If you run a business, some of your employees are spending time on Facebook. Some of your friends, past and present, are there, too. Then there's your current and future customers and business associates - on-board, connected, and hungry for your latest news, views and updates.
The fact is, if you're not exploring Facebook's business potential as a social media networking site and channel of communication, you're probably missing a pretty big boat of prospective new customers or clients.
While Facebook started as a social networking utility for the net generation, it has quickly evolved into an enormously popular and highly efficient tool for connecting people over a range of interests and communities. Since its launch in 2004, it has steadily grown to include more than 90 million active users, many working in professional, sales, executive or technical careers. For business purposes, Facebook leverages opportunities to:
- Build communities with customers and stakeholders that increase your business exposure
- Collaborate externally with people you wouldn't otherwise have access to
- Get to know potential customers, see what they read, what groups they belong to, what they post in the cyberworld, and much more
- Gain "word of click" free marketing as your Facebook "friends" or followers share and comment on your information on their pages and profiles
- Get messages out, with credibility, to groups that really care about what you have to say
Having a Facebook business page is like having an e-mail database of super-interested contacts, only with one major difference. With Facebook, you're providing the tools for them to stay connected, be engaged, personalize their communications, and be ambassadors of your brand wherever they go. That's a dramatic improvement over the one-way, static communication that the e-mail blast traditionally has been.
Getting your business in on Facebook's powerful merging of media, collaboration and community is as easy as setting up a free profile or business page. Here's how to do it:
1. Visit www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.
2. Choose the best category to list your business under, then enter your business/product/brand name and click "Create Page."
3. To create initial content that you can build on later, enter a description of your business, web site address, and upload your logo as a photo/image.
4. Click on your business name in the top left corner and then click "publish this page."
5. From your new profile page, click "add to my products." This enables you to become the first "fan" of your business. When you become a "fan" of your business, your Facebook friends (some of which are likely customers) will see a message on their home page. Ideally, some of your Facebook friends will befriend your business, then their friends will see a message, and so your exposure grows.
If you want to see a sample Facebook business page, check out Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.
For more ideas to drive sales, check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.
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