Social networking sites, such as Facebook, have the ability to significantly impact local business owners and entrepreneurs no matter the size of the business. To keep your business current, you should at least be familiar with the latest social marketing techniques and viral advertising technologies that Facebook has to offer.
Facebook recently crossed the than 250 million active users milestone. More than 120 million of those users log on to their Facebook account at least once per day. Two-thirds of those users on Facebook are outside of college with the fastest growing demographic of over 35 years of age.
Facebook is much more than just another online yellow pages. What does Facebook have to offer local businesses in Huntingdon County? See for yourself:
Meet your customers.
Facebook is not just for college kids. Members are typically older and more mature on Facebook. Interact with your customers. If they post something, respond. The days of suggestion boxes and anonymous surveys are gone. People want to know what other customers are saying about your business.
Find business contacts.
With more than 120 million active users, and predicted to be 500 million by 2011, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, and your competitors. You need to be on too to stay up to date.
Build customer relationships.
By engaging in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.
Raise brand awareness.
By consistently showing up, posting relevant information, and leading discussions, you can increase visibility and credibility as the expert in your field. Promote that new product or best seller with photos for everyone to see as soon as they log onto their Facebook account.
Develop your brand.
The lines between business and personal have become blurred. You can reveal as much or as little about yourself as you wish, allowing you to personalize your brand. What makes your business unique?
Publish information.
A business page on Facebook allows you to publish a stream of information to your subscribers. Publish events, sales, and updates. Have Facebook only sales coupons. More importantly, post pictures and videos for your business.
Target your niche market.
Facebook users volunteer vast amounts of information when upon account creation. These kinds of demographics would previously have cost fortunes to access. Facebook gives all this information to you free of charge.
Increase your Google PageRank.
Create a Page for your business and share information with your fans. Pages are indexed for optimal search engine positioning. Facebook is the 3rd most popular web site in the world. A higher ranking site such as Facebook linking to your businesses website greatly increases your businesses page rank value.
Targeted advertising.
With Facebook Social Ads, you can explore extremely targeted advertising for minimal cost. Take advantage of the vast amount of demographic data that Facebook has already collected for you.
No cost marketing.
Facebook is totally free to use and with regular activity, your business will end up with more traffic and more paying clients. Send out updates to everyone that is a ‘Fan’ of your page, or to a certain demographic absolutely free. Business page updates show up on fans news feeds when they log into Facebook.
To get started, log into Facebook and click on the Create a Page for my Business link. Why should you create a Business Page versus using a normal profile? Business pages have valuable marketing and demographic statistics that personal pages do not. Business pages allow the owner to track user interaction. Business pages also have the ability for the owner to designate multiple admins for the page. Other administrators can lessen the burden on keeping the page current once your page starts generating a large amount of fans by posting content.
A small amount of businesses in Huntingdon, PA already have their business located on Facebook. Who will be next?
Next, we’ll tackle why businesses should be using the micro-blogging social networking site, Twitter.
Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s also free, which should be quite attractive to small businesses.
This is an excellent article. Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise.