You have to go to some pretty far reaches of the earth to find someone who hasn’t at least heard of twitter. According to official statistics, the hottest social media property currently has more than 800 million active users with over half connecting in any given day. In some countries, the usage rate is over 50% of the overall population and over 75% of those with internet connections. The only two major countries whose citizens haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet are China (by decree) and India.
There can be no doubt of the reach facebook offers. The question is how your business can tap into it. Facebook has built up its business platform by offering free pages to the masses, which some small organizations go so far as to use as their only Web presence (a mistake).
The first thing you need to do is to set up a facebook page, which if you haven’t done already, will need to be tied to a personal facebook profile. Be careful in selecting which profile to use as the page gets tethered to profile. Once that is set up and filled out, you’ll want to start amassing likes (formerly referred to officially as fans) and set an easy to remember facebook vanity url.
From there, you can use a variety of tactics to help gain more exposure on facebook and monetize it. We stress that last part because too many times marketers will get caught up in how many likes (or for that matter tweets) a page has and use that metric as an end goal. While likes are great as they get your page extra exposure and added SEO value, the goal should always be on how your efforts are going to make more money for you, whether that’s in the short- or long-term. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of your time and money.
How to Market Your Company through Facebook
So, how do you do it? Organizations have found many different ways to achieve success through facebook. Here’s a sampling:
- Recommendations. Facebook has offered users a variety of ways past and present to leave feedback for organizations, which have different names, including “reviews” and “recommendations,” plus other ways facebook users can recommend or slam your business through comments, wall posts, and tagging. Every organization needs to have a plan for managing this feedback and soliciting positive reviews.
- Social Commerce. Social commerce is coming and in a big way. This phrase refers to selling goods and services directly on social media platforms. With expected huge sales through facebook, this site has already spawned its own acronym: “f-commerce.”
- Search Engine Optimization. Credibility is extremely important for the search engines as they try to figure out how to rank individual pages of sites on keyword searches. Originally, this was done primarily through back links and citations. Now, social mentions are an incredibly important of off-site optimization. Getting likes and shares (or tweets for that matter) can greatly help your search rankings.
- Facebook Ads. Given its user base, advertisers large and small are jumping on the facebook ads bandwagon to utilize their display ads, Sponsored Stories, and other ad units. They’re offered on either a cost per click or cost per 1,000 impressions basis and – importantly – can be targeted to users based on their self-identified likes and interests.
Visit the Found blog for more facebook tips and tricks.
Use the Reach of Facebook to Grow Your Business
Let Direct Online Marketing™ set up and manage your facebook ad campaigns, optimize your facebook pages, or otherwise advise you on how to market your organization through this social media phenomenon. Call 800.979.3177 today for a free consultation or request one online.
