions for a pizza place.

[00:13:29] Sean: But are you like, what are your hours? You know, how much is your draft? You serve alcohol. 

[00:13:34] Torie: What are your specials today? Do you have crab cakes, man? Every pizza.

[00:13:42] Sean: Another thing though is, is going to be like tagging other, other Facebook pages in your post. So for example, if you’re at a pizza place and you offer a local draft beer chances are that, that local draft beer has its own page, that you can tag them and say, Hey, we’re serving this local beer, you know, come in and have it or try it, you know?

And just going to connect to that beer’s audience. And then that beer company is gonna be like, oh, there’s pizza joints shared our, you know, our brew. And then they’re going to share it, Hey, go to this pizza joint and try, or like it compounds. And it’s super easy. Like you might as well do it because chances are you might’ve thought of sharing a picture of that beer anyways, but you didn’t even think of actually tagging it. 

[00:14:33] Torie: Okay. And realize that you can network on Facebook and you really can, and it is through sharing. And tagging your business can also go as the business and comment on other businesses.

If there was an event going on in your town as the pizza place, you could go on there and make comments about like grab a pizza afterward make it a post, and tag wherever the event is. And there’s all these different ways that you can interconnect everybody and still have conversations and dialogue and networking. From your computer from Facebook, like it’s, it’s pretty amazing. And I don’t think people realize the power that there is. 

[00:15:11] Sean: Because now you can follow your local news channel and then see that the local T-ball team just wins a championship. And you as the pizza place, comments directly onto that news channel and said, I want to invite this entire team down to the pizza parlor for some free pizza.

Absolutely. A tag them all on that. Whether they come or not, doesn’t really matter at that point because everybody just sees, like, you just did something like that and they’re going to want to come. The establishment that does something like that. 

[00:15:41] Torie: You could do that with a load. You could do that for the local school.

Like when they always post like someone’s awards or somebody who won the spelling bee or somebody, whatever, and say like, good job, Joey, for winning the spelling bee at blah blah elementary, like come by and get a free, small pizza on us. You know, there, there’s all kinds of different ways that you can do that in your community.

It’s fun stuff. You just, have to think a little bit out of the box and not be afraid to try things, not be afraid to, to go out there a little bit more than you’re comfortable with. And like I said, go out there with just a little bit of intention. 

[00:16:15] Sean: And this is assuming you’ve got a business page and you’re not operating your business with your personal Facebook page.

Yes. 

[00:16:23] Torie: Operating a business off a personal page is Facebook illegal and they can definitely touch you down. 

[00:16:29] Sean: Still see it. You’re limiting yourself and on multiple levels, not to mention it’s illegal in Facebook’s eyes, but just take that extra step to make sure you have your Facebook business page set up correctly. And you’re doing all this stuff, do your business page, and then you can share all those business posts to your personal page. Totally well. Which is going to get it in front of all your friends and family that you can get then connect on a, on a personal level and still share all your business stuff. And you just want to, you want to make sure you do everything business-wise on your business page first. Your personal page and then share that to your business page because that’s absolutely backwards. 

[00:17:15] Torie: Because if you reach out to the school and offer free pizza to kids as a person you’re creepy. 

[00:17:19] Sean: Yeah, it’s creepy.

You’re not gonna want to do that. Nobody, nobody knows you own a pizza 

[00:17:23] Torie: place. 

Now you can do that from the business. You can’t do that from your personal page. 

[00:17:28] Sean: I want you to come to my hut. 

[00:17:32] Torie: I’ve got free pizza. 

[00:17:34] Sean: Don’t do that. 

[00:17:34] Torie: Don’t do that. But there’s a lot of fun stuff there.