If you have visited Facebook pages, you may see lists of people posting simply to promote your business. As a page owner, this can be very annoying, but people still do it.
I thought today I would post 5 ways NOT to promote your business via Facebook pages. These things may result in your posts being deleted, you being kicked off the page and banned, and even result in you being reported to Facebook.
- Introduction - do you go to networking events and say “Hi, I’m Jane and I sell widgets, come and buy from me”? No… well this is what a lot of people do when they join a page. They say “Hi, I’m Jane from World Wide Widgets (with a link to their business page) come and join my page”. This gets really annoying reading posts like these. Better to say something like ” Hi, I’m Jane from World Wide Widgets (with a link to your page), what a great page this is, I look forward to getting to know your business”. If people are interested, they will join your page.
- Tagging a promo - there are a lot of businesses out there who will post a promo on their wall, then tag a number of other pages. Sometimes this is good because the pages they tag are set up for these kinds of promotions, however others are not. Be careful when you do this to make sure the pages you tag are happy for these sorts of things to be added to their wall.
- Tagging to get on a wall - I have seen a lot of businesses who will tag other businesses just to be listed on their wall. Again, this is OK if the business you are tagging is set up to accept these sorts of posts, otherwise if you are tagging a business, be open to why you are tagging them. For example you may recommend Jane’s Widget Page because she has great widgets your followers would enjoy. This way you have a reason to tag this page.
- Inviting EVERYONE - when inviting people to join your page, be selective. Not everyone is interested in widgets. I get invited to join almost every page and at one point almost all of them had to do with maternity wear. I’m not pregnant and not planning to be, so these pages were of no interest. Especially if you invite a lot of people to a lot of pages, it can get annoying and will result in them blocking or deleting you off their list.
- Friending page owners - this is something else that can get annoying. Many business owners set up pages for their businesses so they can keep the personal things apart from their business information and don’t want to be friended by everyone, especially if it’s for the purpose of promoting your business. Instead, if you like the look of a business owner and want to friend them, include a note introducing yourself and why you want to be on their friend list.
I hope these help you with promoting yourself and your business on Facebook. If you have any other things to add to the do not do list, please add them.
Next week I aim to include points on what TO do to promote your business on Facebook pages.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyE-mail doesn’t always work…
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Email isn't always the best form of communication
Recently I changed the way people can get a newsletter from my business. Now, they can either get it via email or in the post. A number of people questioned this and the answer is simple - not everyone wants to get an email newsletter, some people prefer something in the post, and others simply don’t sit on the computer as much as we do.
I run a number of workshops and events - one is tonight - and I sent invitations to my database via email. Looking at the statistics, less than a quarter of the people I was inviting opened the email, and even less clicked on the link to book or for more information.
Thinking about my own habits, I often receive an email newsletter and leave it marked unread until I have the chance to go back and read it… and sometimes it stays unread until I delete it to clear out my inbox.
So, what have I learned from this?
Simple, communicating with your customers solely via email doesn’t always work.
It’s helpful to communicate via a number of methods, both online and offline. This could include sending something in the mail and picking up the telephone.
What am I going to do next time?
Next time I run an event, I plan to send a postcard or invitation to my database as well as send them an invitation via email, Facebook and other places they hang out.
How do you communicate with your customers? Is it solely via email, or do you have other strategies as well?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyBusiness Mums Blog Awards
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Do you have our favourite blog?
It’s that time again. Business Mums Network are once again conducting the Blog Awards.
We are on the hunt for Australia’s favourite blog by a business mum. This year, there is a twist, we will be running these monthly. Each month will have a different theme - for September we are looking for a blog by a business mum who blogs about her business.
Some examples are:
This is just a tiny selection of blogs.
We have some great prizes on offer for the winners, and simply by nominating your favourite blog, you can also win some great prizes.
If you’re looking for some blogs so you can nominate someone, have a look at the blogs that were nominated last year as well as the blogs on Business Mums Daily.
For more details about the Blog Awards, click here.
If you want to go straight to nominating, click here. If you enter your full details and join our VIP list, you are eligible to win some great spot prizes. You can nominate as many blogs as you like.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyChoosing a charity
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Choose the right charity for your business
If you’re anything like me, you are constantly asked to give money and donate products for charity fundraisers both for your business and in your family life. There often isn’t enough money in your bank account to give to everyone who is asking, and the same with products.
So, what do you do?
The best thing is to choose a charity or two that are important to you and give to those. Then, next time you’re asked to donate something you can tell them that you have your chosen charity and give to them (it’s amazing how effectively this works).
The next thing is to work out which charity to support. There are so many worthy causes out there it can be hard to know what to choose.
For a business, it can be a good idea to choose something that fits with what you are doing. For example, my chosen charity is Opportunity International because they help people start up small businesses, so it fits with what I’m aiming to do with my business.
I know of some business mums who use their family history as motivation for choosing a charity. For example I know of one business mum who supports Mummy’s Wish because a close friend of hers had cancer and received support from the. And another who supports Backpacks 4 Aussie Kids because her parents had foster kids when she was growing up. These charities don’t necessarily match their business, not in any obvious way anyway.
If your business does support a charity, it’s a good idea to have a page on your site explaining why you chose this charity to support. I have seen some businesses who make a big thing about supporting a charity, however if it’s not a charity I am not passionate in supporting and I can’t see an obvious reason why they are supporting this charity, then it won’t sway me to purchase from them. However if I can see a story behind why they support this charity, it is more likely to sway me.
Some time ago, I bought a gift online. Inside the package along with the item I purchased was a sheet thanking me for buying from them and explaining why they had chosen their charity and how my purchase helped support their cause. Unfortunately I can’t remember which business it was (it was quite a while ago), but their extra bit of information has stuck in my head.
Do you have a charity your business supports? Do you let your customers know about it? Please add a comment and share your story.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyMarketing Monday - drive people to your table…
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Last week, Mr Z (aged 6) and I helped pack goodie bags for a conference. At this conference, sponsors had the opportunity to get trade tables as well as advertising in the handbook and items in the goodie bags.
One of the inserts caught my eye - it was an order form marked “Trade Table Order Form”. As they were also a major sponsor, I assume they had the opportunity to have their insert highlighted during the notices part of the conference.
The point of this insert was obviously to drive people to their stand and place orders during the conference. As the conference was in Melbourne and the company was in Sydney, this also meant that a lot of the stock they brought down with them could be left behind as people ordered and bought their stock.
Have you ever had the opportunity to have a trade table, expo or market stand along with the opportunity for other promotion? If so, jump at it and use the other promotion to drive people to your business display instead of the others.
This company is also at the conference every year, and have been for a number of years, so the participants are expecting to see them and come ready with money to buy. Many of the products they now bring down with them have been pre-ordered by participants who simply fill in the form ready to take items home with them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyFriday Five - Inspiration
By · CommentsInspired by a post over at BusyMum 2010 on inspiration, this weeks Friday Five is some of the things I do when I need inspiration and I’m stuck!
- Take a break - if I can, sometimes taking a break from what I’m doing can help the inspiration come. It can be as quick as making a cuppa and coming back to the computer, or it may be taking the weekend off.
- Read some blogs - depending on what I need inspiration on, sometimes reading some blogs can help. Sites such as Blog Whammy and Business Mums Daily have great blogs to read.
- Music - listening to music can often help too. The sort of music I listen to depends on my mood and what I need inspiration for. Annette talks more about this on her blog.
- Watch TV - yes, sometimes watching TV can provide inspiration! Again, it depends on the sort of mood I’m in, what I need inspiration for and what is on TV at the time. For example, last week I did a post inspired by The Collectors, a show on ABC I don’t normally watch, it just happened to be on at the time. You can read the post here.
- Kids - as business mums, we have kids. There are times when things our kids say or do can provide inspiration, whether it’s for a blog post, new product or service, or even a business idea! Spend some quality time with your kids and pay attention, you never know when inspiration will strike. Just make sure you have a notebook with you to write down your ideas so you can continue having a great time with your kids.
These are just 5 things that help me, especially with blog posts, but also for other things. What things help you with inspiration, especially at times when you really need it?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyDo you work through lunch?
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Do you take a break?
Do you take a lunch break or do you madly work through without a break from the time the kids go to school to when they get home?
It can be tempting to work through without a break, suddenly realising that you’re hungry around the time you pick the kids up from school. Or taking your lunch to your desk and work while you eat.
Ask yourself this - in life before children, did you take a lunch break then? When I was working BC (before children), I would make a point of going to the corner shop for my lunch. If I had brought my lunch to work, I’d go and get a hot chocolate. This would give me a change of scenery and short work and a break from work.
Recently I’ve started having a lunch break. Usually I sit and watch Dr Phil or some other trashy thing on TV because it’s been too cold & wet to go for a walk. I wish there was a coffee place near me… Other times I’ll go up to my brother’s cafe or somewhere in between to have lunch or a hot chocolate for a change of scenery and a good break. Sometimes the break is for an hour, other times shorter, other times longer.
Having a break is important. Often great ideas will flow, but more often than not, the break helps me come back in the afternoon refreshed and ready for the next task.
So, do you take a lunch break? If not, it might be time to start.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyHappy 2nd Birthday to my blog…
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2 years and counting...
Do you believe it’s been 2 years since I started this blog? OK, so it’s 2 years and 3 days, but who’s counting?
If you’re interested, here’s my first post on this blog.
Over the last 2 years, I’ve tried a lot of different things, different sorts of posts, and different topics.
It looks like we share an anniversary with Be A Fun Mum. To celebrate, they have shared 12 great blogging tips. Click here to check them out. There are some awesome tips there. I’m not sure I can add much.
One tip I could add is not to be afraid to try new things. These could be new sorts of posts, using guest bloggers, or even mixing things up a bit with pictures. Whatever you do, however, make sure you keep the theme of your blog in mind (for example, if you are blogging about owls, don’t suddenly add in a post about steam trains.)
For all our readers, thank you for reading and following this blog. I hope you’ve found the tips here useful.
If you have any other blogging tips you would like to add, either to the list on Be a Fun Mum or the one I added here, please add a comment. As it’s the birthday of this blog, there is a gift for the best blog tip.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyFriday Five - business tasks for kids
By · CommentsMy kids have done a lot of jobs for me over the years, from stock take to packing goodie bags to mail outs to shredding. They are currently 6 and 8.
This week, I’ll share some strategies I use to get the job done and done right.
- Clear goal - be clear about the outcome you want. Do you want x bags packed with certain items? Do you want all the paper in a box shredded. Be clear to the kids what your expected outcome is.
- Break it into smaller tasks - depending on the age of your kids, you may want to break the job up. For example, when packing goodie bags, you may want to give one child the task of sorting out the DL size flyers, another the task of putting them in the bag, rather than giving them the whole task.
- Reward - have a reward for the children on completion of the job. Let them know before the job starts what the reward will be. Whatever it is, make sure it fits the job and your childs age.
- Make it fun - depending on the job, you can turn it in to a game, or put music on in the background, or make it a race. Whatever you do, make sure the job is done right. If you know that a bit of competition can help get the job done, then use it for your advantage, however if you know it is a distraction or will mean the job won’t be done properly, then you may want to choose something else to make the job fun.
- No pressure - give children the choice whether they want to do the job or not. Children can get bored and want to stop in the middle of a task, or not want to start at all. Give them the choice. This is where having a clear goal and reward can help.
Children, especially small children, love doing whatever Mum is doing. If you have tasks that need to get done for your business and the kids are wanting to help, then let them. The five points above help when my kids want to help me, I hope they will give you some ideas to get your children involved and helping you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For your daily dose of business mums websites and blogs, check out Business Mums DailyAre you paying attention?
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Did we get your attention?
Are you on Facebook? Do you have a lot of friends and pages you follow? How much attention do you pay to requests that are given out? Could you be missing out on opportunities?
My 6 year old is currently obsessed with lizards - I’m trying to get some inspiration for Christmas & his birthday (they are a week apart) as he says he wants a lizard as a pet (that’s not going to happen).
I know I have quite a few people who run toy shops and even someone who does kids parties with snakes & lizards on my friend list.
A few days ago, I sent out a request asking for responses from anyone who has lizard type products I could purchase for my 6, nearly 7 year old. I had 2 responses from people recommending other people who had goodies we might be interested in. None from the people who had toy shops or the person who does kids parties!
So, how much attention do you pay to the requests that are posted by your friends and contacts on Facebook? Could you be missing out on an opportunity for new customers? If your business can’t help, then maybe one of your friends or other contacts can.
Oh, and I’m still looking for ideas for my son for his birthday, can anyone help?
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