Facebook Guide for Trust My Garage Members How you can use Facebook to promote your business
Contents Page 3 Chapter 1: Understanding Facebook Page 6 Chapter 2: Getting started Page 11 Chapter 3: Navigating Facebook Page 17 Chapter 4: Connecting with Other Users Page 19 Chapter 5: Posting & Interacting Page 27 Chapter 6: Management Page 29 Chapter 7: Final Considerations 2
1. Understanding Facebook 1.1. What exactly is Facebook? Facebook is a social media platform that allows you to connect with friends, family, co-workers, clients, consumers, and other businesses. Unlike Twitter, in order to interact with another user on Facebook, you must become friends. In order to create Friends on Facebook, you are required to search the person you wish to be friends with, and send a Friend Request. If the user agrees to accept your Friend Request, you will gain access to each other s profile. However, this process is a little bit different when it comes to creating a business page on Facebook. Business pages have different privacy settings meaning that other Facebook users can search for your business page, and view the content without having to gain permission in the form of a Friend Request or anything similar. Should a user wish to keep up to date with your business page, and have your posts appear on their timeline, they can choose to like the page. This allows the user to connect with your business profile, however, you will not gain access to their profile. As a business profile, you will send out statuses. These are messages that you wish for all your likers or followers to know or see. These posts can also include photos, videos, offers, events, milestones and notes. What s more, unlike Twitter, on Facebook you will not be restricted by a tough character limit, as users have 2000 characters to send their message across. 1.2. Facebook Lingo Facebook Profile This is a private, personal Facebook account. This will be your own account, under your own name, and have content relating to you personally. This content is private and can only be accessed by your friends. If Facebook users wish to gain access to your Facebook Profile, they will have to send you a Friend Request. Facebook Page This is a public Facebook account. This is used for businesses and other public figures. Anyone can access the content to the Facebook Page, but in order for the page s content to appear in a user s Newsfeed, they will have to follow/like the page. Friend - This is someone who has access to your personal Facebook Profile. Friendship, on Facebook is mutual, so if they have access to your profile, you have access to theirs. Friend Request When a user wants to connect with your personal Facebook profile, and gain access to view/like/comment on your posts, they will request to be your Friend. This can only be achieved on a personal Facebook Profile. Followers These are the people who have access to your business statuses. These are essentially the people who have liked your business page. Status update Also referred to as status, this is the post/message you send out for you followers to see/read. 3
Wall This is essentially the page. Having someone post on your wall, means that they have posted on your page. Tag(ging) This allows you to link a post/photo to a user. You may tag a friend in a photo that they are in, to link their image to their profile, by typing @BobSmith (for example). Chat This is a form of instant messaging that allows your friends to message you quickly and privately. You may wish to link this feature to your smartphone by installing Facebook Messenger. You will then get notifications of any messages you receive sent to your smartphone similarly to a text. Like You can like a page by way of following it. Since you do not have to send a Friend Request to connect with a Facebook Page, you can gain access to the page s content by liking it. You can also like a status or photo to show your appreciation. Newsfeed This is located on your homepage. Here you see a stream of all your friend s recent statuses and posts. The newsfeed will appear on your personal account, not on your business page. Timeline This is your page/profile s newsfeed. This appears on your page/profile and will only show a stream of your posts, statuses and anything you have been tagged in. Trending This refers to a topic/person/thing that many Facebook users are posting about. This is similar to Twitter in the sense that users may promote or contribute to these trends using a hashtag (#). Poke Facebook users may poke you in order to gain your attention. There is no distinct reason as to why a user may want to do this, however. Any pokes will appear in your notifications, stating that the user has poked you. Liker This refers to your page followers 1.3. So why is Facebook useful for you? According to statistics, in April, Facebook had 1.65 billion monthly active users. So, given these great figures, it is fair to say that, as a garage, you should be able to reach a fair proportion of your target audience. This will allow you to spread your word like wildfire, which can help you to promote your business and attract custom. You can use your business account for: PR and Networking to scout consumers and promote a great image of your garage. Customer Service and Support to become a point of contact when your consumers have a query or issue. Customer Testimonials - a great opportunity to gain direct feedback from your consumers, as Facebook allows users to give your business a star rating. There are plenty of ways to encourage users to like your page, which will be discussed later on in this guide. 4
2. Getting Started 2.1. Create Facebook account In order to get started with creating a garage business page on Facebook, you will need to already have a Facebook account. This can be your own personal Facebook account, as the business page will not link to your own personal profile meaning you can maintain your own privacy. If you do not already have an account, you can create one in a few simple steps on the Facebook website: www.facebook.com. 2.2. Create Business page Once you have logged into Facebook with your account, you will need to create a business page. Your personal profile and your business page will be kept separate, so your customers will not have access to your own personal profile. However, you will need to use your personal log in details in order to access the business account. 5
1) To create a business page, click Create Page 2) From here, click Local Business or Place 6
3) Fill out the required details in the fields provided, using your garage information 4) Fill in the extra details about your business 7
5) Select a profile picture for your business page This is the picture that will appear next to your posts and comments. Since your business page is aimed at promoting your garage, it is recommended you use a picture of your garage as your profile picture 6) Create a shortcut to your business page for ease (optional) 8
7) Identify your target audience As a garage, your target audience should be people who will relate to or benefit from your business; this could be consumers, other garages, and similar automotive businesses. Since your garage is a local business, it s advisable you set your target location to your own city. This will attract consumers from your local area. All the other criteria can be fairly broad, since motorists are from all walks of life, with varying interests and will all need a garage at some point or other. Once you press Save, you page will be ready to go. 9
3. Navigating Facebook 3.1. Accessing your business page 1) Log in In order to get to your business page, you will need to log into Facebook with your personal account details. This will lead you to your personal account s homepage. All of your friend s statuses will appear here 2) Head to your Business Page To access your business page, you will need to click on the downward facing arrow in the top-right hand corner of the page. From here, you will see your business page under Your Pages: 10
3.2. Navigating your Business Page Once here, you can view Facebook from the point of view of your garage business page. Here is what the page should look like: 3 10 8 11 12 7 9 2 4 1 5 13 6 19 14 15 20 18 17 16 22 24 25 11 21 23
3.2.1. Page This is where you can view an overall summary of your business page. 3.2.2. Search bar Here you can search for people to connect with via name, email address or phone number. 3.2.3. Messages Here you can send and receive private messages from your business page. 3.2.4. Notifications Here you will be notified when other users have interacted with your page. This includes status likes and comments. 3.2.5. Insights This is where you can access the analytics of your business page, including page views and impressions. 3.2.6. Publishing tool Here you can access your previous posts, scheduled posts and drafts. 3.2.7. Profile This is how you ll access your business profile page. 3.2.8. Home This will lead you to your Facebook homepage. This will be the homepage of the personal account the business page has been made from and will show a timeline of your friends recent posts. 3.2.9. Find Friends Here you can find new people to connect with, or encourage to like your page. 3.2.10. Friend Requests When a user has requested to be your friend/has accepted your friend request, a notification will appear in this tab. 3.2.11. Messages Here you can send and receive private messages from your personal account 3.2.12. Notifications Here you can view the notifications on your personal account 3.2.13. Privacy and Settings Here you can control who can view your page and access your content. You can also manage your page and account settings here 12
3.2.14. 3.2.15. Cover Photo The Cover Photo is the image that displays at the top of your profile. This is possibly the first thing users will see when they click onto your profile, so it is important you pick a photo that will have impact. We recommend displaying the TMG shield as your header photo, or a picture of the TMG sign in your garage. This will allow users to see your affiliation with Trust My Garage and recognise that you have been approved by a Consumer Codes Approval backed scheme. 3.2.16. Page likes Here you can see how many Facebook users have liked your page, and thus have access to your page and posts. 3.2.17. Post engagement This is the amount of users who have interacted with your page in the given week. These could be page likes, wall posts, comments and status likes. 3.2.18. Post Reach This is the amount of people that have seen your posts in a given timeframe. 3.2.19. Composing a post Here you can create your status that can be viewed by your followers. This may include a photo/video/offer/event/milestone. This will appear on the wall/timeline of your business page. 3.2.20. Profile picture This is the picture that will appear next to your garage name. Since your Facebook profile is aimed at promoting your garage, it is best to use a picture of it as your Profile Picture. 3.2.21. About This is where all your garage details will be displayed, including your address and opening hours. 3.2.22. Page tips Here Facebook will make you aware of all the ways that you could improve your page and reach. 3.2.23. Photos This is essentially your online photo album. Any picture you upload will be documented in the Photos section. 3.2.24. Upcoming Events This will detail any events you have created, or said you re attending on Facebook. 3.2.25. Visitor Posts When a user writes a post on your page wall, it will show here. Since other users can see these interactions, it is important to maintain a good level of customer service skills while replying to, or interacting with, these posts. 13
3.2.26. Reviews Here, Facebook users can leave a review of your garage 3.3. Uploading/Changing a profile picture When you initially set up your Business Page, you will be prompted to add a Profile Picture, however if you skipped this stage, or wish to change this image, this is how you will do so: 1) Click on the Add a Picture link When choosing a picture, you can opt to upload an image from your photo library, or take a photo. 2) Choose an image If you opt to Upload Photo, the link will lead you to your computer/smartphone s photo library. From here, you can choose the image you wish to be your Profile Picture. We recommend an image that will help to be an identifier for your garage. 14
3) Amend your photo Once you have uploaded your image, you can make any necessary adjustments, including repositioning and cropping. This process can also be emulated for your cover photo also. For this, we recommend using a TMG Shield, if you have been approved by the Trust My Garage scheme, or the RMI logo to promote your membership with the RMI. This will allow users to see your affiliation and recognise that you have been approved by a Consumer Codes Approval backed scheme. 15
4. Connecting with other users As a business page, it is not necessary for you to become friends with other users, in order for them to gain access to your content. Instead, it is your priority to encourage potential consumers to like your page. 4.1. How to get people to like your page In order to get potential consumers to like your page, you should aim to promote it everywhere. Be sure to include the name of your page in your email signature and everywhere else consumers may come across it. You can also gain likers by encouraging the friends on your personal Facebook account to like your page. Friends and family will always want to support your professional efforts, so may even send further recommendations to their friends! Posting interesting content is the best way to encourage more people to come to your page. Give the people something they want to see, and they may even encourage their friends to have a look too. Another great way to increase your likers is by creating competitions or sweepstakes. Consumers love an incentive, and as a garage, you could use your services as one. Why not offer a free or discounted service by creating competitions that require consumers to like your page, or share your update, as part of the entry process? 4.2. How to invite people to like your page In order to obtain more likers, you can also invite individual Facebook users to like your page. We don t recommend using this method as your only form of page promotion as this can be very timeconsuming and does not guarantee success. You can invite people using the link on the Business home page. 16
From here, you can search through your personal friends list, or search individuals by name. 17
5.1. Composing a status 5. Posting and interacting Composing a status is easy on Facebook. Posting as your business, your status will appear on your own Page Timeline for your likers to see. This will also appear in your liker s Newsfeeds when they re having a casual scroll. 1 2 3 4 10 9 8 7 6 5 5.1.1. Status This is where you ll write the post you ll like to send out to your likers. Although less common on Facebook than on Twitter, you can add hashtags (#) to your statuses to contribute to or start a trend (for example #independentgarage or #TrustMyGarage) You can also tag other Facebook users in your status, even if they are not following you. Quite like Twitter, all you have to do is type @ then start writing the name of the person/page you would like to tag, and then a list of potential profiles will appear for you to choose from. 18
5.1.2. Photo/Video This allows you to upload a photo/video. You can also opt to upload these as an album or slideshow. 5.1.3. Extra post options This allows you to add extra features, relevant to a business, to your post. This includes offers, events and milestones. 5.1.4. Post as This allows you the option to post the status as your garage, or under your personal account. 5.1.5. Publishing options This feature allows you to schedule your status to be published at a later time. Alternatively, you can backdate your post so that it appears in the past on your Page Timeline. 5.1.6. Publish Once you have finished writing your status, and added any additional extras, you will click Publish to send the status to your Timeline for your likers to see. 5.1.7. Boost post This is a great feature for extending your post reach, and acts as an advert. For a fee, you can allow your status to reach Facebook users who haven t yet liked your profile. You can target your ideal audience, and specify how long you want your advert to run for. This is perhaps a great feature to use when you have an offer in your garage. 5.1.8. Check in This allows you to add your exact location to your post, so that Facebook users can trace you. Setting your garage address as your current location could allow likers to find you easier. 5.1.9. Feelings Here you can add a little bit of feeling to your status. This allows you the option to tell your likers how you re feeling, and what you re doing. 19
5.1.10. Photo/image This is a quicker option for you to add a photo. 5.1.10.1. Tagging photos If you upload a photo of a person or business, you can tag them in it, if they have a Facebook account, once you have published the photo. 1) When you have published a photo, it will appear on your Timeline. You will then need to click on the image itself 2) This will bring you to a pop out page which will allow you to edit the image. You also see a few more options: you can choose to make the photo your Profile Picture, Tag photo, Add location and Edit. You will need to click Tag Photo. 20
3) You will then click on the image, where you d like the tag to appear, and then type in the name of the person you wish to tag. 4) Once you have finished tagging they necessary profiles, click Finished Tagging and then you can exit the photo. This will send a notification to the tagged profile, letting them know that you have tagged them in your image. 21
5.1.11. Posting as a business When you re posting as a business, everything you post on Facebook sets an image for your garage. It s your way of selling your business, even when you re not posting promotions or services. This is because your statuses act as a reflection of your business, and thus it is important to keep things professional. This does not necessarily mean you can t have some fun with Facebook, but you do have to be conscious of the fact that whatever you do post will reflect on your company. It is therefore wise to make sure you don t post anything that could land your garage in trouble. The best way to encourage users to like you, and stay following you, is to produce interesting content. The ultimate aim is for other users to get a little bit excited every time they see you ve posted, and this will only happen if you know what your customers want to read. Figuring out what your audience wants isn t a quick easy process, and does require some trial and error. 5.1.12. Tone and purpose Since your Facebook page is aimed to promote your business, your statuses should be informative. The only way your likers will really know that they want to use your garage is if you make it explicitly clear what you can provide for them. In order to keep your audiences interested, and encourage interaction, humour is a great tool. This will add a lot more personality to your account, so that you don t appear to be too formal and less interesting. Although your Facebook page is business-focussed, users like to see and feel like there is an actual human being behind the statuses. Injecting personality is a great way to keep other users engaged in your posts. 5.2. TMG affiliation You may know by now that Trust My Garage is backed by Trading Standard s Consumer Codes Approval Scheme. This backing provides a great deal of credibility to the IGA, and consequently you, as a member of the IGA. Don t forget to like RMI Independent Garages and Trust My Garage pages. Doing so will allow you to tag these us into your statuses, and easily see our updates. 5.2.1. Interacting with TMG If you like RMI Independent Garages and Trust My Garage on Facebook, and tag us in a status, we will like or share your post to help to promote your garage. Don t forget to get involved with our polls and surveys, and reply to our questions. 5.3. What to post Here are some of the things you could post about: Information about the services you offer Special offers, promotions and sales Anecdotes of funny/interesting experiences within your garage Had a great experience with a customer? Post about it, and tag the customer in the status. If you re a Trust My Garage approved garage, tag us in a picture of your TMG shield Fun questions to get your users interacting News relevant to garages or motoring What you re getting up to in the garage 22
Any events you ll be attending Tips, tricks and hacks Keeping a good balance of work and fun statuses is the best way to keep audiences engaged. Try not to overwhelm them with too much business information. Equally, do not lose out on any chances to promote your services by posting too many jokes. 5.4. Things to consider When posting on your business page, the main thing to keep in mind is your target audience. A successful Facebook page caters for its followers. Consider: Who is your intended audience? What they ought to know? What might they want to know? What will they find interesting? How do you want them to react to your status? What do you want to achieve? 5.5. When to post Consistency is the best when it comes to using social media. Successful Facebook pages post often, and don t leave their following waiting too long. There are no distinct rules when it comes to how often is often enough, as this depends greatly on what you re posting. As a general rule, if your statuses have substantial content, with information that your followers really will want to read, then posting one or two times a day is substantial. There is no point posting irrelevant, unengaging content, just for the sake of posting. In order to keep your Facebook page active, try to write at least one status a day. You don t want to lose followers due to inactivity. By posting often, your followers will know that you can be on hand to answer any of their questions or queries fairly quickly. Knowing this could bring in more traffic to your page, as potential consumers may use your page as their primary way of getting in touch with you. Sharing relevant posts from other pages is another way to keep your business page filled with content. The Trust My Garage Facebook page has lots of motoring news and advice that your customers may be interested in, including article from the TMG blog. In terms of times, you should aim to post a status while your followers are most active. Assuming that the majority of your followers work 9-5, they are most likely to be more active during their free time in the evening. This does not necessarily mean that you have to be glued to your phone or laptop during your own free time, as you can schedule your statuses to be posted at a certain time. 5.6. User Interactions When a Facebook user tags you in status or photo or posts on your wall, you will see an icon in your Notifications Tab. Clicking this will lead to a list of all the Facebook users who have interacted with your page. 23
Sometimes, other Facebook users may post on your wall. These will show up on your Business Page, under the Visitor Posts section. 5 1 2 3 4 5.6.1. Like Liking a post allows you to show acknowledgment and appreciation of what has been posted to your page. 5.6.2. Comment This allows you to comment directly on the post, by way of responding to it. This can be viewed by anyone looking at your business page 5.6.3. Message This allows you to respond to the post privately, through your Messages, so that no one else can see the conversation. 5.6.4. Post as This allows you to choose the account you d like to like/comment from. You can opt to interact as your business, or through your personal account. 5.6.5. More options This allows you more options in regards to the post. Here you can delete the post entirely or hide it so that no one else can view it. 24
7. Management 7.1. Goals Be sure to define your goals for social media. Are you hoping to increase your customer-base? Do you want to receive more feedback? Having goals will allow you to create more purposeful social media content, and will help you when trying to think of relevant material. 7.2. Running the Facebook page With your goals in mind, you need to decide who will run the Facebook account, and whether they will be the best face of your company. This person needs to fully understand your garage goals, and make sure they have a plan or at least an idea of how they will achieve these. 7.2.1. Allowing users to manage your page Since your business page can only be accessed via your personal account, you may assume that you are the only person eligible to manage and maintain the business page. In fact, you can actually nominate other users to have administrative access to the page. 1) In order to allow a user this privilege, head to your business homepage, and click on Settings 2) Click on Page Roles on the left hand navigation bar 25
7.3. Tracking progress You can see how well your Facebook page is doing by clicking on the insights tab on your business homepage. Insights tell you how many impressions, mentions and engagements you ve received in a specified time period. These figures can help you to create new goals. 7.4. Cross-platforming Have a Twitter or LinkedIn account? Be sure to promote your Facebook page on these sites. Most social media users have a preference for which platform they use more regularly, so it is important to promote all of your social media accounts, so that users can follow you on all. 26
8. Final considerations Since your primary purpose is to provide a service to consumers, it is important to listen to them. Don t forget to regularly check your notifications and acknowledge/respond to any posts from your consumers. This will help you to build up a sense of rapport and loyalty between you and your consumers, and they may be able to provide you with insight into the ways that you could improve your business, as well as spread the word about your garage to friends and family. 27