Whether you haven’t taken the plunge yet to get your head around Facebook and start marketing your business on the platform, or you’ve already started (well, everyone else is on it, aren’t they!), but you just don’t seem to be getting any traction, then this is for you.

I’ve spoken with a surprising number of business people by now who:

• Are not on Facebook yet, but toying with the idea
• Have been told that they need to get on it because everyone else is
• Are on it, but don’t really know why or what they’re doing (I think this is the biggest group!)
• Don’t post that much, as they don’t really know what to post about
• Have set up a page, got some likes, but don’t really know where to go from there.

Recognise anyone in that list?

There is no doubt that used properly, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool, but it’s like any other tool, it has to be used properly

But your business also has to be suited to Facebook marketing in the first place

And you also have to have something to say, on a regular basis, apart from “Here’s our latest offer . . . “ or “15% off this week”, or “Like our page and share this picture with your friends to win . . . “ (Grrrr – separate post coming soon about this one!)

So to deal with the first one, is your Business suited to marketing on Facebook?

Are you likely to gain any marketing traction from your well-thought out regular Facebook posts?

I’ve come up with a simple quiz / questionnaire to try to help you with the above, and give you some guiidance as to whether or not you should focus on Facebook, or move on and stop banging your head on that wall!

Remember it’s for guidance only, but hopefully it helps.

Click the link below, and take the quiz – I’ll come back to you with your score based on your answers.

Facebook Business Score Quiz

And if you’re in the North West area, and any of the above applies to you, I’m running a seminar for you on 22nd April which may be of interest – click the image below for details:

Image courtesy of Wurz on Flickr

The recent horsemeat food scandal, which started with an Irish lab finding horse DNA in one batch of frozen burgers from a Monaghan-based food processing plant, has now escalated to a massive European-wide can of worms.

Many people (myself included) were probably not aware of the fact (or maybe we didn’t want to think too much about) that the processed meat pack you buy from certain supermarket chains, has actually a massive chain of middlemen involved in it, stretching across Ireland, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania.

Who knew?

Essentially globalisation of the food industry has led to an expansion of the supply chain, and  consequently a control issue where it becomes very difficult to cross-check everything.

So now we have a crisis of consumer confidence, and a thread which has been pulled and is just going to keep unravelling and getting worse (as I write this traces have been found in school & hospital dinners, people are starting to get arrested, and processing facilities raided and closed down – I think it’s far from over)

So what does all this mean for your local business / SME if you’re in the food business?

Well, it’s stating the obvious to say that this is on consumers’ minds at the minute (and just in case they forget, the blanket news coverage of this Pandora’s Box will provide daily reminders)

And that’s what you can capitalise on as a local provider.

If you’re a local butcher, it’s an opportunity to reinforce the message that you provide locally sourced meat which can be traced back to the very farm the animal came from (if you can claim this). A chance to get the message out on your social media channels, website / blog, local newspapers, local radio, etc. and differentiate yourself in your market.

Same if you’re a local restaurant / hotel and you source locally and are confident in being able to back up that claim.

It’s a chance to gain some marketing capital and turn the tide on the big players who have been chipping away at your business for so long.

Here’s a local example of making the most of the PR opportunity: Derry Journal horse meat scandal article

And another from a UK trade association of independent butchers: The Guardian horse meat scandal article

Opportunities like this don’t come along often. Now is the time to strike.

Before the stable door is closed.