I’m finding Facebook a particularly interesting study for how businesses are using it to promote their businesses. Even Facebook themselves are reticent to promote the site as a place to transact. Most businesses appear to use Facebook for general “buzz” and a place to promote their businesses.
In view of this I was interested to see that Marks & Spencer have gone social and launched a Facebook store in time for Father’s Day. The Facebook store is powered by Zibaba and offers currently include mens clothing, electrical appliances, gifts for him and travel accessories. However, the Zibaba powered technology allows for automated catalogue updates directly from an XML feed, so the inventory can be dynamically updated.
This may be beyond the reach of many smaller retailers, but speaking to Maciej of , promoting your business on Facebook is easy. Ocean Tree Trading are offering every customer who “likes” the ocean tree trading Facebook page before the 30th of June 2011 entry into a Free Prize Draw. The eight prizes include their best selling products (including a Sony Hi-Fi system with iPod dock!) which you can win just by liking their page.
Liking Ocean Tree Trading’s Facebook page means you’ll get to hear of their latest products at up to 75% off retail, but more importantly it means they can contact you through Facebook to let you know of future upcoming sales and discounts that they’re running.
I asked Maciej how hard it was to code the page and was told “it was an inhouse job – design and coding were done by me. It’s actually pretty easy once you’ll get hold of few examples”.
Are you using Facebook to promote your products and services? Are you trying to sell directly through Facebook or are you using it to build buzz around your products and direct customers back to your website or eBay shop?
(P.S. Don’t forget to go Like Ocean Tree Trading and if you’re a winner let us know! :-))
16 Responses
I’m just trying to get a FB business page going (4 likes!). Really it’s an experiment to see what all the hype is about. My ebay sales (turnover) are a very small side of my business but have been extremely useful contacts wise. Where’s your FB business page Chris?
chasing your tail on facebook ,twitter, ebay, amazon ,google ,linkin, etc etc etc etc etc will do you no good at all unless your selling what people want at the right price
Chris, It took me two weeks to work out you couldn’t have a stand alone FB business page and it had to have a “personal” FB page as an owner. Facebook obviously are checking that business accounts have accountable human owners.
We have several Facebook business pages, with good response but it does take up a lot of your time! We don’t sell on facebook but are tracking good sales on the sites from it.
I would probably only recommend it if you have your own website rather than just ebay as you can’t really connect the two very well.
I work at ocean tree trading and facebook derives click through to our eBay site.
With up coming deals we always let the Facebook fans know 1st and always convert into sales.
It really does not take a lot of time to manage, we are a small business and having a facebook page helps us stay in touch with the customer and reward them when possible.
I think what I was trying to refer to was the fact that on ebay you can’t advertise your facebook fan page, but on your own website you can, this drives traffic backwards and forwards from one to the other.
I would disagree, a good business facebook page does take a far bit of time if you want to keep customers interested, just advertising new products all the time won’t work, you do need to engage with customers more, as it is a social network.
We always encourage customer to interact i.e. the competitions and asking for feedback on products. Our main aim is not to advertise but to improve customer experience. Also can you share some of your sites so that I can have a look?
Can you quantify “far bit of time” do you mean to a couple of hours a day or a hole team working on facebook?
Thanks
Did you “like” our facebook page? ?
You’ve got an extra liker now, Paul 😉
I’m not really interested right now in having a store on FB as my website is enough to keep me busy. I do have a FB business page though, which I have found has repaid the effort (a few minutes a day, if that) put into it.
It is gradually growing in number of likers, most of whom I recognise as actual customers. I could probably do a lot more with it (and my blog, which feeds into it automatically), but as I’m hovering just below the VAT threshold, I’m keeping a lowish profile…
I “liked” your page too but I am not one for Antiques. There was a company recently that contacted me and asked to set up a facebook store for £50!
I might give that a go.
Paul, Thanks for the tip on the banner, I will get someone to look into it.