(Note: This article/rant assumes you are already using Facebook to market your small business. )

I have been noticing an unfortunate trend in Facebook “marketing”.

I’m not talking about Facebook ads, which can be used in a remarkably effective manner.

What I’m talking about is small businesses using Facebook to announce things related to their business.

At any given time I log in to Facebook and receive literally dozens of event invites. Oftentimes it is two or three from the same business. Wine tastings, music festivals, concerts, film viewings, and so forth. It gets to the point where my eyes just glaze over. I hit DELETE or “No I won’t Be Attending” without even looking at the date or show information because now, it’s just annoying.

These announcements are just being shouted. It’s no different than getting spammed with e-mail newsletters. I have been “un-friending” the worst offenders at an increasing rate. And more and more are becoming offensive every day.

The sad part is these are local businesses I want to use and support.

This is one problem with social media that many not familiar with the intricacies are failing to understand. It’s very easy to move back to the traditional one-way conversation marketers have used in the past.

If you run a Facebook page for your company, restaurant, or music venue, use the following simple guidelines:

• When you post an event and someone says “No they will not be attending”, follow up with them and tell them you will miss them and you hope to catch them at the next one.
• When someone comes to an event and you meet them, thank them for showing up. Follow that up afterward with a post to their wall thanking them for attending.
• Monitor your friend stream for mentions of your business. Participate in the conversation.

Doing this ensures that (1) you aren’t giving the impression you are spamming. (2) You develop a relationship with the person which ensures genuine interest.

Where To Find The Time?

You own a business and you are a busy person. You are probably wondering how you can fit even more time into dealing with Facebook. That’s a fair question. If you are already logging in to post events, do it then. It will take all of 10 additional minutes to fire off some quick responses to people not attending or people you met at the last event. It might take even less time.

You can even put together some semi-canned responses that you can tweak for each person you communicate with to shave off a few extra precious minutes of your social marketing time.

Honestly, this is the reason I use Twitter more than Facebook. Twitter almost makes it a prerequisite that you have a two-way conversation. It’s remarkable in it’s simplicity (for now anyways).