Guest post: Claim your share of referrals from Facebook
Editor’s note: Carlo Platia is the CEO of mobile and social web marketing company Sendster. With several years of restaurant experience, and well over a decade in enterprise software and media, he is passionate about leveraging modern technology to reach potential diners and bringing them to your restaurant. In this guest post he explains the benefits of adding the Facebook “Like”-button to your restaurant website.
In 2010, Facebook reached 500 million users worldwide and overtook Google as the most visited website. That number is now closer to 600 million. That’s 600 million people – and over 28 million in the UK – chatting about what they’re doing, where they’re going and the places they love.
Every day, Facebook users are generating over 65 million ‘Likes’. That is, they are clicking over 65 million Like buttons on the web and immediately bringing the Liked web page to the attention of their Facebook friends. Liking is a Facebook user’s way of saying “I think this is cool” or “check this out”. In other words, it’s a referral and it’s coming from someone you know and trust – a friend.
With so many ‘Likes’ occurring every day, getting your customers to refer your business in Facebook is the best way to bring new visitors to your website. This is particularly true if your business is the type that people like to talk about, such as a restaurant or pub.
And here’s the thing – your business doesn’t even need to have a Facebook Page. All you need is a website. The simplest way for a Facebook user to recommend your shop or venue is to press the ‘Like’ button on your own website, thereby becoming a ‘fan’. People are doing it to register for news and updates, discounts and promotion and to show support for a business.
The bonus of adding the Like button to your website is that you don’t need to create, manage and monitor a separate Facebook page for your business. Yet, you get the key benefits of a Facebook page, including:
- Your business appears in the ‘Likes and Interests’ of your fans and in Facebook Search
- You get to publish updates to your fans on Facebook and get noticed by their friends too
- You get to see ‘Insights’ about your fans, such as age and gender, and the effectiveness of your updates
- Your business builds an online reputation
- More people visit your business
With 10% of all UK website visits now coming directly from Facebook, making your website visible on Facebook is just as important as appearing in Google search results.
What do you need to do to claim your share of referrals from Facebook? Two things:
- First, add a Like button to your website.
- Second, get your customers to click the Like button on your website so that you get noticed by their friends.
If you already have a Facebook page but are struggling to maintain it regularly or not seeing much in the way of benefits, my advice would be to close the page and concentrate on your website by adding a Like button there.
Adding a Like button to your website is pretty straightforward and, with a little research, can be accomplished by anyone with reasonable website development skills and with access to update your website. However, without proper research, it may not be clear how to make your referrals more visible in Facebook, how to post to your new fans in Facebook and how to access your Insights.
For those who want to go the DIY route, I would recommend watching the instructional videos provided by Facebook and then reading the documentation before making any changes to your site. The video series is called ‘Building social for business’ and has 6 parts so far. You can view the first part here.
For those of you who want this done at a low cost, quickly and effectively by experts, reach out to us at Sendster. We specialise in mobile and Facebook marketing for local businesses and can get this done for you in a couple of days for less than £100. You can find out more here and view our testimonials here.
Thank you very much Carlo for that great post! Of course, bringing diners to your website is only one part of the online marketing game. Once you have them there you need a way for them to book your restaurant. At Livebookings we have the tools to convert website traffic to paying customers, and to analyse the success rate to help you learn where your business can improve.
Join the Livebookings network of restaurants today to take your online marketing to the next level!
