30 people invite me to their FB daily & I ignore all 30.
Every day I follow over one hundred people on each of my three Twitter accounts. I get endless DM’s or what I call private messages from people saying, “Thanks for following, care to follow me on Facebook?” I ignore all of these requests for several reasons. First of all, I’m busy, and don’t have two minutes to even visit their Facebook page. If I did have two minutes, I would kind of want a reason why I should invest that two minutes in them looking at their Facebook. If their Facebook page was really interesting, it might be worth investing a lot more than two minutes. The basic problem is that they are inviting me to see an account that they failed to differentiate from the other 1000 bozos’ accounts who also invited me.
What is special about your FB account?
To me, their Facebook will be just as boring and meaningless as everyone else’s. Except that I haven’t spent time looking at anyone else’s, because I’m busy. They didn’t bother telling me what is special about their account, and that is their primary mistake.
Differentiate please…
But, what if they told me something about their Facebook that would make me actually want to click on the link? What if they told me they were having a discussion about bunjee jumping on the Sarangpodang river in Thailand. At least I would have some idea of what I was getting myself into by investing my two minutes in their direction.
How I promote my Facebook
I don’t just ask two thousand people to like me on Facebook. First of all, it doesn’t do any good, unless they will be active followers. I tell people a little about what is going on on my Facebook page. I let them know about the discussions, the links to blog article stories, industry news, etc. I give specific examples of what our last few posts were about and why they are exciting. There are many choices on the internet these days. My offerings are often interesting or exciting — or, at least I claim that they are! I also have a newsletter where I can mention what our best Facebook posts were along with our best blog articles, Linked In discussions, and more. Once in a while I will tweet about what is going on on Facebook or Linked in as well. I always offer specifics, and generally do so on a medium that reaches thousands rather than asking people one by one and getting blown off.
It is like India
In India, each morning, two hundred people will offer me chai or soda. If they happen to catch me in a chai state of mind, I’ll buy from them. Their products are generic, and I know what to expect. Your Facebook accounts are pushed on me just like the wallah’s of India push their products on me. Ten of them surround me offering identical products and they harrass me until I yell at them. Americans use the same equally ineffective strategy with Facebook. The bottom line is differentiate your Facebook account. Communicate what the salient features are. Entice people to visit on their own initiative, and make it interesting enough so that they will become repeat visitors!
A social media manager was taking a walk late at night.
A spaceship landed right in front of him and some little green men got out.
Manager: “Are you going to abduct me?”
Aliens: “No, but can you like us on Facebook?”
Sound familiar?