Get your chatter box going.

This article, with a different title is reposted here with permission by the author, Richard Lee Rignall. Richard wears many hats. He's a social media advocate, a promoter of the arts and an overall friend of humanity. Please see more of his writing at
http://www.facebook.com/eskimosoup and join the art society of Hull, England at http://www.hullart.co.uk/.

Are you finding that there isn't much interaction on your page? As we've said many times before, interaction is key for success, not just on facebook, but on any social media platform. If all you post is information about your products and services you may find that your fans rarely comment. Not only that, but you'll rapidly run out of things to say. Without the interaction, your page may as well be just a traditional website.

So if you're not just going to talk about your business, what should you talk about? First, ask yourself, who are my customers? Are they predominantly male or female, what age groups are they, where do they live, etc?

If you can narrow it down to less than "my target audience is everybody who ever draws breath", you can start to look at what interests those smaller demographics might have. If you struggle with this, why not ask your clients. Send out an email survey or just ask in general conversation.

Once you have an idea their interests, look for any that have any relevance to your business. If there aren't any, that's not really a problem, as the fact that your clients are interested, means that prospective clients could be. Whatever area of interest you decide on, start posting links on your page and ask for feedback and opinions. Once people start offering them, their friends will be informed and those with similar interests may participate too.

We recently launched a page for a lovely group of ladies who work at Originals Hair Rooms in Hull (http://www.facebook.com/originalshairrooms). They have taken over the administration of the page and it's going really well for them, with a lot of content on hair, which is a topic their clients like to talk about. They've also broadened this slightly by discussing celebrity hairstyles, etc.

However, the interaction is starting to wain, so we've suggested broadening the content further. Without wishing to stereotype hairdressers, a lot of chatter goes on in most salons, so they're perfectly placed to say what their clients are interested in. This needs exploiting and ideally, that chatter needs replicating on the page.

So we've suggested posting links on celebrity gossip and asking for opinions, and to think about what else their clients are interested in. They could also post content on holidays, making sure to ask a question, which invites that interaction. Hopefully with this in mind, they can maintain their momentum and make a real success of the page. Good luck girls!

Get people talking on your page and you'll soon see your numbers swell. Talk shop sometimes, but not always.