For millions of people, Facebook has become an integral part of daily life. For some, it is even an integral part of their jobs, or day to day business. This is a post written for those of us who use Facebook for Business in order to build customer or business relationships and how newcomers to Facebook can use it to create their online presence on the world's largest and fastest growing social network.
If you are a well known brand, its entirely possible (scratch that, entirely likely) that there is some sort of association or group already established on Facebook that either talks about or represents your brand. Now, before you strike a concerned look, realize that Facebook is very pro-business, and that there are tools in place to help businesses protect their brand identity. What is more likely is that you have some people who are fans of your brand who have formed a "group" to gather and discuss all things "you."
Use the search function on Facebook to scout out the landscape. If you find that there is a group already set up that talks about your brand, click on over and check it out. Chances are that the conversation is positive, but if it isn't, remember what I said earlier about Facebook and business.
Assuming you have a ready made fan base (as has been the case for numerous social media clients) then its time to join the conversation. Encourage positive comments and sharing. At this point you may decide to introduce yourself or just survey the conversation anonymously. Either way, getting people to talk about you in a positive way is one of the tenets behind social media marketing.
Groups are great "informal" ways for people to gather on Facebook to communicate, but if you are serious about using Facebook to market, you will want to create a "Fan Page."
Creating a page on Facebook is easy, and for most businesses you can get one up and running in a few hours. The process starts at Facebook's advertising page, and will lead you through a series of forms that help you narrow down the type of business page you want to create. Non profits receive different default applications on their page than say, retail stores.
Although it is easy to set up a new Facebook Fan Page, you will want to spend some time customizing it to make it stand out. Facebook allows for a number of interactive applications to be installed on your page (anything from polls, or video players that display your company YouTube channel, to boxes which allow you to add your own HTML code). Customizations to your Facebook page can include new tabs which highlight specific product offers, to interactive boxes which sit on your page's main "Wall" that link off to your company web site.
Some great examples of customized Business Fan Pages include:
1. Victoria's Secret
2. Social Media for Small Business - Dell
3. Arizona Tourism
4. Personal Trainers Forum
So you have spent a good few hours doing searches on Facebook for your brand, surveying the landscape, possibly making some friends, and creating and personalizing your own Facebook Business Page. The next step is to let people know that it is there!
A good way to do this is to leverage your existing customer list, particularly if you have their email addresses. We call this Lifecycle Marketing, and it includes putting key messages in front of your customers at the time they need to see it. What better way to entice customers into action than to make them an offer they can't refuse?
The launch of your new Facebook Page is the perfect time to reach out to your customers and let them know how to find you. Tell them that if they become a fan, they are eligible to receive a discount on their next purchase, or that they will be entered to win a prize just by signing on to Facebook. And make sure to let them know that you want their honest feedback on your product or service, and to reach out to you on Facebook.
The way Facebook Pages work, when your "fans" interact on your page, all of their friends will see a message on their Facebook News Feed. In this way, your Facebook page works for you, promoting itself. Facebook is a viral social network, and just about anything you do on it will be noticed by your friends.
You will be amazed at how well a lifecycle marketing campaign to promote your Facebook page will work in creating new fans. Some clients have gone from 100 fans to over 2000 in a matter of weeks. Just realize that collecting fans is not the end goal of your Facebook page - conversation and engagement is.
So now that you have some people to talk to, you better start talking! Facebook pages provide multiple ways for engaging your fan base. As a page administrator, you can send links, videos, photos or simple "wall" messages to each of your fans. This content will show up on their personal newsfeed and will help to keep your brand in their top of mind awareness. What's more, Facebook also provides you with messaging tools that let you segment your audience by region, sex and age. Knowing your the demographics of your fan base is one of the key advantages to having a Facebook page, and each page comes with its own analytical reporting system that you as an admin can access.
These analytics, called Insights, help you to determine which types of content your fans like to interact with. Facebook supplies a numerical score to your posts to give you an idea how you are doing relative to other Business Pages your size. Refer to this early and often when building an engagement plan and you will reap great rewards.
Unless there is a legal reason to do so, you will want to keep your Facebook page as open as possible. Open up your wall so that fans can post their own comments and/or photos and links. Encourage open discussion where appropriate, but realize that not everyone plays nice. From time to time, you may have someone post something that you object to, and for those times, use your discretion on how to deal with it. Facebook provides tools to moderate and even block users, but remember that this is a social network and that the rules are different. The key to winning at social media marketing is to be inclusive and open to feedback from your customers (and fans).
If you found this article useful, you may also be interested in our recent free webinar on Facebook for Business.
NEXT: Part Two - Understanding Facebook Connect
William brings 10 years of interactive marketing experience to Off Madison Ave and serves as the agency’s Search Marketing Manager. In addition to his responsibilities managing pay-per-click and search engine optimization for clients, William also works with clients to develop innovative ways of using Facebook for marketing.
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2 comments so far
Wayde Kline says:
Thanks for the article. I had never considered social networks as a means of building a customer base until I spoke w/ Roger yesterday. Your article makes this even more clear and I will put An Angel At Home on Facebook today.
goldz says:
I like advertising on facebok.It helped my business a lot. Their privacy options are very precise: I can choose exactly which users can see which parts of my profile. Their ads are very well targeted especially for users out of the United States. Now, they’ve introduced some very interesting options that I haven’t seen elsewhere: language and radius-based ad targeting for advertisers.