Love Cats. 1
Imagine having a community of your clients that have so much respect for your business that they regularly login to your facebook page and respectfully communicate with each other all the while leaving you the most grateful and honest reviews you could ever hope to read! It is possible with some effort and I can’t wait to brainstorm with you how it could work for your business.
We used to have two cats which we would leave in a local cattery when travelling.
When we first started using the cattery, there was just the one cat, which may or may not have been the owners’, and the cattery consisted of a purpose built structure in the backyard of a cat-loving couple’s urban property. When it was new, sometimes my cat would be the only one there and to be honest, it didn’t feel like it was much of a place for him. However, being the only cat, he got lots of love and attention.
The next month, it was busier and the month after that we had our new kitten who also went to the cattery, and we almost had trouble getting her booked in. Business had picked up unbelievably fast. Their facebook page could have been one of the reasons why.
Social Proof on Facebook
Our kitten was a pretty grumpy cat, but even she loved going to the cattery. Never once was she reluctant to get in her crate. Then one day my daughter came across their facebook page. There were our two pets, being photographed and videoed when they had their rostered playtime, one at a time, with the owners. No wonder they loved the place so much!
From then on, whenever I was away, I would check their facebook page almost obsessively to watch my pets having a nice time. There would always be between 4-10 photos and maybe even a video, accompanied by a little story: “Bobby is loving playing football with the round rattle”, or “Winnie is happy to be back in a familiar place.”
It was fun to watch complete strangers admiring my cats, and to admire theirs, liking their photos, commenting on how cute their cats were. It really felt like quite a community. Sometimes I would come to collect my pets and I would see some of the other facebook stars, recognising them from their photos.
Facebook reviews
The page was full of five star reviews from the pet owners singing the praises of our lovely cattery. When I relocated for some months to a new area, I could not find another cattery as enthusiastic about the pets they cared for like my beloved cattery owners did. They really set the bar high.
The owners became parents of twins and, in typical fashion, waited till the end of the summer holidays to close down their cattery, so as not to inconvenience their clients. We were lucky to be back in town by then and they hosted my cat one last time (as the other one had died when crossing a road).
Using facebook to get raving fans
How can you follow their example to build a facebook community of passionate clients (like the clients of the cattery who made the facebook page a fun place to be by interacting with all the photos) and truly show the world that you love what you do?
After all, it is one thing to have a facebook page which sits their quietly, it is entirely another to have people seek it out and engage.
Let me know if you need help brainstorming, otherwise, feel free to get in touch if you have any questions at all. I promise not bamboozle you with technical language!
- The Love Cats by The Cure was inspired by a book by Patrick White called The Vivisector. (This information is from Wikipedia who also add a verification disclaimer: According to a number of his fans, Smith was inspired to write “The Love Cats” after reading White’s novel The Vivisector (1970), although this claim is difficult to verify.)
The song was a hit for The Cure in Britain, entering the top 20 within two weeks of its release. You can watch the music video on Youtube.