How to use Facebook to market your business
Facebook is for more than staying connected with friends. As with other social media sites, people who use Facebook often look for information about their interests while they're there. It's become increasingly common for businesses, organizations, and other groups to have profile pages at social media sites. Search engines index non-personal pages at Facebook, and Facebook offers some search engine marketing advantages beyond that of other social media sites.
Facebook has over 200 million users of all ages, and one of the principles of online marketing is to go where the customers are. With a Facebook Page for your business, you can increase branding, gain publicity, and be able to interact with customers and would-be customers at a popular venue. Chances are that your competition is already there.
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Create a Facebook Page
Facebook has what are called Pages (formerly Fan Pages) for businesses and other organizations. When you create a Facebook Page, Facebook asks you to use your company name for the page name, and you won't be able to change it afterwards.
Detailed information about how to create a Facebook Page is at the Facebook site.
When Facebook users like your Facebook Page and want to receive updates, they click a "Like" button (formerly "Become a Fan"). The fact that they "like" your Page appears on their Facebook friends' pages, increasing exposure to your brand. For the users who "like" your Page, Page updates appear on their pages.
Add text with relevant keywords
Facebook Pages include About and Info tabs with options to add more tabs. Use the About and Info tabs to include relevant information about your company, with more keyword emphasis on the About tab as search engine crawlers will reach this content first.
Hundreds of optional applications are available. Browse through them to see if you want to add any of them to your Facebook Page.
Examples of types of content for a Facebook page:
- Photos of the company building and employees (use keywords in the photo descriptions)
- Photos and information about your services and products
- Video clips of your staff or production in action
- How-to videos and tutorials about using your services or products
- Tips for people who use your services or products
- An invitation to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list if you have one
- For a service such as web hosting, a section where you post about any downtime and expected resolution time
- Links to reviews or testimonials, especially if from an external source
Maintain a friendly tone, but keep personal information for your personal Facebook page if you have one.
Add new content often
As with SEO, content is king. On Facebook, though, people are looking for content that's interactive as well as informative. Make your Facebook Page valuable enough for users to want to "like" your Page. A page that reads like an advertisement won't accomplish this.
In addition to more of the above types of content, consider adding the following:
- Contests
- Polls
- Company and industry news and events
- Specials that are only for Facebook users, such as a coupon code that you publish only on Facebook (doing this can also help you track customers who come to you via Facebook)
- Something you can offer for free to people who "like" your Facebook Page, such as the first month of the service free
- Job openings (include information about what it's like to work for your company)
Be consistent in adding useful new content regularly.
Promote your Facebook Page
Link to your Facebook Page from your company site and vice versa. Also link to your Facebook Page at other relevant sites, in your email and forum signatures, and wherever else it's appropriate to link to it.
Encourage staff, family, and friends to "like" your Facebook page to help get the momentum going.
Facebook ads are an option, but their success may depend in part on how widely used your service or product is.
Interact with your audience
Facebook is about interaction:
- Share information that people might want to respond to.
- Invite users to interact by voting, commenting, responding to questions you ask, or other ways to interact.
- Respond when people leave comments.
- Take action with any complaints and bring them to a resolution.
If you have time to monitor your Facebook Page, you can have comments published on the front tab of your Page. Wherever you publish them, read them regularly to be able to respond them soon and remove any spam.
See also
Web Hosting Wiki article text shared under a Creative Commons License.
