As many readers know I deliver seminars around the country in conjunction with the Imprinted Sportswear Shows.  For the last couple of years I have been delivering sessions to decorators on marketing your business with social media.  Social Media is all the rage and there are countless ways to get involved.  As a decorator you have to make a choice as to what forms of social media you will participate in and how much time you will devote to each.  There are options to consider but for most decorators I would recommend a plan that leverages the social networking aspect of social media  - specifically Facebook.

Facebook is a social networking site, if you haven’t heard of it by now, you’re probably from outerspace:)

I’m writing this assuming you have a basic concept of what Facebook is and hopefully even a personal profile on Facebook.  Having a general idea about how Facebook works will allow you to get the maximize value from this 4 part series.

Let’s dive into part 1 –  Facebook For Apparel Decorators: Page Set Up

Profiles vs Pages

While you may already have a personal profile on Facebook, for your business you should set up a page on Facebook.

The main difference between a profile and a page is that pages can gain FANS whereas Profiles gain friends.  Ultimately for business you want Fans – it allows you to get the maximum value out of your efforts  - you’ll read more about how throughout this series.

Understanding the basics of recruiting a fan

In order to gain a Fan, an action needs to occur.  Basically a person visits your Facebook Page and then clicks a button that says “Like” – which means they like you.  Pretty simple.  Once they commit to “Liking” your brand/business you have a fan – you’re connected!  At that point you’ve gained something very valuable.  You can now publish content to them in various ways.  In most cases when you publish some form of content it will display on their profile “Wall” when they are logged in.  For you rookies – the “wall” is a staple of Facebook..it’s the place you go to read the latest status updates from the friends and pages you chose to be connected to.  The value in publishing to someones wall is that it allows interactions throughout the day/week as they are logged into Facebook.  Ultimately it keeps your brand in front of them – I’m sure you can understand why this is important!

Setting Up A Page

Before we can start gaining fans we need to set up a page.  When setting up your page you want it to reflect your company.  There are some basic steps that are required to start.  If you already have a page or know how to set one up skip the part where I ask you to click and read below…otherwise click and read this tutorial walking you through the basics of setting up your page, before going any further…

10 Steps to Setting Up a Facebook Business Page by Rocket Media

Facebook Page Tabs for Apparel Decorators

Now that you know the basics of page set up you’ll need to consider the various tabs on your page.  Choose wisely as tabs will play a unique role in helping you generate content and contribute to the overall fan experience on your page.  For reference, the goal is to populate content that is relevant to your fans without being overly commercial.  Being commercial is better suited for ads, not for most tabs or wall posts – we’ll review how and when to be commercial later in this series.  For now, let’s review some of my favorite tabs for apparel decoration businesses and discuss how they will help you generate great content.

Photos – this tab is a simple one to manage.  Simply add the photo tab and populate it with photos.  Many decorators will publish a gallery of their work, setting up albums within Facebook for different categories of decoration.  Another unique idea is to just attach a photo every week to a wall post.  Show jobs that are going out of your door (assuming you have permission to show the customer art).  This type of discipline will allow you to keep content flowing.  It will also show your customers new ideas.  Someone who normally trusts you for their team business will see that you can also do polo shirts for their corporation and who knows maybe place a new order.

YouTube or Video – you can choose either a YouTube tab or a standard Video Tab through Facebook.  I prefer a YouTube tab.  This is a nice way to share the content you publish on YouTube to a broader base of people.  Once you tie in the link to each specific YouTube video they will publish to your wall as well as the wall of your Fans.  If you don’t currently utilize video for your business, you may want to consider it as a great social media avenue to explore and one that works perfectly into your master plan with Facebook.  Short category based videos comparing decorating options or showing this years new technology are always well received by potential customers.

Blog – This tab may or may not be for you.  If you write a blog you can network it right to your Facebook fan page, so every time you publish a new post the content published to your “Networked Blogs” tab.  If you’re just getting started in Social Media a blog may be too much – start with Facebook and consider a blog later.  However I have to make mention of the “blog” tab because a Facebook page is a nice way to tie in all of your social media efforts into one feed of sorts.

Events – this is a pretty useful tab for those of us that sell to local customers.  You can set up an event or open house at your shop and send the invite to all of your Fans.  Likewise if you are having an online event such as a webinar you can schedule it and publish it to all of your fans.

Reviews – make sure you’re ready for this.  I personally am a big fan of the review tab on Facebook.  This allows your Fans to leave comments about your work.  This can be very powerful IF you are putting out a quality product and generally have happy customers.  Of course, publishing a review tab leaves you open to negative reviews.  While you can police these with your admin rights to your page, it’s generally a good idea to meet negative reviews calmly and openly address the problem – after all deleting it would be kind of anti-social networking.  If you’re nervous about this leave it off, but be aware customers will find a way to voice their displeasure, you might as well have a chance to address it:)

Discussions – this is a tab that acts like a forum of sorts.  If your Fans have a question, they can ask it here.  It’s also a place to solicit feedback from your customers.  IF you add discussions, be sure to make it a discipline to check this area and respond promptly.

FBML – this stands for Facebook Markup Language and is kind of a customizable tab if you know how to write the code or can get someone to do it for you.  This tab is very useful for placing clickable ads showing the products you offer.  You can set up multiple tabs for different promotions or you can set up on master tab and populate it with a few ads sort of like a bulletin board.  Victoria’s Secret has a page for their Pink collection and they do a real nice job utilizing this tab like a bulletin board: http://www.facebook.com/vspink

So those should get you started, some of my favorite tabs….

But I’m sure you’ve noticed, the content you place on these tabs is no good unless you have fans to read it, likewise you can’t attract fans without content.  So it’s a catch 22 and you’ll need to work these in tandem making both a priority.

In part 2 of this series we’ll talk more about strategies for publishing good content so you’re ready to properly engage your fans with your brand.

Part 3 will then talk about strategies for recruiting fans and Part 4 will wrap up our series with “Advertising on Facebook & Other Page Strategies”

Feel free to post any comments or questions and please subscribe to my blog by entering your email in the top right of this page to keep updated with this series – OR you can become a Fan on our Facebook Page by clicking here and we’ll update you when they launch…BRILLIANT:)

Thanks for reading!

Josh