BUSINESS INSIGHTS

How small businesses can use Facebook to build community

4:00 Minute Read

by Spectrum Business

People gathered around under chat bubbles.

Starting and growing a small business can be challenging, especially when it comes to building the loyal customer base needed to drive long-term revenue growth. Facebook’s broad reach and easy sharing features make it a powerful tool to help devoted patrons spread the word and create a sense of community around your brand.

Here are examples of how three small businesses — a jewelry store, a vintage shop and a health food restaurant — could use Facebook to build community and grow their customer base.

Jewelry store: targeting high-value customers

A jewelry store wants to establish a community of people who appreciate fine jewelry and make frequent purchases. Using Facebook can help by:

Promoting the arrival of new merchandise, weekly specials and informative stories about gemstones and jewelry trends
Hosting contests where people share their favorite jewelry moments, encouraging votes and awarding gift cards to top entries
Using paid ads to boost posts and targeting audience by age, income and interests
Announcing monthly in-store events and sharing photos and details during and after the event

Vintage shop: bringing customers to your physical store

A vintage shop located in a historic building in a newly popular part of the city wants to bring more people to the store. To increase traffic, the shop should:

Use Facebook paid ads to promote daily merchandise photographs to people within a 20-mile radius who select AMC’s television show Mad Men as a “like” on Facebook
Post stories about the building’s history and share them in local business groups and historical societies
Offer Facebook-only discounts to encourage followers to visit in person
Sponsor, participate in and share events located around the city that are promoted on Facebook

Health food restaurant: becoming a wellness leader

A restaurant that specializes in healthy prepared meals wants to position itself as an expert in nutrition and wellness. It could:

Write weekly blog posts on nutrition topics and tease them on Facebook with catchy headlines and mouthwatering food pictures
Connect with key health and nutrition influencers on Facebook to expand the restaurant’s reach
Host a charity event to raise funds for a wellness cause, feature a well-known chef to cook a healthy meal, share photos and videos from the event on Facebook, create a fundraiser challenge on their Page and pledge to match donations
Join the Facebook network of journalists who write about nutrition and health and engage with their posts by commenting or sharing them to build credibility