Facebook Offers is an excellent tool that you can use to promote your business through social media. Offers let your business deliver a great deal each day into your fans’ News Feeds. These types of deals are similar to a Groupon or LivingSocial offer without having to go through an outside website.

Facebook Offers can easily spread virally from one fan to another. Users can share the offer directly with their own friends and family when they click on the offer. If they choose to claim the offer, a post will automatically go into their timeline about the offer too.

Setting up a Facebook Offer is quick and simple. Let’s go through the process from start to finish:

1. Open your Facebook Page. On the top left side of your timeline, you will see “Status,” “Photo/Video,” and “Offer/Event+.” Click on “Offer/Event.”

2. Select “Offer.” Once you click on “Offer/Event,” a dialogue box opens up listing “Offer,” “Event,” “Milestone” and “Question.” Choose “Offer.”

3. Start your offer. After you choose “Offer,” a new dialogue box opens. This is where you prepare your offer to be posted.

Put Together Your Offer

You will upload an image to be used in your offer. This should be a simple picture of the product being offered. If you are offering a service, try to use an image that reflects that. For example, if you are providing a free week of lawn care you might choose to use a picture of a man mowing.

Next, come up with an attention-grabbing headline. You want this to be your call-to-action that gets users to click on and claim your offer. For example: “Free lawn mowing for the first 25 Burleson residents!”

You will then need to select the number of offers you will allow. You don’t want to leave this open and discover that you don’t have enough supply to meet demand. You can choose to make this number large or small. Having a smaller number will give users a sense of urgency in order to claim the offer before it runs out.

Set the Expiration Date for your offer. You can set it to expire at any date, whether it’s one day or one month.

Set your Terms & Conditions. Make this fit your business. It can be one offer per person, per visit, per group, etc.

Post Your Offer

Now that you have set all of the requirements for your Offer, you are ready to post. Simply review the Offer and click “Post.” This will add your offer to your timeline. Users will be able to see it in their News Feed.

Users Redeem Offer

If your fans want to redeem your offer, they just have to click “Get Offer.” A dialogue box will pop up stating that a message was sent to their email address (registered with Facebook). They can then print the offer or bring their smartphone into your location to show the message in order to redeem.

Promote Your Offer

Once you have your offer set up, start promoting it! Post about it on Facebook. Notify your newsletter subscribers. Share it with customers in your shop or restaurant.

Though Facebook Offers have been around since February, they have not been widely embraced by businesses just yet. This is an opportunity for any business to snag more customers easily and will soon catch fire.

Have you started using Facebook Offers for your business? What are some ideas for daily deals for your business? Share with us!

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When you are using Facebook as a part of your social media marketing strategy, it is important to know how to turn a fan into a super fan. These “super fans” are known as brand advocates. Brand advocates can make a world of difference in your social networking efforts.

First, let’s look at what makes a fan a brand advocate:

Writes reviews about your business/ product

Writes testimonials

Discusses your brand online and off

Actively tries to promote your business/ products

Brand advocates are like regular fans, just of a higher caliber. While it’s important to build up your fan numbers, it is even more important to boost the number of brand advocates in your marketing arsenal.

Here are a few ways that you can turn your average face book fan into a brand-advocating super fan!

Encourage your fans any way you can.

Find various points of contact with your fans and customers- email, blog, website, customer service- and create new strategies for reaching out and communicating with them. Encourage them to be cheerleaders for your brand.

Give them the tools to make referrals.

Your fans and customers want to be able to do more for your business, so give them the means to take more action. Online, they can upload their email contact lists or post onto social media sites. Offline, they can hand out referral cards or brochures. Start an SMS message campaign that can be forwarded to friends, family and associates. These are all ways that can encourage and empower your fans to be advocates for your brand.

Show your appreciation.

When you see that your brand advocates are working hard to promote your business and products, say thanks! Show them how much you appreciate the things they do. Keep them updated on progress that’s being made. Reward them for their hard work. When your advocates know that you are taking what they do seriously and that their efforts are making a difference, they will be encouraged to do more and to bring in others to help.

Keep track of your advocates.

Use analytics to keep track of and manage the people who are working hard to push your brand. You will be able to see and measure the impact that is being made by your volunteer brand advocates. This will help you know exactly what is working and what can be improved.

When you have loyal fans and customers out there acting as advocates on your behalf, you will see greater results from your social media marketing. You will forge stronger relationships with people who genuinely care about your business and products.

Are you nurturing your fan relationships in order to gain more brand advocates? What do you do to encourage your fans to do more? Share with us!

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