As much as Facebook may not be kind to businesses, it’s still a tremendously valuable business tool. After all, Facebook could eat the web. In fact, you’re likely spotting the shift; instead of companies posting their URLs on television commercials, they’re asking their followers to join them on Facebook. Therefore, it’s a force to be reckoned with. Let’s just take a look at the potential of Facebook for business for a moment here and review the various options business owners have in order to be effective with Facebook business marketing.
Profile Page versus Fan Page
The average Facebook user uses Facebook not for business but for personal communications. I am one of those users. In fact, I explain my Facebook usage by stating that if you want to follow me in a professional capacity, you can use one of my two fan pages. Simply stated, for a business, you should create a Fan Page. Want one? Go here. If you are officially representing your company, you’d want to create an Official Page.
Don’t use a Facebook Group. They are outdated (from Facebook’s early days) and do not support Facebook Markup Language (FBML) or Facebook Apps, so they are not as interactive and thus do not make as strong of an impact. Additionally, don’t create a personal account (a regular Facebook profile page) for your business. You’re supposed to use your real name and you’re also only supposed to have one account. Your Facebook Page should be created under your primary Facebook login. If you elect not to have one, you can still create a Facebook page by following the steps after you fill out the relevant data for your business Facebook Page.
Identification
For your page, consider using a title that’s memorable here because you won’t be able to change it later. It’s preferable to reflect your business and use a business name, not a funny character or other business persona that nobody can relate to. People will be looking for your business on Facebook, so make it easy for them to find you.
Once you get 25 fans, you can set up a username which makes accessing your profile a lot easier. Make sure you apply the username to your Facebook Page, not your personal profile, and be sure to use something memorable that people can find by plugging in the URL. I have a hard time believing that Facebook will address errors like these without an intellectual property complaint.
Customizing Your Profile Page
Great! Now that you have opted to create a Fan Page, you need to customize it. Simply stated, you can upload a profile picture (200 by 600 pixels maximum, though there are some reports that 180 by 540 pixels might work instead) and start filling out the relevant details about your business. Tell people how to find you and give them a history. They’re there because they want to learn! Depending on what type of page you are creating (for a business, publication, celebrity, etc.) the text fields differ, but utilize what’s available to you to your advantage. Don’t shy away from giving your community the information needed to find you elsewhere both online and offline.
If you want to be more creative, start thinking about building upon your profile with the aforementioned Facebook Markup Language (FBML). Here’s how to create a memorable Facebook Fan Page via FBML. In short, you’ll need to install the Static FBML app, add a custom tab, and learn the language, which is very similar to HTML, to create content that is appealing to your customers and prospects. Need some inspiration? Check out the screenshots for some current implementations below.
Reese’s uses its Facebook page to welcome users and compels them to join. It also reminds you that Facebook is one of their social destinations on the web, but that you might be interested in their YouTube page. (Their YouTube page, ironically, only features a playlist of videos that they love but does not show any videos made by themselves, such as the process of making a Peanut Butter Cup. Wouldn’t you love to see how they’re made? I know I would.)
Promotional products company rushIMPRINT features on its Facebook page a tab of products for sale. These tabs take the visitor back to their website where they can complete the purchase. This method is smart because it helps build interest on another platform and drives conversions directly on their home base. (Disclosure: I helped plant the social media seeds for rushIMPRINT.)
Offer Deals
Lisa Barone calls this specialized content, and that’s exactly how you should see it. Give people a reason for telling the entire world that they like you.
The big question of return on investment comes up often. How do I know if there’s ROI in Facebook? One way is to see is by giving exclusive deals to Facebook fans. You can elect to do this one of two ways. You can offer deals exclusively to Facebook followers only. Don’t cross promote to Twitter (offer a different incentive on Twitter). Don’t post it on your blog. Don’t share it on your email newsletter. This is a good way of checking specifically if your Facebook efforts are working when you see that the Facebook coupon codes have been redeemed.
On the other hand, you can also share the same discount code across all social platforms. What if you want to offer 10% off? Share the 10OFF discount code for everyone, for example. Let it be posted on every social platform of choice and then watch as it seeds through other communities (which is likely to happen and shows that your marketing is viral).
Of course, you can also just use a Facebook application for that.
Buy something, get something. That’s how Baskin Robbins is doing it besides making an interactive page that visitors might be interested in exploring further.
People interact with brands online because they want deals. Try to offer some every so often.
And while you may not be able to easily run contests within its rules, you have some flexibility with the Wildfire App platform, so consider that as well if you’d like to offer incentives of some kind.
Encourage Community Interaction
In the simplest form, have a Facebook wall and ask your fans questions or share cool company or even personal insights with them. Give them a reason to want to communicate. Better yet, to show that the page is active, give the users control by letting their Fan posts show up on the front page. (Not all companies will be comfortable with this option as it will require frequent moderation.)
Instead of using your updates as the default view, let your fans take over. In the screenshot above, control is shifted to everyone and empowers your community members. As a result, engagement goes up as the page appears very active.
There’s a cost to this, though. The page should appear active but it should also appear like you’re not neglecting your community. Therefore, beyond letting them have control, grab the mic regularly (a few times per week and daily if possible) and engage your community.
The more you engage your community, which could be as simple as asking your followers how they are going to be spending Mother’s Day or sharing a link of interest to your followers, the more visible your page is to your Fan’s friends. After all, every interaction shows up on the Fan’s news feed. And that translates to more visits, which you’ll start seeing when you receive a weekly email from Facebook entitled “Your Weekly Facebook Page Update” that features fun statistics like these:
+41 Fans this week (3,284 total Fans)
31 Wall Posts, Comments, and Likes this week (68 last week)
1,477 visits to your page this week(1,869 visits last week)
You might also be interested in learning more about EdgeRank, Facebook’s own algorithm to determine visibility on a user’s home page. This algorithm takes hold from three main components: (1) the affinity score between two users: how often do they interact?, (2) the type of interaction (is it a like? a comment?, etc.), and (3) the length of time since the action was done. Based on this information, fresh content with actively engaged brand adopters are is key. Give them a reason to be actively engaged. This is basic News Feed Optimization.
Engagement is not limited to wall posts. Post photos of your service and product offerings and invite your fans to do the same. A tremendously wonderful execution of this is on Graco’s photos tab. You’ll learn about their products but you’ll also see a plethora of user-submitted images — complete with cute babies.
And that’s not the only thing you can do to encourage online interaction. Why not solicit reviews from your community to see what they think about you? If you offer great value and have firm believers amongst your midst, you have nothing to fear. Online retailer Newegg isn’t afraid and proudly displays its Facebook reviews for all to see.
Another great way to do this is to host polls where you can get customer feedback. That’s how Ben & Jerry’s is doing it.
Of course, there’s also the potential to encourage community interaction within Facebook using the Facebook page as that home base. The EA Mobile Human Tetris project takes you to a Facebook application where everyone participates in a game of Tetris.
Such games require expertise of a Facebook Application developer but could have lots of potential as long as your Facebook Apps resonate with your audience and compel users to install them.
Aggregate Your Other Social Streams
If you’re only on Facebook, this step isn’t for you. Hopefully, though, you’re considering other social networks to broaden your social media reach. If so, you should show your Facebook fans what you’re up to elsewhere! Hootsuite, for example, has multiple tabs that highlight their social involvement elsewhere on the web.
There are takeaways from this. Offer different content to your different audiences. Don’t just broadcast the same messages to your Twitter and Facebook followers.
Be Creative
Facebook confines you to its site and its feature set, but clearly we can see that they do have a pretty rich feature offering. You can do many things to market your business, add value, and empower your customers. It might be a good opportunity to build upon that to further your mark in the online space.
You’ll find that as your page grows, you’ll likely be tasked with handling customer service issues. People don’t care who is running the social media presence online; if it’s the marketing department, they’ll still demand technical support. Help them where you can or redirect them to the phone number, email address, or contact link that gives them direct contact with your support representatives. Be on your best behavior — after all, good customer service is good social media marketing.
Growth can be a good thing. You may find opportunities to host real life events, be them at conferences or whatever else. This is especially true of businesses who have a brick and mortar location and even better for businesses. Why not invite your Facebook fans to a special event at your venue? Let them connect with each other and build bonds.
There are a lot of different opportunities here, and with such a tremendous penetration, it’s silly to ignore Facebook altogether.
Your Facebook page might be a great opportunity to market your business, but it’s earned media, so keep in mind that it’s a community too. Give your Fans a reason to want to come back.
Evaluate Your Needs and Tread Carefully
Ask yourself what you want to use Facebook for. Is it to communicate with friends and family or is it to drive prospects? Are you joining Facebook’s social network with the intention of spamming your friends with marketing messaging? If so, don’t. Brent Csutoras ruffled my feathers when he said that he doesn’t use Facebook for marketing and “maybe that is why I still have so many friends.” The truth of the matter is that to an extent, he’s right. Of over 1500 friends that I have, I’m constantly being pitched to join groups I have no interest in. What I didn’t like about Brent’s statement is that most savvy marketers do understand the fragile nature of online (and even offline) relationships and that smart ones do not abuse those relationships at all.
If you’re a business, ask your customers to follow you — don’t force it out of those people you are already connected with for other reasons.
Facebook is One Piece of the Pie
With more than 400 million members, if you want to go where your customers are, you’ll probably find most of them on Facebook. That said, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You should still consider your blog or website as a viable way to build community and/or to drive sales and conversions. If nothing else, that’s the official channel to communicate your business objectives, and you have total control over the process there without risks or usability concerns.
Use Facebook, but use it wisely. It should be considered a subset of your overall online marketing efforts.
What other tips would you add to this list? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Get Techipedia on your iPhone or iPod touch!
Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and manages Community Support & Advertising at Mashable. Tamar is also the author of 
{ 15 trackbacks }
{ 85 comments… read them below or add one }
Treading carefullly is pretty important. I recently started a fan page for a business we work for and I had the opportunity to add all of my friends, but knew the business was irrelevant to 99% of them. I held back. Asking them to join is the equivalent of all those pesky application requests we never care about but get so frequently. It’s an irritant. It devalues the sender – to me, I actually see it as admission of a lack of intelligence.
That might not apply to Facebook fan groups but the idea is similar.
Thanks for the post, very comprehensive!
My friend’s Facebook status message this morning said “Pay me $100 and I will become your Fan.” Yes, it clearly is getting out of hand.
“Yes, it clearly is getting out of hand. ”
- completely agree with that.
People are even selling 1000 “friends” for $100 :p http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/not-enough-facebook-friends-buy-them/
btw – gem of a post there.
-AD
This is great, you are so thorough in your blogs and I appreciate that. So once I got over my craving for Reese PB Cups, I really let what you wrote sink in. I like the idea of a promotion for Facebook fans only in order to measure your ROI and link promo codes or specific promos to that page specifically. Just like with any other marketing campaign you need to be sure that you are not “putting all of your eggs in one basket” just like you mentioned. Some people only use Facebook, some only Twitter, and some neither of the two. Basically, think about how some television commercials only run on specific channels in order to reach out to a particular office. Think golf and luxury vehicles!
Thank you for all you do! I always make time to read your blogs!
Man, I really want Reese’s too! I’m on a post-baby diet though… still.
And whoa about those commercials. The funniest ones are always on the local commercials! Surely they could learn a thing or two from the homemade YouTube ones!
What a great post! Excellent information, very clearly explained. There are huge opportunities for business promotion with Facebook. Why a business wouldn’t want to be there at this point is really questionable. As you bring out in the post, there are many methods of broadcasting, sharing, engaging with customers on this platform, with lots of tools available to configure however you like.
I am new to your blog. Can’t wait to read more!
Yeah, businesses want to be there, but I understand why they have difficulty recommending it to their friends.
Thanks so much for coming, Cathy Ann! Great seeing you here
Thanks so much for such a helpful post. We have already forwarded it to many of our clients and colleagues who find this type of advice most helpful.
Best,
Ken Lingad
1680PR
That’s great! Thanks so much, Ken!
Great insight, Tamar, on the constantly changing “face” of Facebook for businesses. Opportunities abound there and businesses need to figure out how to leverage the time the average consumer is spending there… as opposed to past media spaces.
And, even though Facebook can be painful (and is constantly changing) I would argue that’s the nature of online marketing. Wouldn’t we be complaining, or have totally abandoned, Facebook by now if they did not offer these many options and changes, even to us humble businesses? Take MySpace as just one of many examples of an online property that become too comfortable with its “space.”
Thanks for allowing me to comment!
YUP! That’s why this post follows one of my most successful rants to date
Thanks for commenting! You’re always allowed!
Tamar, I had a friend show me a FB page he is designing for an insurance agency where he put a promotional picture (save money on your insurance) where the profile picture would normally be. My first thought was that there is no way I would fan that page because I would expect nothing but promotional posts. I felt the same way for your rushImprint example (but that might not be the opening page). Do you think going promotional in the opening page would deter people liking your page, or do you have a different objective for those pages?
Great post – I’m a new subscriber!
Hi Jamie, thanks for commenting. EXCELLENT question.
If that’s a business page, well, business are using Facebook not to twiddle their thumbs but to self promote, so I think using a promotional picture is fine. It’s a question of how far you’re willing to go with that though that, though.
The rushIMPRINT example is a tab, not the first page you see. Here’s the page.
I think you’re right, though. You need to tread carefully and experiment. Personally, I probably would not affiliate myself with a business who is strictly self-promoting, but there are some people who have pages like this who offer tremendous value.
Ask your closest friends or your customers what they prefer. I personally unfriended a Facebook friend I knew in real life because his profile photo displayed a “I offer SEO services, so hire me now!” Then again, that was a personal profile, but yes, the social graces aren’t there. You don’t want businesses pushing in your face though there might be ways to do it that are subtle and still feature the same message.
Thanks for the feedback. Treading Carefully!-)
Tamar: I dig the comprehensive post you’ve provided; great advice! I think that consistent interaction is key. If you post consistently, it sets the expectation that you have new, fresh and relevant content. If you post very infrequently, I think people a tendency to lose interest and flock elsewhere.
Indeed, Ricardo.
Keep them engaged regularly and you have a true fan. Ignore them and they will forget about you too.
Great details. Before clicking I was like again the same article but u guys nailed it in deep great job
Yeah, I always try to go a little deeper than the average “how to” article.
Thanks!
Thank you for this comprehensive and timely post, Tamar.
I’ve had a personal FB account for over a year. I recently set up a business page, but have been paralyzed with uncertainty about how to jump in and get it started with the right biz tone and value offerings – so, there it sits, a blank canvas.
These pointers will inspire me to create an action plan and go for it!
Awesome! Glad it helped, Nikolas!
Really great post, thank you sharing…
Thank YOU for commenting, Joydeep
Thanks for the comprehensive evaluation – I really got a great deal out of it. Your posts are consistently helpful – I appreciate the pointers. I have a FAN page but don’t do much with it. Most of your examples are consumer good specific – do you have any additional suggestions/ideas for someone offering professional services? Just not as sexy as peanut butter cups.
Jack, there are takeaways in the professional space too for this. You could give value — for example, links to blog posts on your wall (and that’s easy; there’s nothing FBML about it!). But you can also think along the lines of other creative implementations. For example, let’s say you’re an insurance agency or a bank. In both cases, you can build an app on your Facebook wall that will let you estimate your monthly renter’s/homeowner’s insurance costs or your mortgage.
Let’s say you did something along the lines of what I do — social media consulting and strategy. What if you hosted a nice quiz that determined individuals’ needs?
What if you had offices everywhere? You could set up an office locator.
The key here is to be creative.
Fantastic advice, and one that people need to read before Facebook finally takes over the web!
Thank you, Andy.
Sold. Agreed. Great post here, as usual, you have the pulse of this, as many organizations are trying to decide what to do and not do.
Great stuff.
Dean
…and this is just the beginning. I’ve been told I should make an eBook. I might just take everyone up on that!
Hi,
Great post! I loved the tips and direction on where to take your facebook fan page. I just have one question. I’m trying to create an atmosphere where individual brands can post on the umbrella brands facebook fan page- I know business pages can’t do this, but can I create brand profile pages? This is my biggest hurdle right now, I can’t wait until the page is up and running and I can use your tips!
Cheers.
Jill
Hi Jill, I’m not entirely sure what you mean — can you create brand profile pages? Sure, I guess. What exactly is stopping you?
Is this a question for a legal department? Or … can you give me specifics?
If brand A has sub-brand B, there’s no easy way to affiliate the two pages, if that’s what you mean. You can say sub-brand B is a “favorite” page of brand A and vice versa – but otherwise, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
Thanks for the response Tamar!
Your example was exactly what I was talking about- I appreciate your insights and glad I found your blog!
Cheers
Great post! You really know how to dig deep and give a ton of great content.
Thanks Katy
EXCELLENT post Senorita Weinberg! Very thorough and great for usage as a training tool. Definitely going to have our new Social Media Intern read this over before revamping our Facebook strategy. The all encompassing nature of your posts make it much easier for CEO’s of small companies to train new employees in a quick & easy way…so for that…thanks! I’ve also used some of your older posts as training material, such as the Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009 & Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008…both classics imho
Thank you sir buddha
<3
Thats a great and comprehensive information! Also if you are not doing social media right it can actually harm your business! So those who are running social media campaigns should be aware of that!
Yup! I always point to my social media etiquette handbook on what it means to do things wrong.
i find that encouraging participation on normal facebook pages is very difficult. it has a bit to do with privacy concerns in my opinion. we can often see what our friends are commenting on in other profiles, so we know for ourselves to not bother participating.
Elliott, interesting observation. I personally never see this. If someone is an ardent supporter of a brand, I know that he’d be proud to show that on his Facebook profile. If you were posting to something like this, I kind of understand why you wouldn’t want the world to know.
I really do not see engagement being at a minimum if you have the right followers and they use Facebook actively. If you’re having difficulty with participation, you likely aren’t engaging them with nuggets that resonate or you’re not doing it often enough for them to care or want to remember you.
well that brings me to another point – there is a lot of groundwork that needs to be done before you can just open up a facebook page and let the world in. engagement has to be built into your products or your message.
as for not seeing engagement at a minimum – you can even see this in effect with some really major brands. i feel like many of them had 5x the amount of friends on myspace than they do on facebook.
bottom line – facebook wasnt designed for brands. its for people to chat with their friends, so this integration of pages will be awkward for a long time to come. look how much tweaking it is taking to make it work on their part: are you my fan – do you like me, what info has to show up in the news feed etc.
Tamar, what’s your take on Fan Pages VS Groups if the organization has the need for a more focused dialogue. For example, running a store that sells both books and video games and I’d like to run a conversation on books, and one on video games.
Tove, I still would never recommend groups. Way too oldschool. People don’t even talk about them anymore. There are discussions on Facebook Pages and I’d recommend to bring the ongoing dialogue there.
This is what I say the Surefire Ways to maximize Facebook pontential. FB is a powerful social media channel that when used in the most proper way can give you the results you’ve been desiring. Thanks for this informative post!
Edited: You’re welcome, but your name isn’t Tampa Internet Marketing so I’m calling you Tim. Again, please do not violate my blog policy. I’m not going to help you rank for that term and do not appreciate being exploited.
Facebook business pages are so much more fun than regular profile pages. I can see several ways where you don’t have to just “talk business” but can start discussions about trends, ideas, inspirations, etc. This is also a great way to see what people are interested in, thus providing some feedback for you to use for developing future products/services.
I love the idea of having customers post photographs of them interacting with products and having casual surveys or quizzes to increase involvement.
Thanks Faith – there’s so much you can do with them and it’s great!
Thank you for the informative post. Once you have signed up for a Facebook fan page, is there an easy way to get that page to be the default for making posts? When I want to ‘like’ a post and have it linked to my fan page, my personal account comes up instead. Am I missing something?
Thanks again for the great info and screen shots. I’ll forward the info to my business clients.
Hi Natalie,
I’m not sure I understand the question. When you click on “view my profile,” your personal page will show up. There’s no way to change this.
Is that what you’re trying to do, or did I misunderstand what you’re aiming to achieve?
Thanks for the prompt response! Sorry for not being too clear.
You have a Share link at the top of your post that I would love to use to share your info on my business/fan page. But when I click the Share button, it takes me to my personal page to share the info there. Is there a way to change a setting with Facebook so it shares to my fan page instead?
Thanks for your help!
Nope
That’s yet another shortcoming of Facebook. You’d have to manually add the URL and your commentary to the Fan page(s) of your choosing.
I appreciate you finally verifying that for me! I couldn’t find an answer anywhere and I thought that maybe I was missing something. I look forward to more of your informative posts.
Hello Tamar! It’s me Marco from American Home Guides! I found this post linked from a Fan Page that I helped design (a New Jersey design and development firm) and said, way to go Tamar!. I wanted to mention that the size for profile pictures is actually 200 x 600 pixels… Take a look at the mdo studio Fan Page, we created (Tito & I) a Microsite which we’re going to start promoting soon… http://www.facebook.com/mdostudio
HA! Hi Marco! So good to see you here
It’s been 11 years!
The reason why I said 180×540 is because some people have said in the comments here that 200×600 is not working anymore. I should probably just say in the article that it’s a difference of opinion and some sizes work while others don’t. When did you create your page? I can’t figure out why some people can get 200×600 whereas others cannot, but I’ll make the change in the article. Thanks!
Fantastic post, read some but addedyou to 'favorites' so that i canread your post at leisure.
There is a lot to digest - that's not a complaint!
Thank you Annie!
Hi, I am interested in marketing my small business. I see we can only have one facebook account? Can I transition everything in to a business account and change all my settings? Thank you!
Hi Lisa – yes you should, but it’s a completely manual process. And you can have multiple Facebook pages – you just can’t have multiple Facebook profiles. See this post for more.
Hi Tamar, perfect article, as always. I’d like to tell you that i love your work and winsdow and here in Brazil we have an universe of opportunities in social media field that i have proud to see this change in course from the begining. I’ve just finished the techinical revision of your book, the new comunnity rules, for Alta Books Brasil and it’s a pleasure and a honor for me to do this job. thank you for the guindance. I’m alredy do the techinical revision from Inbound Marketing Book ( Halligan e Shah) . You know about the potencial of brazilian market. Second position in social media acess ( in hours) worldwide.
Nice to meet you.
Luiz
Thanks so much Luiz! Glad you found this all valuable.
Hi Tamar,
I have created a page for my business on my personal facebook profile but it is not visible for any one else to see. Can you maybe tell me where I can edit the visibility of my business page?
Thank you,
Sanya
Sanya, did you create a Facebook Page or a Facebook Profile? Please see this guide to tell the difference.
To answer your question, I JUST created a BRAND new page and it’s already live. It sounds like you made a profile page, in which case you used the wrong option.
You may want to consider updating this article. Just recently, Facebook made the switch from “Become a Fan” to “Like” to make the site more universal. Also, the “Like” button is clicked almost double the amount that “Become a fan” is. This further assisted in making the switch. For more info search “Facebook like replaces become a fan” on google.
Jordan, how would I change it? I wrote this article AFTER “Become a Fan” was changed to “Like” and my article doesn’t say anything about either. Seriously, is this comment spam? You forgot your URL.
Comment spam? I’m sorry it may have been a miscommunication among some that haven’t realized the switch. Especially because on pages now they do not refer to people that “like” the page as fans besides to the admin to my knowledge. It’s okay, just a simple misunderstanding.
Sorry, yeah, as per our email dialogue, I’m not really sure I can call it anything but a Fan Page as these are specifically written for official Facebook Pages (there really is no other option; this type of customization is not available for Community Pages). And as mentioned, I explain the difference here. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with how this post was written. Most people still call them Fan Pages rather than Official Pages (it’s also got a lot fewer syllables!)
Im trying to figure out how to have a new graphic show up once the FB user clicks the “Like” button on the fan/business page.
Do you know how to do this?
California Pizza Kitchens FB page does this…
Any help would be great!
You might want to ask on this thread since it’s more applicable to Facebook FBML design.
I assume you can display different code whether they’re a fan or not. It would help you to read the FBML documents.
Hello… Someone knows which polls app use Ben & Jerry’s?
I like it a lot of: it dont ask about permissions and it works in tha same page…
All the polls app I ve used ask permissions and show me my vote and results in a new page.
Thanks!
I actually have no idea. Hopefully someone can help you with this! And worst case scenario – maybe you can ask on their wall.
This is a magnificent post, full of super-useful info: it must’ve taken you ages! But it’s really appreciated by me as it’s already a big help. Made the dizzying subject of Facebook Pages a lot clearer: I am, right now, beginning to experiment!
I will keep coming back to this post for more advice: top stuff!
Richard.
Good stuff, thanks Richard
Fantastic and intriguing reading….
Like some of the other posts I am hesitant to create a fan page and simply add my friends as fans knowing that most might not be interested in my services.
I plan to provide travel services and while many will find my articles and posts interesting most will probably not use my services.
However, is there a way that I can encourage groups to join my fan page? i.e. I am offering exciting student travel destinations so reaching out to a Study Abroad groups o FB would be of interest. Is this possible?
Thanks,
John
If you can find a hook, sure. Usually that hook should be an incentive that would encourage them to join your page.
Hi,
Great post with lots of useful information! I’m still getting the hang of my facebook business page and this definitely helps. I’m hoping you or another reader can answer a facebook business page related question for me. Right now, when I post to my business page, there is an option to “like” and to “comment” under the post. I’d also like to have the option to “share”. Is that possible on the business page?
Thanks!
Christine
Nope. See this open letter. You can’t comment on it as your own self, just as the page. However, you can Like it.
Hi there,
great detailed article.
I find building fans on a business page on facebook a bit of a struggle for a small business. We probably have to do more work on regular posts and presentation itself but once you have asked your customers to follow you, have a link from your site and contacted your friend, where do you go to get more people that would find what you post of interest, is there some kind of internal FB directory or other ways to let people know you are there?
Thank you for the post and all the example, great work!
Nope — no directory. The best thing you need to do is market your page, much like you’d be marketing your company’s website to the rest of the world via SEO or other tactics. Make sure there’s a link to your Facebook page on your company page to encourage more people to follow you!
Excellent post. One of the informative I’ve read to date. Still trying to wade through all that is involved in setting up and maintaining a Facebook Business page and your post really brought to light some issues I had not considered. Thanks Tamar.
Sweet — best of luck, Jon.
I have been asked by a small business owner to develop a page on Facebook. I came across your article which I found great help! The question I have is how often should you update your page? The business is a salon/spa. Thanks
At least once a day is recommended. Others say twice a day — once in the morning, once in the afternoon.
Thanks for this. I am currently looking in to the use of Facebook in relation to Local Government services (which is slightly different to marketing a commercial business I guess) but I think many of the same considerations will apply so this is really useful food for thought. I stumbled on this through Google but will be bookmarking the site and reading through your other posts for further inspiration. This seems to be an excellent free resource – really appreciate the considerable effort you must put in to it.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Hi
I set up a group page for my tennis club. We have about 90 fans. I want to switch it to a Fan page. Is there a way to do this switch and not lose all the current fans and info that has been posted the last six months?
Thanks
Nope.
Bummer….