Why would I want to follow you?
All around us we see businesses with a “Follow us” sign for Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. In most cases that’s all there is. This leaves me with one very simple question “Why would I want to follow you?”
The wrong reasons
For my local take away joint, they are doing it because …
Actually, I have no idea why they are doing it. My guess is it is one of the following:
- an ego trip to see who likes them
- everyone else is doing it
- it worked for someone else, so it should work for them
- it’s cheap advertising
If you check out the page, there really isn’t that much going on. They refurbished recently and so they have photos of the new interior. And a token number of food photos that never resemble the actual product.
But I know what the place looks like because I’ve just been there. Why would I follow you?
This is also a cafe that is not doing anything special in-store. It’s not like they have a dish of the day, or specials, or new items.
In fact, the only bit of novelty we have is counting how many things they touch before changing gloves.
The right reasons
Recently I dropped past La Mocha at Springfield Lakes. I’m not a local, but I wish I was.
This is a cafe that is in one of those small shopping centres in the middle of suburbia. You know the type – where you park right in front of the shop and walk in.
Now this is a cafe that I could easily become a regular. The coffee is great. The food is fantastic. But the real magic is with the owner – Erkan. Ask him about coffee one day!
After talking coffee, we then got onto my second favourite topic – shop. This is a guy who is already doing some fantastic promotions like tossing a coin for a free cup of coffee. Every week he has something on to make life a little bit more interesting. He knows that even great coffee can become…predictable. Forget about a “10th cup free” wallet filler, I want to toss a coin for a freeby.
And interestingly, he has a Facebook page but wasn’t using it to promote these events.
So there’s the low hanging fruit – just tell me about the fun things that are happening. Give me a reason to get out of the house and drive there. It’s Facebook, and anyone watching it is … bored. Give them an excuse to grab a coffee.
So many things that could go on Facebook
If I was running a cafe, what could I do? Awesome question. Here’s the result of our quick brain storm:
- Do a “Show this post within the next hour to receive a free coffee”.
- Promote new dishes
- Review your dishes
- Get your customers to review your dishes!!!
- Talk about the art of coffee
- Discount codes
- Do a special event
- Interview your staff
But that’s all very self-centred. It will work but why not take it up a notch…
- Interview customers about hot topics
- Interview customers about whatever they feel like talking about
- Get customers to tell a joke
- Cover local events
- Promote local events
- Hold a local event
“Why would I want to follow you?”
Which brings me back to my own navel gazing. Why would anyone want to follow me?
I know that most people aren’t holding their breath waiting for the next temperature logger release. My web sites have my products on it, and you don’t want to go to my Facebook page to see all that there is.
So we try a number of different things to engage people. One is doing just this – analysing how business is done. I love talking shop. Doing it online is just me ruminating.
Or we have posts specifically about food safety and food poisoning. And science experiments.
It’s about trying to engage with people.