Facebook is a global social networking site. Many of you may use it personally, however have you ever thought of using it for your small business?
Facebook is the number one social networking site; there are more than 220 million active users with about half a million people joining every day. Facebook increased its U.S. market share from 55.15 percent in August to 58.59 percent in September, according to Hitwise.
Facebook presents a unique marketing oppoortunity for small businesses via its Facebook Business Pages. As more people are joining social networking sites, small business owners must understand that these are the sites where people go to learn more about products, services and businesses. Marketing on Facebook also has the added bonus that items you post have the ability to go viral.
So what can you do with your Facebook Business Page?
- Upload Photos:You can upload phono albums to your business page – show people what your offices look like, what happened on your last staff outing. Did you recently exhibit at an event? Put the photos up so people can see who you are and what you’ve been up to.
- Promote Events: If you hold events, or attend events, you can promote this through your Facebook page. You can announce the details of the event and even invite your business ‘fans’. You can also use the event tool to find events that may be of interest to you.
- Post notices to your wall: The wall is the main area of your Facebook Business Page. This is where the fans (Facebook Business Pages have ‘fans’ rather than ’friends’) of your business page can see your status updates, photos and other items that you’ve added. Fans can also post their comments here and you can post comments back on their wall.
Facebook has so many excellent features for businesses, but the important thing is that you know what you are doing and why? What are the benefits of using Facebook to promote your business?
- Customer interaction: By providing a place for open dialogue and communication, you can build improved relationships with your customers, suppliers and prospects.
- Reputation management: You can learn about how your company is perceived in the outside world by analysing the comments you receive and through monitoring online conversations. If you pick up a negative comment, your Facebook Business Page gives you a platform in which you can rectify the situation – showing other customers exactly how good your customers service levels can be.
- Lead generation: Prospects can become a fan of your business page and will get a notice in their news feed each time you add more content. If you provide valuable content it is likely that some of these fans who are not customers may soon turn into customers for you.
- Increase traffic to your website: Your Facebook Business Page should have links directing fans back to your main website. Facebook can be viewed as a medium through which you can generate more visitors to your site – directing them to the exact pages that you think are relevant.
