examples, or even multiple choice. Offer possible suggestions to prompt the
conversation.
An interesting feature to Facebook Insights is “Pages to Watch.” Here you
can find business pages that are similar to yours and Facebook will help you
compare your stats to theirs. This is useful in a number of ways. First, you
can tell if a competing business has a better following than you. This can help
you focus your marketing plan and will hopefully give you a boost in
motivation to work harder in your business
The “Pages to Watch” feature also allows you to see post engagement for
other pages for the week. Once you begin watching a page, look for sudden
spikes and dips in their engagement, then compare what has been posted on
their site that may have caused it. Not only can you get ideas for what is
trending in your field of interest, you can see some of the advertising
techniques that failed for your competition, also very beneficial information.
Let’s go back to the florist example. This business owner has been
monitoring their page insights but has recently been looking at their local
competitors’ stats as well. From their page, they determined that their
specialty balloons aren’t creating much interest. This created a problem in
that they want to find a new product to fill the shelf space. Using a
competitors’ page to determine what works best for their business is a good
way to find a new product that is driving business. This is very simple market
research.
Regardless of your type of business, creating a solid marketing plan is vital to
the success of the business overall, and overlooking social media as part of
that plan is a big mistake. These tools are free online and should be taken
advantage of. Creating a marketing scheme on a gut feeling will not work.
Use the information at hand and make a plan that will be irreplaceable to your
company.