Social Selling: Is Facebook Messenger Worth Your Time?

We recent­ly post­ed on social media about using Face­book Mes­sen­ger to curate leads, and asked what YOU do. Is Mes­sen­ger part of your social media plan, or not?

The results were mixed. Some folks said NO, oth­ers said YES, and some said (in so many words) that they only did it because they knew they need­ed to get with the times. We appre­ci­at­ed the honesty! 

Let’s get right to our opin­ion on the mat­ter: here at ADC, we’re see­ing lots of suc­cess using Face­book Mes­sen­ger, and do rec­om­mend it. But (and it’s a big ​“but”), only if you can real­ly get on board and see the value. 

Whether it works or not is real­ly up to you. Keep read­ing to see what we mean.

What Makes Mes­sen­ger Ineffective?

Here are three MAJOR road­blocks to success:

1. You don’t give it enough time. Mes­sen­ger is not a mag­ic bul­let, and, like any social media effort, it requires time to exper­i­ment, adjust, and devel­op a plan that works.
2. You set it and for­get it. Social media isn’t a crock pot either… You can’t throw in the ingre­di­ents, walk away, then come back to some­thing amaz­ing. If you aren’t will­ing or able to respond to and engage with the mes­sages, then it will nev­er work for you.
3. You can’t get past the tire kick­ers. Not every mes­sage that comes through (espe­cial­ly in the ear­ly stages) is going to be a stel­lar lead. You’ll get junk mes­sages, dead ends, tire kick­ers, and peo­ple who sim­ply send you non­sen­si­cal GIFS now and then (hey, it’s the internet). 

What Makes Face­book Mes­sen­ger Work Real­ly, Real­ly Well?

1. Make a plan! Have some­one in your office who knows to watch for new mes­sages and can engage right away. Down­load­ing the Face­book Page app is real­ly use­ful, let­ting you quick­ly and eas­i­ly man­age noti­fi­ca­tions. Or, you might want to look into Podi­um, offer­ing a one-app solu­tion to your mes­sag­ing (and mak­ing it easy to assign spe­cif­ic team mem­bers to take the lead). 
2. Give it time! Whether you’re exper­i­ment­ing on your own or work­ing with a social media man­ag­er, keep dial­ing in your audi­ence (demo­graph­ics, loca­tions, inter­ests, etc.). Your lead qual­i­ty WILL improve.
3. Be friend­ly! More on this below, but it bears men­tion­ing twice. Don’t just give peo­ple a link to the esti­mate form on your web­site. That’s like some­one approach­ing you in per­son, ask­ing about your ser­vices, and you hand­ing them a busi­ness card in silence and walk­ing away. 

And, don’t for­get! You won’t be eter­nal­ly teth­ered to Mes­sen­ger. You can tog­gle on the Away but­ton, ini­ti­at­ing an auto-respon­der with the mes­sage of your choice to keep the con­ver­sa­tion warm until you get back. 

Focus on Relationships!!!

A few of the respons­es we heard on social media essen­tial­ly said that they missed the good old days of chat­ting with peo­ple in person. 

We get that. We real­ly, real­ly do. 

The rela­tion­al, net­work­ing aspect of own­ing a small busi­ness is spe­cial, and it’s hard­er to find these days. What you have to remem­ber is that direct chat, like Face­book Mes­sen­ger and social media in gen­er­al, is your oppor­tu­ni­ty to do that old-school com­mu­ni­ca­tion in a new school set­ting. So, don’t just throw a sales pitch at peo­ple. Engage in Mes­sen­ger, ask about their project, tell them to have a good day, and treat them like PEO­PLE, not just a dig­i­tal enti­ty that’s tak­ing your time. 

If you do, you WILL have success.