Promoting Your Pet Sitting Business Using Facebook

As a pet sitter, you may be wondering how you can take advantage of this social network. Facebook is a wonderful way to advertise your business and connect with others who may have the same interest as you. This can help you build a personal relationship with potential clients, or clients you already have. It’s hard not to notice that almost everyone has or knows about Facebook. This is because it has more than 31 million members across the globe, and is growing every day. The great news about this is where there are that many members, there is potential to acquire clients, promote your business, and drive traffic to your site.

Utilizing all that Facebook has to offer can truly boost your pet sitting opportunities. Many people have found Facebook to be an essential addition to their business. You can use it as a professional tool by following these steps.

Create a profile for yourself – this allows you to generate a network of friends, colleagues and clients to be your friends. Use this profile strictly for your personal life.

Create a business page for your pet sitting business – this allows you to generate a network around your business by inviting your colleagues and clients to be fans of your business. You can keep this page strictly for your pet sitting business. This way you can keep your business site always professional.
Here are step by step instructions for setting up your business page:
1. Visit this URL: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
2. Decide what the best category is for your business. (Spend a couple of minutes on this as you can’t change it later easily. There is a category for pets).
3. Enter your business name and click “Create Page”.
4. Enter a short description of your business and a website address. This is in the “Add Information To This Page” area. You can also upload your logo as a photo/image.
5. Click on your business name in the top left corner (it’s a hyperlink) and then click “publish this page” (until you do this, nobody but you will be able to see your new Facebook business profile).
6. Finally, and this is important, from your new profile page, click “Add to my products”. This way, you become the first “fan” of your business.

Once you’ve become a “fan” of your business, your friends on Facebook (some of which are likely customers) will see a message in their home page. Something like “Danielle Chonody is a fan of WorkingwithPets”. Hopefuly, some of your Facebook friends will befriend your business. Then, their friends will see a message, and so it goes.

Promote your blog – If you have a company blog, you can Import it onto your Facebook page. Your postings will automatically appear in your news feed and all your friends will see it on their pages. Here is a step by step guide:
1. Sign into your Facebook profile or business page
2. On the bottom tool bar, click on applications, then notes
3. On the right hand side you will see note settings. Click on “import a blog”
4. Type the URL of your blog. If you use the RSS feed then only a small portion of your blog will show up. If you want the entire blog to show, you must type in the standard URL.
5. At the bottom of the preview, click on confirm import.

Post new things on your wall each day – They will appear in the news feeds and can keep everyone updated on special offers, services you provide, and general news about you.

Selling merchandise – Hats with your logo or special dog treats for example, can be sold using the marketplace. This is a free service that you can use to promote items from your website or even Ebay.

Develop a Facebook application for your pet sitting business – This is a great opportunity to keep your business growing and get more people interested in the service you provide.

Join groups related to your business and interest – The groups will show up on friends’ pages and can help others notice the causes you support.

Facebook is not going to generate massive traffic to you instantaneously. You will have to work at keeping things updated and find the right people to add. It’s more of an additional communication passage for your business and your clients. If you use it in the right way, it can bring you plenty of additional exposure.

If you have a facebook business page for your pet sitting business let us know in the comments so we can find you and become a fan!