Jul 16

Facebook for Businesses

There has been a lot of hype in recent times about social media, and you may well be asking yourself if it’s a useful business tool. Here I will look at one of the fasted growing social media outlets – Facebook.

To give you an idea of the sheer size of the Facebook community, here’s an interesting statistic. If Facebook were a country, it would be the 8th largest in the world, with a larger ‘population’ than Japan and Russia. At the beginning of 2009, there were over 150 million users. And while it started out as an outlet for college students it now comprises users around the world of all ages, education levels and interests. The fastest growing demographic currently is users over 35 years old.

So why use Facebook as one of your promotional tools? There a a number of reasons:

it’s FREE – setting up a page for your business costs nothing (unless you purchase paid advertising)
you can build relationships and communicate with your customers with relevant information, updates and special events (for example, a new product launch)
you can build visibility and a reputation as an expert in your field
there is a vast database of demographic information which you can specifically target, should you choose to advertise

Leveraging the Power of Facebook

Once you’ve set up a Facebook page for your business, there are a number of things you can do to start the ball rolling. You need to get some ‘fans’, have interesting and relevant content, and links back to your business’ main website. On your website’s Home Page, put a link back to your Facebook page. Include a link in your signature block on your emails, blogs and forum posts, and become a fan of other business pages. Join some networks. Just participate, and you will begin to build a following!

Tips for Business Facebook Users

For a business page to become a fan of another business page, go to the other page, and click on ‘Add to Favourite Pages’.
To add extra information such as contact numbers, emails etc, there is a handy Facebook application called “Extended Info”. This makes updating and customizing your business details so much easier.
If you have a personal Facebook page, send an invite to your contact list to become a fan of your business
Use the ‘Discussions’ tab to showcase information and post more detailed updates
If you have at least 25 fans, you can now have a URL which looks like “www.facebook.com/your-business-name”, which is far more user friendly (and search engines love it too!)