Facebook continues to be a major source of business referrals and brand awareness according to a new study by Morpace. Fan pages are used by 41% of respondents to show their friends what products and services they support. In line with other researchers, Morpace found that coupons and discounts were also key reasons to join a fan page, cited by 37% of Facebook users, incentives such as coupons are also a leading factor in suggesting a page to friends. On average, users were fans of nine pages.
Facebook fan pages do take some time to become organic growing entities of their own. Our Fan Page for TheGentlemanRacer.com is growing by about 5-10 fans per-day. But it took about six months to get to the point that fans were suggesting the page to their, over that 180 days the page grew on average by 27 new fans a day. What business would not want consumers opting into to see they message at a rate of almost 30 a day. This is why soft sell and content driven pages are so important. I looked at a fan page of a major automotive retailer, who after over a year online has only 380 fans, but they have not updated their fan page in seven months.
Facebook is not the answer to all marketing needs, but it is a valuable tool for effectively marketing, using the insights feature will give you valuable data on the demographics that are following your fan page, this data can be used to explore new markets. A good example is my own apparel brand M&P our fan page was found by a French car club and they started to become fans suddenly fans from France started joining quickly and so did the orders. We had no exposure in France other than Facebook and other Social Media sites, however, so now we have joined some French pages on Facebook, brushed up on our French and are becoming more active in that community.
Michael Satterfield has worked in the automotive aftermarket for over 10 years, with a focus on internet sales and marketing. Michael holds a degree in Organizational Leadership with minors in Political Science and History. He also holds certifications in Internet Sales and Marketing from Ford Motor Company, Kia Motors North America, and Nichols, Campbell & Marrow. Michael founded Satterfield Group to help small businesses in the automotive aftermarket better brand themselves and build their corporate identities using both traditional and internet marketing. Michael is also a regular contributor to many automotive and marketing publications.