From my observation and also being an online store owner myself, Facebook seems to be one of the "MUST HAVE" Social medium nowadays. However, it is quiet Tough to do things right and get the traffic going, especially when wanting to engage to your consumers and earning a "Like" from them.
I have been running my online store for more than 4 years, and have just recently (6 Months Ago) created a Facebook Fan page and still can't get a hold of HOW??? to increase sales and reputation through the use of Facebook. Facebook advertising has also been used a lot to gain exposures to the public. Does it really work? From my experience (I have actually attempted to advertise through FB with the "Pay per Click" ads). It does work to an extent in increasing traffic. However, it did not increase interactions and sales.
There are many successful cases and examples of both individuals and firms using Facebook and gaining a fortune out of it. How do they do this? and What is the key to success of using Facebook as a marketing tool? However, there are also cases of FB pages that fails.
This leaves a question to us to explore the issue of whether or not "Facebook is a Good Marketing Tool?" Also, how should marketers actually manage their FB pages?
Thoughts?
I agree with you that FB can increase traffic but it may not increase sales. We can say that FB is one of the channel or media to communicate with consumers. However,to some extent, it is a challenging to manage FB since we cannot control consumers to leave negative messages on FB pages.
ReplyDeleteGood blog Chun. Having done relationship marketing last semester, I wonder if by 'liking' an organisation we feel we have some sort of relationship? Or are we simply adding to our personal brand by letting our friends know the sorts of things we are into?
ReplyDelete@Hubba Thanx. That's an interesting question. For myself, I press "like" on and company's Facebook page because I like the brand or the company, but does not necessary have any relationship with it. However, I do think that what all companies want to achieve through social media is customer engagement and building relationships with the its target market. What do other people think?
ReplyDeleteSome great questions and discussion here!
ReplyDeleteLet me take it right back to basics... if marketing is all about creating value for customers (and ultimately the business), then how does a simple Facebook page achieve that outcome? What value does a FB page deliver? How will it benefit the customer?
Is your FB page simply part of your promotion strategy, or is it more than that? Are delivering value through it, or simply using it to advertise to your customers?
@Wags I have used my facebook page to keep my customer updated with the products I offer, and have been trying to engage and understand more about my customers on what they actually want. At times I also provide updates and asking for their views on certain products, which i use this information to decide on what to offer.
ReplyDeleteWell done Chun, this is a great post!
ReplyDeleteI like the comments you made: "It does work to an extent in increasing traffic. However, it did not increase interactions and sales".
This I think will become centre to our discussions for the semester, so we have 5000 likes, but how do we convert those likes to sales.
Seems to me like you have done what I would have done, and I like the idea of asking your customers to have their say in product designs as it makes them feel involved.
Ross