Alexander Technique teachers know that trying to work exclusively with a person's troublesome arm is not ultimately effective - it's essential to also know how that arm fits in with a person's entire coordination. Those teachers and trainees in my coaching group know that same thing applies to Facebook: it is part of a holistic strategy. Facebook is your arm - but what is the whole body of your business strategy?

Facebook is not the tool to save your business, or do for you what you can not do for your Self: you need a total strategy, then understand how Facebook supports that strategy.

Any comprehensive biz strategy boils down to this: building a list of followers: students, customers, prospects. These days that list still involves collecting their postal address and/or personal email. Maybe that will change, but as I write this is still very true.

You want to build this list, and Facebook is a fabulous tool to help you build it.

How Can I use FaceBook to Build My List?

Facebook is a great tool for building a community. As you build a community, you can build the list of emails/street addresses of people in that community. The question to answer then is:

Who is your community?

Without a clear answer to that question, Facebook can't help. Facebook has just about every human being accessible by internet available in it's database - so if you know who you are looking for, Facebook can help. Without that information, it's like shouting into a crowd of 80,000 people at football match saying you can teach them Alexander Technique. How successful is that going to be?

Once you decide upon a community, then you must answer this question: what are you offering them that no-one else is offering? This is your Unique Selling Point (USP) and an essential part of your biz strategy.

What I offer is coaching for Alexander Technique teachers to get successful in their business. Who else is doing that? Who else can say they have built the most successful business in Alexander Technique history? These are all parts of ATSuccess's USP: helping Alexander Technique teachers be successful.

What is your USP?

Apple, when it brought out the iPod, told everyone: "1,000 songs in your pocket." When Dominos started selling Pizzas they said: "Fresh hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less guaranteed." When FedEx challenged US Postal Service they said: "When it Absolutely, Positively has to be there overnight." These are all outstanding USPs.

This is the clarity you need to complete before you can successfully use Facebook. Of course, you can use Facebook other ways to, but none will be as effective until you have these two answers clearly in your mind: who are you talking to and what are you offering them?

Getting People on Your Email List

[NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area describing practical ways to implement what has been described above in a Facebook group with other other teachers and students. You can join anytime to be part of their discussions.]

There are two ways to get people on a list - from your personal profile, and from your Page. Both appear on the Newsfeed, but one is free, the other is paid.

Using Your Personal Profile To Build Your Email List

Using your personal profile timeline is self-evident: just keep up the chatter about your niche, Write about related insights and thinking, and mention whenever you have an event coming up. Report on events you have just done - share insights, applaud students, tell stories. Pretty straightforward.

Focus is the key though - what you share has relevancy for the people you are sharing it to. They will most likely make comments, keep your page active and Facebook's algorithm happy. You start appearing in the newsfeed of your community members.

Ask questions, put surveys, post photos - all the usual stuff. And - when you give a link - offer something which has a simple email optin so they can go to the page to download what you offer.

Read this blog post to about four things that will help guide your choices. Here's a some Facebook-based advice around these four points:

1. Be fascinating.
Anyone who devotes their career to Alexander Technique is already an eccentric person, a rebel, a self-thinker. Be that person. Show your life to the people who follow you.

2. Share values.
Hide stuff that is not relevant - just click on the little round icon under your name, and choose a custom list that you have created. You can create endless lists, but I advise you basically have one that is all your family and closest friends who will just laugh with you post a rude picture of you stuffing a cake into the face of a laughing friend. Political posts about causes may immediately turn off some of your community - watch out for those. The rule here is: stick to your niche's interest, post everything else in a restrictive mode.

3. Be Caring.
Facebook's genius is in the Like button. Notice there is no Don't Like button. Disapproval is passive and unnoticed - it is part of Facebook's secret sauce. Learn the lesson well: celebrate students' success in a way they will appreciate, message people when you know they need a boost. Take an interest - all of this flows when you follow your passion. I've got irritated on Facebook occasionally - it never worked out well. Keep your venting private, unless it serves to reaffirm the values of your community.

4. Give Value.
This is where Aho-Alexander comes in: simple tips and tricks that give instant results. It's possible to come up with these when you are niched into a specific activity like music, yoga, dance, voice - that kind of thing. Can work with ethereal stuff too - but better it comes out of your experience, rather than a link to some guru your community may or may not like.

Start working on it now. I am practising the same: I got a bit too lazy about it! Share you own discoveries with us all:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/

NEXT: Using Your Facebook Page To Build Your Email List