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Ivan Petkov
This week we will have a little break from online advertising and ad networks. The reason to engage you with something different was an event from a few days ago. Near my house there is a small family restaurant that offers delicious homemade food and takeaway. The owner is my neighbor and because I am his client he asked me if I could create a facebook page for him. I was quite surprised because he is a very busy man who does not seem to be interested in new technologies, and also his business is connected with the neighborhood and people already know him. At the same time and I was intrigued because it was interested what he wanted to achieve with this page and what could I offer him as ideas. In the process of creating the page, and while questioning the owner I saw that this little experience, might be of great benefit to you because it made me ask myself a lot of questions whose answers would be useful for you. I also remembered of some other observations of mine, which I can share with you.

1. What do you want to achieve with the creation of a page of your business (website) on Facebook?
At first glance, the answer may seem obvious, but if we try to give it specific parameters, this will give us very useful information.
Everybody is in fecebook! Therefore, it has already become a fashion for everyone to make his own page around which to create a community of users. We have all seen facebook buttons that show how many users like a site, a page. Figures are intoxicating! There are campaigns and games, which have gathered 20 000, even 50 thousand people who like them. But what is the real benefit?
Let us return to the case of the family restaurant. The first thing I asked the owner was, of course, what was he aiming at with this page. I expected him to tell me that his daughter has a facebook and she has led him to create a page for the restaurant or that everybody is on facebook and to keep up with fashion, he also wants to have a profile. He, however surprised me with a very simple and practical answer: he wanted to increase the supply of takeaway food and in this regard so as to facilitate his customers, many of whom are families from the neighborhood and staff from the offices nearby to be able to see the daily menu and to order by the phone! Bravo! Red point for the owner!

2. How to give initial impetus to our facebook page, so as to promote it?
I created the page, we pointed the address and showed it on the map, we included the working hours, a photo and description of the restaurant, we published the first daily menu. And we got to a very unpleasant figure - 0 members, to like it. We opened the list of friends from the personal account of the owner and sent invitation to all his close friends and relatives to like the page so as to escape from this unpleasant figure. The aim is not to just accumulate users, but to set the ball rolling for the page. However, we have a real benefit from the page and not superfluous figures! I also liked the page because I often order food from there. In the following days the owner said to all customers who order a takeaway, and also to all new customers about his new page and how it could be helpful to them. Instead of asking him every time by the phone what the menu is they could take their time to look at it and choose what they want to eat. In this case, they would also save a lot of explanations and time to the owner of the restaurant.
Note: Define a real benefit for the people who will like your facebook page! If the information they receive is usefull, they will recommend it to friends, and this precisely is the best advertising and the greatest benefit of the social networks!

3. How to diversify the content and keep the attention of our community?
You already have a page and have you decided what regular, interesting and useful content you will publish for your fans to see. But how to escape from the routine, without repulsing them with the too intrusive increasing information we publish. In the case of the restaurant, I did the following:
- I found a music video, which is in a ridiculous way connected with the name of the bar and post it on the page. Several people immediately liked it and commented, and the owner himself played it for the visitors who do not use the Internet as well as for those who still did not know about the page. People were entertained.
- In the next few days, the owner made pictures of some of the special dishes that he had prepared for private events and published the photos on his page. He immediately received some requests if he could make similar dishes for other customers as well.
From time to time he personally greeted the customers on his page. People love the personal attitude! It's nice, when except the standard information in the case of large sites is automatically transferred to their pages on facebook, at least once a week living person personally greets you!
- Respond to inquiries, complaints and recommendations that your fans leave your facebook page. Only one person may write, but many people read it and it makes a good impression when people feel that you are paying attention to them.