The following responses might assist you with some of your questions. Feel free to contact us via the contact form if you need more specific help.
What’s the concept behind Support a WAHP?
Support a WAHP is a movement to encourage home based businesses and telecommuters to support each other. Support a WAHP offers you a place to promote and gain more recognition for your home based business, connect with other work at home parents/people, give out and pick up valuable business and social media marketing tips via our blog and make a difference to families, communities and whole countries!
You can promote your business for free via our page as a comment under the relevant daily-theme post or when we put a call out for an open wall. You can also promote your business for free through our Business Directory.
New homebased businesses don’t usually have a huge budget to use towards advertising and promotion so we offer a number of free and affordable options to help you get the word out about your business. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, Support a WAHP also has a membership program which gives you access to exclusive content, regular mentoring emails to keep you on track, ebooks, a featured listing on the business directory and access to the Support a WAHP Members Group on Facebook.
How do I get my business name out there?
A great place to start is by ‘liking’ our page. This page now has thousands of fans and the way it works is by you posting your business details underneath the daily-theme post (as a comment). (Be sure to @tag your Facebook page if you have one and post on a theme-day that is relevant to your business, ie. if you run an online clothing store for babies and children, post on Tuesdays, which is family-day). Every day we’ll choose one business to “shoutout” and that will go out to every fan who actively follows our newsfeed. The idea is that our fans then visit your page from our link and become a fan themselves, boosting your fan numbers and giving you the opportunity to start building relationships with them! If you want guaranteed shoutous, we reserve those for advertisers on our website. For information on advertising, click here.
Do I need a Facebook page to participate in Support a WAHP?
You don’t need a Facebook page to be a part of Support a WAHP but it does make it easier to spread the word about your business if we can @tag your page directly. We can always just mention your website if you have one. With 96% of the Australian online community using social media, you don’t want to miss out on business. If you need help with a Facebook strategy, please email me for information about Support a WAHP training and mentoring programs, such as the Turn Around Your Micro Business Bootcamp.
How do I tag a page, group or person in a status update?
You can link people directly to your Facebook page by using the @tag available in Facebook. Simply type the @ symbol followed by the name of the page/person you want to link to (no space after the @). Once you start typing the name, a dropdown list will appear and you can select the name from there. You’ll know if the tag worked because it will appear in blue in your status. This only works in new status updates, new posts on a wall or when posting a link/image. You need to be in conversation with the business or person you are tagging or have liked their page more than 24 hours earlier in order for this to work. Make sure you aren’t tagging people’s pages just for the sake of it. This can come across as spammish behaviour. If you need more information on Facebook etiquette, get a copy of my new ebook: Diving In: Practical tips for starting up and growing your home based business here. You can also access this book for free by signing up as a member of Support a WAHP.
How can I promote my business with Support a WAHP?
Apart from our Facebook page, we also have an active blog where we publish your stories through our Kitchen Bench Business Tales Competition, a business directory, and several paid advertising options. You can add a free business listing in our Directory in one category. Remember to be as descriptive as you can as people often search the directory for certain words and you want your listing to appear in their search.
To receive the full benefits of Support a WAHP, you need to participate regularly by posting details of your business or sales, specials or promotions on our page Wall but remember to abide by the posting rules that you’ll find in our Posting Guidelines.
How does the posting process on the Support a WAHP Facebook page work?
In an attempt to have some order about the Support a WAHP Facebook page, we allocate posting days to different types of businesses. You can view our .
What is a shoutout and how do I get one for my business?
Shoutouts are the term given to the mentions that your page receives in a Support a WAHP Facebook page status update. These updates are sent to all fans who actively follow Support a WAHP page via their Newsfeed and also appear on the Page Wall. We do weekly shoutouts for our website sponsors (as a thank you to them) and we try to do a few random shoutouts for businesses that post on our page wall each week. Shoutouts will only be given to the businesses that fall into that days’ category and only when the page administrators have the time to do them. Shoutouts are not guaranteed every day.
How do I create a Facebook Page for my Business?
To create a Facebook Page for your own business, you need to first have a Facebook Personal Profile. You can then access the Create a Page option. Simply follow the comprehensive instructions and a way you go. Be sure to enter the correct page name. Once you have over 25 fans, you’ll be able to customise your page name URL. If you want more comprehensive information on setting up a Facebook presence and use it to promote your business, become a member for your copy of Diving in: Practical tips for starting up and growing your home based business. There is a whole chapter on social media marketing!
How do I make the most of my Facebook Page?
Although we recommend you set up a self-hosted WordPress website with a unique domain name for your business, for many businesses just starting out, their Facebook page is their sole online presence, so you want it to make a good first impression. One way to achieve this is to set up custom page tabs. You can use custom tabs to share information about your business, set up a Facebook shop, promote specific products or services, run competitions and promotions and attract people to subscribe to your mailing list.
The more people that are active fans of your page, the further word will spread about your business. Ask your friends to suggest your page to their friends by clicking on Suggest to Friends on the upper left side of your page. This sends an invitation out to your friend’s friends to join your page. They can in turn suggest to their friends and so on, hopefully sending your fan numbers skyward!
Ensure you make regular status updates to attract and engage your fans with gorgeous visuals, cool quotes, questions and useful resources and blog posts! I know from experience that people don’t like their live feed clogged up with post after post after POST from the same page and they don’t like self-promotional posts. Think about how you can make it fun and interesting for them.
How do I set up vanity URL for my Facebook page?
The standard URL given when you create a Facebook Page is lengthy and not user friendly, for example. Instead of having to constantly refer to this URL, you can quickly and easily create a vanity URL for your Facebook Page by going to http://www.facebook.com/username and entering the name you’d like to use. Be sure that your spelling is correct as you’re unable to change it later on unless there are special circumstances. Now, isn’t it easier only having to remember http://www.facebook.com/YourPageName instead? Make sure your name does not infringe on anyone else’s trademark or intellectual property before you assign a name. You will need a minimum of 25 fans to designate a vanity URL. Try to keep it short and sweet and relevant to your business name.
How do I add another page to my page’s favourites?
You can show your support for another page (and have easier access to them) by adding them as a favourite of your own page and adding them to your interest lists. You can do this via your admin panel, by clicking on the “featured” menu item on the left hand side. Just check the businesses you want to feature.
We publish regular articles about Facebook and other social media on the blog, and answer questions on our Facebook page wall and on Twitter, so feel free to ask away!
If you have any further questions, feel free to email me!
