App Review: Facebook Pages

Product: Facebook Pages

iTunes Link: Facebook Pages

Cost:  Free

Category:  Business

Platform: iOS

Device: iPhone

Rating: 3/5

Review:

Description:

If you have a Facebook Page that you manage you will know that managing that page on the road is very hard.  The Facebook App itself is adequate for casually viewing your updates and posting the latest from your personal account; however doing the same for your page is harder to do.  With that in mind Facebook has designed an App that focuses on managing your Page.  Within the App you have the ability to post updates and photos, and can review the insights portion of your page.

Pros:

This App provides you with a quick and easy way to manage your page.  The ability to respond to your fans and the ability to update status on the road is very important.  Insights tab, can you give you latest stats about your fans and response rates. 

The other positive thing about this App is that you can manage multiple pages from it.

Cons:

The App does not allow you to manage your Ads.  In addition, the fan emails will not show up on this app so you can’t respond to them on the go.  The app does not allow you to use Facebook as your Page’s profile.

Bottom Line:

So so!  While this app provides you with some needed Page management functionality it certainly has limitations.  It is a good start for Facebook, but the app is not a game changer. 

Storefront on Facebook for your business

If you currently have a web based business, and would like to expand your reach to the Facebook universe; you should take a look at a new service. Payvment is a startup that now offers a free store front on Facebook for your business. 

The app allows you to setup your products, uploads photos and offer shipping options.  You can also add your store to the Payvment shopping mall.  Facebook users can “Like” your product and make comments on them.

Payvment has been growing quickly since launch time (50,000 merchants).  They are adding about 250 merchants a day to their mall.

There are rumors that Facebook is also working on a shopping mall within Facebook universe and allowing users to purchased goods via Facebook credits. 

How it works:                                                          

The Facebook store will be created as a tab under your Facebook Fan page.  It allows search of your products within the window. The shopping Cart included will automatically update prices for users and it is powered by Payvment’s “Open Cart Network” so that the transaction can be completed from any storefront.

No merchant account is necessary; just a PayPal account to collect sales revenue.  Consumers can purchase products via PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Amex or Discover. You can also accept payments in over 20 world currencies.

Shipping via FedEx and UPS is supported and it is automatically calculated.  UPS and FedEx accounts are not required.

What this means for your business:

By adding a store front to your store on Facebook, you are essentially adding another channel for your business.  As you build your community of fans on Facebook, you can include promotions and discounts on Facebook, and have your fans purchase items within the Facebook universe as opposed to leaving Facebook and going to your website. 

The thing about auto dealerships

You visit an auto dealership and after a good round of negotiations end up with the car you want at a price you are happy with.  But after you purchase the car what happens?  Do you go back to the same dealership to have your car serviced?  Do you go back there when you are looking for your next vehicle? What is your loyalty to that same dealer?  

Well the studies prove that there is not much loyalty to the car dealer after the car has been purchased. As a matter of fact only 24% of car owners end up taking their car back to the same dealership for service. The lack of loyalty has been something major car manufacturers are trying to help dealers with.  The launch of credit cards that award points for car services has been one example (Toyota Credit Card, GM Credit Card). 

However, that has not really improved the margins for dealerships.  The dealerships spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to bring in sales to their dealerships but once the purchase is done, not much happens with their customers. 

This is an area Social Media can really help dealerships bring back those customers to their dealerships. Customer loyalty needs to be built up after the purchase of a vehicle. 

So what can the dealerships do? 

1. Launch their own Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account, have new customers provide them with their e-mail addresses at time of purchase and send them links to connect. 

2. Once the customers are connected, provide them with exclusive deals and coupons for car service, events that they sponsor and even give aways for visiting the dealership. 

3. Provide "Car of the month" a new and pre-owned vehicle to be featured on their pages for these customers.  Provide a good deal with its own unique code (so that you can track it for ROI purposes). 

4. Have monthly events at dealerships, have your fan base come over for free snacks and drinks encourage them to upload photos of the event on the page. 

There are a lot more things auto dealerships can do to build a community for themselves and create fans for life.