Facebook is Bigger Than You Think -Part 1

A few months ago I took a trip to Kenya. It was part of a state-sponsored trip with the University of Connecticut to mentor young entrepreneurs. I went with a crew of highly intelligent and educated professionals from all over Connecticut. Some of them have studied multiple languages and indigenous tribes, some of them are top level professors of masters programs, some have traveled to other third world countries and started organic and fair trade divisions for their product lines and some are even involved with homeland security for our nation.

Me? I graduated from Keene State College with a Bachelors of Science degree in Graphic Design.

For some reason, some genius decided that it was a good idea I go along with all these over achievers and run a seminar on social media marketing as part of the 4 day required course for the young entrepreneurs. To put it into perspective...Was this a joke?

I knew nothing of Kenya. I'd never stepped foot out of America, unless you count Canada, which I think is just the actual North America with better strip clubs. I had to find out more.

I knew it was a developing country. I knew it was in Africa. But I didn't know if teaching a course on Social Media Marketing would make any sense at all. Did they have websites for their businesses? Did they have marketing budgets? What kind of businesses are they actually running? Who is going to be at the seminar? Did they even have access to the internet? Questions and more questions flooded my mind. I'd never given a lecture to anyone, other than in college for a project.

Well, we had a week to visit some of the businesses in the field before the actual seminar got under way. Some of them were in Nairobi, some were farther out in the country. One guy had an internet cafe, which is where most of them check their email and surf the web. Electricity is hard to come by in Kenya. We had rolling blackouts at our hotels every night. So you can imagine there are not many power lines roaming the landscape. Therefore, there are no internet lines following those power lines. It all helped to develop my part of the seminar. Trying to understand just how they thrive in business down here when resources are so limited.

I just kept asking as much as possible until I got my answer. Cell phones. Everything is wireless, including the internet. The majority of them don't have credit cards. They have cell phones that trade "credits" to purchase items. Want a stick of gum or a bottle of water? Whip out your cell phone. They all have cell phones. And more importantly, there were all on Facebook.

It was astonishing. They could all keep in touch on Facebook through their cell phones. This is a country that is going to skip a few levels of infrastructure, simply because they don't need it. They'll go solar before somebody ever thinks of spending the money for power lines. One of the businesses going on down there was actually selling a small solar panel with a light and a switch as a package for homes. They're not powering up mansions anyways, so it makes sense.

So when my seminar came around it was all about getting your business up on Facebook. It made the most sense for them and after roughing out a lecture minutes before I gave it, it made sense for any business any where. For these entrepreneurs it was all about access and funds. They have no money for a marketing budget. They have no money or knowledge to build a website. In fact, the first part was asking about "Traditional Media."

"Traditional Media" is what we first think of now. For example, print ads in magazines and newspapers, billboards, radio spots, tv spots and building a website. Now let's just say we want to advertise in the daily paper. Because we're a small company, we can only afford a small ad toward the back of the local section. That ad might cost $250 for a one time shot. Let's say the circulation of the daily paper is 50,000. So, 50,000 people are set to receive this paper. That doesn't mean it goes to 50,000 mailboxes. Stacks of these papers go into the boxes on every street corner, sometimes the return is high. Lets say that 30,000 people actually receive and read this paper. That's 60%. You're a local business and this paper is statewide. So let's say that your immediate area for your business is 8,000. Sixty percent of your area is 4,800. Of these 4,800 people, 2,000 read the whole paper, 1,000 of them look at all the ads and coupons. Lets hope 10% are interested in your ad. Out of the 100 people that have seen your ad let's figure 2% will take action.

So, for $250 we got two new customers. Not bad. However, that's $125 per person. Is there ever a scenario where you would spend $125 to sell a $2.50 cupcake to somebody? I hope not, you'd be out of business pretty fast.

This is where social media comes in to play. It's free to set up an account for your business on Facebook. How many friends do you already have on Facebook? One hundred? Most likely, the majority of those friends are interested because they know you already. Let's just say 30 of them tried your business and 10 actually liked it. Enough to share it on their Facebook walls. Maybe they each have 100 friends. That's 1,000 people that just saw somebody say something good about your business. Let's be honest, sharing something on your Facebook page is the same as a recommendation. Now, using the same 2% from the newspaper return, that's 2o people that came in and tried your business. From this point it's up to you and the quality of the product to keep them coming back.

On Facebook, for no money at all, you've advertised, captured some testimonials, retained a pretty good customer base and, the best part, the word is still spreading around to even more people.