If you’re a retailer in a category that has low consumer engagement, where purchase is very infrequent and there’s little consumer affiliation with your brand, there is a strong possibility that you don’t have a lot of Facebook fans with whom to communicate.

For you, this part of social media is - feh.

The mattress category is a great example. I don’t know how often a normal person buys a mattress, but for me it’s less often than a car. Maybe even less often than a house. So, why would I want to be a fan of a mattress retailer on Facebook and get regular updates from that store?Untitled

I wouldn’t. Not many other people would either, judging by the number of fans on the Facebook pages of the mattress retailers below.

But here’s a thought for these retailers (and others in categories like mattresses): change the subject of your fan page. Instead of have a Facebook fan site about your store, make it about the end benefit. For mattress retailers, maybe that’s about sleep. Or maybe it’s about aching backs.

I have issues with both sleep and a bad back (tmi?)

If the mattress retailer fan page were filled with information, links, advice, suggestions and more about sleep, I might want that information. I might even want it regularly. Most of it can be sourced from other places on the Web so that it’s not killer work to put together. Twitter can be used to access people with the need for sleep to get them to your Facebook pages. And then your mattress store gets fans. Gets seen. And, over time, gets sales.

I don’t know, but seems to me like an indirect message to 1,200 fans of the end benefit of what you sell is more worth the effort than speaking directly to the 12 people that might be fans of your store.

Sleep Train Mattress Centers

10 fans

Sleep Experts

32 fans

Furniture World Galleries & Mattress Superstore

Fans: 33 fans

Verlo Mattress Factory Stores

Fans: 161 fans

Mattress Discounters

Fans: 25 fans

The Bedding Experts

Fans: 185 fans

Mattress Factory

Fans: 16 fans