Before Launching Your New Website, Get Your Facebook Biz Page Ready
These days, having at least a small social media presence is absolutely essential for building a business. While no individual post is likely to result in a new client, using at least one of the major social media platforms -- Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook on a regular basis will benefit your website's search engine optimization.
I know that seems like two different things -- your website and social media. But due to Google's interest in social proof, interactivity, incoming links from high volume sites, authority and trustworthiness, your website and your social media pages work together for enhancing both your web presence and your professional credibility.
Although there are many opinions about how to use social media, and which ones, if you are a psychotherapist, life coach, intuitive reader, or energy healer, I recommend starting out with at least a Facebook business page.
Facebook is geared for regular people who are looking to interact, gain quick answers and resources of substance, and even develop a community. Few therapists I know have benefitted from Twitter, which is better suited for events and politics, although some metaphysical stores are making good use of it. Many clinicians and other solopreneurs in the healing and helping arts also find it useful to at least be listed on LinkedIn, for the referral potential from other professionals.
Focus on Facebook to Start
If you are new to social media, the first thing to do is to open a Facebook account. This will by default be a personal account, so be sure to tend to the privacy settings to avoid mixing business and pleasure. When you post on your personal page, be sure that each post is set to show to "friends" only. Invite your friends and family to "friend" you and use the space to test out how Facebook works in general.
Then create a separate business page. This will be connected to your personal page, and clients and potential clients will be able to get to your personal page from it -- this is why you want good privacy settings. Posts on your business page will always be viewable by the general public, and you want that because it is a source of FREE marketing for you.
Always Promote Your Blogs on Facebook
Your Wix website makes it easy to promote your blogs on Facebook and a couple other social media platforms. Most of the time you can do it right in the publishing process. It's helpful to get in the mindset that your blog isn't done until it's promoted on Facebook.
What does that mean? To promote a blog post means to write a sentence or two that invites or entices readers to want to know more, so that they click on the Facebook post to come over to your website. Here's an example:
The "promo" that you write goes into the Facebook status area where it says "write something". The rest should be automatically done for you through the magic of Wix+Facebook technology.
If the automatic magic doesn't happen, you can nudge it by pasting in the url for the single blog post in question.
To find the url for the single blog post, you'll need to be in the public view for your website -- not the preview mode from within the editor. So access your website like any potential client would do, navigate to the blog, then select the already published post. Next, look up at the top of your screen for the page url shown in your browser bar. It will start with https://www. and so on. The url for this blog post you are reading right now is:
https://www.dewritesites.com/single-post/2017/04/12/Before-Launching-Your-New-Website-Get-Your-Facebook-Biz-Page-Ready
Find it on your screen now, so you know where to look later.
Before Launching the Website, Promote Blogs You Already Have
Usually in the website design process, when you intend to do blogging as an ongoing marketing method, I will help you get three to six posts written and installed to finish up your design project. So you might already have some blogs to promote. Before you make any big announcements about your new website, start promoting these blogs on your Facebook business page.
And here's a hint for those who have had a website for a while and have many blog posts already, maybe some even going back years. You can always use social media promote an old blog post. In fact, I recommend doing so on a regular basis as part of your ongoing marketing plan.
The easiest way to promote existing blog posts is by the copy-the-url and paste-into-your-Facebook-page method described above.
AFTER you have promoted existing blog posts, then it's time to write a blog that announces the new website and invites people to come look at your new services, location, or information. Don't forget to then promote that announcement blog on Facebook.
For more about what to do to launch your new website, see this blog:
and you might want to reinforce what you've just learned by reading this blog:
And watch for a new instruction soon on using the Wix Advanced SEO tools that are found on the right side column of the blog editor.
