One of my Facebook contacts recently ranted about not being able to find event listings that he had created for his business.
Facebook has some cumbersome elements for sure, but it’s easy to keep track of event listings when they are created through a business page and not a personal profile.
But this Facebook user, like so many others around town, is trying to use a personal profile page as a de facto business page. So the profile, of course, has one of those silly names that doesn’t quite match the actual business but sounds just enough like a person that Facebook’s algorithms would allow its creation.
Now this business owner, like dozens or hundreds of others in the area, has complicated his online presence in myriad unnecessary ways.
Owners of business pages on Facebook get data on how many people see each post, have the ability to promote the page itself or individual posts for as little as $5, can create “Like” boxes for other sites, are given more options for types of posts to create and have the ability to track events easily.
Most importantly, fans can simply click “Like” to be connected with business pages. No cumbersome friend requests needed.
And if your business takes off, you could end up with unlimited likes. Facebook tries to limit personal profiles to 5,000 friends, but there are many area businesses with far more contacts than that.
Gulfstream Aerospace has almost 13,000 likes. This newspaper has almost 15,000. The Lady and Sons is approaching 68,000.
But smaller entities can accumulate huge numbers of Facebook fans. The Savannah-based band Black Tusk has 29,000, and the trio Cusses has more than 10,000.
Of course, there are drawbacks to Facebook business pages, especially if the managers of those pages do not also have large personal networks.
But the benefits of using business pages dramatically outweigh the awkward problems of creating personal profiles.
Social media is still a new frontier for many small businesses. And keeping up with pages and responding to posts can be time-consuming and distracting.
But, as a columnist who writes routinely about small business, I have to say it’s really frustrating to see so many local businesses and organizations use a scattershot approach when it comes to promotion via social media, especially Facebook.
There are companies and individual freelancers who will handle social media promotion for fairly reasonable fees, but most small businesses would be better off directly engaging with customers and fans.
Despite Facebook’s regular changes to its appearance and its services, the basics of creating and promoting pages haven’t really changed. It’s not rocket science.
Small businesses simply need to do a little research on best practices before diving headfirst into social media.
SCAD departure leaves a void downtown
The Savannah College of Art and Design held its spring commencement on Saturday.
The annual event occupies a big spot on the late spring calendar, especially for the downtown area.
The downtown population declines by several thousand after the end of SCAD’s spring quarter. That sudden decline obviously has wide-ranging impacts.
Some of the departing students will return to town in a few weeks or months, but many of the graduates will be moving on forever.
Savannah’s economic future would be even brighter if we could find more ways to keep local college graduates in town, but most are better off leaving town so they can advance their educations and establish their careers.
Maybe I’m just feeling sentimental, but it seems like this year’s crop of SCAD graduates had a particularly powerful impact on Savannah life.
I’m thinking about some great bands, excellent art shows and various other happenings organized by ambitious, even entrepreneurial students.
Despite having grown up in the digital age, many young adults struggle just like the rest of us to use social media for effective promotion, but Facebook and other services are nevertheless helping connect younger, more transient students with established community residents.
When I was in college decades ago, my friends and I established few significant relationships with the broader community. That’s quite different than what we’re seeing today.
To some degree, the sprawling nature of SCAD’s urban campus compels students to engage with the broader community, but this year’s graduates especially seemed to go one step further and really embrace the city.
Let’s hope some of those departing students come back one day and invest more of themselves and their talents.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http;//www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.