By Ronnie Coyle, June 27, 2011
Facebook has become more than just a way to keep in touch with friends or to fill out surveys about yourself because you are bored.
Facebook has become a way of life. It’s where you share what matters to you. It’s where you listen to the things you want to hear. It’s where you participate in the lives of family and friends when you aren’t beside them. It’s a way to interact with your favorite celebrities, brands and companies.
People have evolved with Facebook as it grew from being a college social network to now including over 750 million users across the globe. There are over 150 million Facebook users in the United States, which is almost 50% of the current US population. More importantly, of the US residents, an estimated 70% of the online population is on Facebook.
Businesses can take advantage of using Facebook to grow and may be behind if they haven’t already utilized it. It allows your business to connect and build relationships, and the average user has 130 Facebook friends. That means your connection with one user can have a positive word-of-mouth impact on 130 other people, instantly. Long gone are the days of one person passes along information to 3-10 people, it is amplified. And that is a great thing for businesses.
So you may asking, “How can I use Facebook?”, and that is a great question. Facebook gives you many tools to use and here are a few:
Ads are a great place to start–they allow businesses to reach a precise target audience while operating within a set budget. You can target everyone within a mile radius of your location or you can specify cat lovers who are female and graduated from college. Ads are great in attracting Facebook users to your Facebook business page to learn more about you.
- Target Facebook users by their birthday.
Places is a great way for Facebook users to ‘Check-In’ to your location. When a customer checks in to your location, it is displayed to their friends. It not only shows that the customer is visiting your location, but may cause a friend to stop by too if they are in the area.
Deals allows you as a business to provide discounts and rewards, as well as secure donations. When a Facebook user checks in to your location, they have the opportunity to claim a deal and let friends know about it. Also, you can provide Deals that would require multiple friends to check-in.
Contests are useful in engaging your community on Facebook and gaining ‘Likes’. Contests not only allows you to reward loyal customers, but you can gather information that you may use for other marketing avenues (email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers).
Other Facebook tools would include custom landing pages which are great in converting ‘Likes’. The events application is great for special occasions or sales that include certain dates, and each person that likes your page will receive a personal event invite. Also included are Insights, Groups, Questions and utilization of your Profile Pic.
Of course, any time you have questions about your own Facebook page or need help starting one, feel free to comment or send us an email.
