How To Support Your Favorite Business Without Spending a Penny

Recently a cool, little place here in Decatur that I enjoyed frequenting went out of business. In my past I was notorious for picking hairdressers, massage therapists, doctors, etc. that pulled up roots and moved away or quit their chosen profession altogether. I talk to people all the time who are having these same experiences. It’s disheartening.

Couple this with a lot of questions about why folks aren’t seeing my social media posts and I got to thinking about how we can all very quickly and simply use some of the time we waste spend on social media to support the businesses and service providers we love.

Many of you may already know that I focus most of my social media efforts on Facebook. I do have LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and a couple of videos on YouTube and Animoto, but Facebook is where you’re going to find me. I picked Facebook because I’ve been on it for quite a long time and was able to develop my business page with existing knowledge instead of starting over somewhere else. Also, a lot of people are on Facebook and it was free exposure for my business so it just made sense.

Then when Facebook went public and started selling its shares on the open market they changed their algorithms to make it more difficult for businesses to get free exposure to existing and potential customers. So hopefully this will help you 1) start seeing posts from businesses you’re interested in supporting and 2) learn the best techniques to help support your local favorites.

How Do I See Your Posts?

First of all, this technique works for any Facebook business page. I used mine for example purposes because, well, it’s my website so why wouldn’t you want to see my stuff?

So the very first thing you need to do is go to my Facebook page and “Like” my page. Yay! Don’t you wish everything in life were that easy? But, you’re not done yet so keep reading…

The next thing is look for these buttons underneath the cover photo.

Select the down arrow next to the “Following” button. Then select the Pencil icon next to “Notifications”. Please don’t select the “Unfollow This Page” option or you will be sad…

In each section of the Notifications section select the checkboxes for each section that has one and then in the Live Videos section, selection “All Live Posts”. Selecting these options will tell Facebook that you really do want to see what I’m putting out there.

Select “News Feed” in the left-hand menu bar. This dialog box will let you select where you want posts to appear in your Newsfeed. I currently don’t have any information as to whether selecting “See First” is any more influential than “Default” And when you’re done select “Done”

Whew! That was way more work than I thought it was going to be, but now that it’s set up, you don’t have to mess with it anymore and as a bonus when I post anything you should get a notification. And again, you can do this process for any business you’re really into!

How To Support Your Favorite Business Without Spending a Penny

Obviously, if no one spends money with your favorite business this technique isn’t going to work and they are going to go out of business. So what I’m about to show you will help other people learn about your favorites and hopefully spend their money. This is a win-win so that when you’re ready to spend your money, your favorite massage therapist is still able to to give you a fantastic massage, your favorite esthetician can still give you a fabulous facial, or your favorite restaurant is still serving the best chicken salad in town. Using this technique is also going to convince Facebook that you really do want to see what your favorites are putting online and it’s really easy!

I’m going to sum it up very simply: Like, Comment and Share. If you love my massage go to my Facebook page and scroll down until you start seeing the posts that I make. Then do something to the posts. Like one, make a comment on another one, and if you really, really want Facebook to start putting my posts in front of your face, share them with your friends. If you see a sponsored ad that I’m paying for, share it and comment on it. And when I jump on and do a Live video, please watch it (as much of it as you can stand), comment on it and share it. These simple actions speak volumes to the Facebook algorithms (especially when you SHARE posts) and you will have the best chance of seeing future posts.

Interaction is the key. So let’s get out there and interact! I can’t make any promises, but you  might just get lucky and win something in one of the contests I run. And since I’m a massage therapist, I usually give away interesting things like, oh, massage!

♥

Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Barefoot Massage Specialist!