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10 Things All Businesses Should Do to Market More Effectively on Facebook
January 27th, 2009
| By Justin Smith | 45 Comments » |
Now that there are over 150 million active users on Facebook, more businesses large and small are actively reaching and engaging customers through Facebook and the Facebook Platform. Global chains all the way down to the local pub are building social marketing strategies that leverage the strengths of Facebook to drive traffic to their pages and feet to their premises.
However, many business owners are daunted by Facebook’s sheer scale, and simply don’t know where to start. Inside Facebook is here to help guide business owners and marketers through that process.
Here are Inside Facebook’s top 10 ways business owners can more effectively leverage Facebook to reach their target audience and drive more business. To dive deeper on the ways you can leverage Facebook for your marketing goals – including each of the tactics listed below – check out the Facebook Marketing Bible: The Guide to Marketing Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook.
10 Things Business Owners Can Do to Market More Effectively on Facebook
1. Create a Facebook Page
Your Facebook Page should be the “hub” of your Facebook marketing presence. With a Facebook Page, Facebook users can become a “fan” of your company or product; when that happens, your name and logo will appear on their profile page and your name will appear in their profile feed. 
In turn, more users will be able to discover your Facebook Page through their friends’ profiles and Facebook searches, and your Page can grow “virally” without you even having to do much work. Finally, Pages rank very highly in Google search results, boosting your SEO rankings.
2. Create Facebook Events for Promotions and Special Occasions
Once you’ve created a Facebook Page, create regular Facebook Events for promotions you’re running. For example, a local bar might want to create a Facebook Event each week for happy hour! Larger businesses might target them around major campaign target events. When you create Facebook Events, they are automatically promoted on your Facebook Page. Plus, when Facebook users RSVP to your event (think “Biff Henderson is attending to Thursday Happy Hour at O’Malleys,” etc.), their friends see the updates on their profile or news feed.
3. Promote Your Events with Highly Targeted Social Ads
Facebook’s Social Ads platform makes it easy to target your spend to a very specific age, gender, and geographic audience. (You can even target based on words they’ve put on their profile.) Purchasing Social Ads throws fuel on the flames of the “natural” viral distribution you’re already getting from Facebook’s feed system, and you only pay for performance!
4. Add Contests and Voting Applications to Your Facebook Page to Give Your Customers a Voice
People love fun ways of engaging and feeling like they are contributing to your direction and decisions. Why not create a poll and let your users vote on the next menu item addition? White label solutions are readily available, and thousands of developers are able to easily build custom applications that you can add to your Facebook page.
5. Sponsor Popular Applications with Ads and Virtual Gifts
For larger chains and brands, sponsoring Facebook applications popular with your target audience offers richer opportunities for deeper engagement. For example, sports bars or sporting goods stores could partner with popular sports applications, and music retailers or pubs with live music could partner with popular music applications. What to do exactly? Sponsor or skin a whole section of the app, or offer sponsored virtual goods (i.e. virtual “bumper stickers”) for users to send to their friends on your behalf.
6. Go Big with Facebook Engagement Ads
For those who want to achieve the widest reach, Facebook’s variety of available home page engagement ads offer a simple way to engage millions of users. If you’re able to meet Facebook’s minimum spend requirements, Facebook can deliver big unique numbers.
7. Integrate Facebook Connect on Your Website
If your website is an important channel to you, Facebook Connect can help you amplify engagement you’re achieving by spreading information and updates about your visitors activity with their Facebook friends.
For example, with Facebook Connect, you can publish updates like “Peggy Bush just ordered a pizza from Mancini’s Chicago Pizzeria on 31st St” to your customers’ Facebook profiles, where they are seen by thousands of friends.
8. Add Facebook Share Links to Your Website
Does your website even make it easy for your customers to share information about you with their friends? Adding Facebook “share” links is the simplest step you should take to get your URL floating around Facebook.
9. Publish Fresh Photos, Videos, and Updates to Your Facebook Page
Facebook Pages are not “set it and forget it.” They require regular updates with new content that feels authentic and community generated – not “from the marketing guy who doesn’t get it.” Which leads us to the last and most important point…
10. TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
Facebook is made up of people, and people want to talk to you. If you don’t enter the conversation they invite you into, they’ll stop paying you much attention. When you start a Facebook presence, you’ll need to “man the wheel” by allocating staff to participate in discussions on your Page and respond to concerns. When customers discover that there are actually real people there, their appreciation for you will grow – as will their willingness to let others know!
One final note…
Keep in mind, however, that while Facebook marketing is powerful, it isn’t free. Your Facebook marketing plan should be part of a larger strategy that incorporates all the elements that make social marketing successful. Participating in the Facebook ecosystem most effectively requires consistent participation and willingness to engage your customers. There’s a good chance you will find it more rewarding than you expect!
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January 27th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
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January 27th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Great post. nicely done, Justin.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
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January 27th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Great post. Just what I need.
January 27th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Great post, but what about building an application? Curious as to why this was not included. If you are interested in coming to Atlanta to speak at an AMA event, let me know. We are looking for speakers. This topic would make for a great session topic for general marketers.
Dave Williams
CEO, BLiNQ Media LLC
http://www.blinqmedia.com
dave@blinqmedia.com
January 27th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
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January 27th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Great Post… This is what i need. thanks
January 28th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Unless I’m missing something, my fans do not get notified of the posts I make on my page…what an HUGE disappointment.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Michelle – the fan page notifications go to the user’s “update” folder and not their inbox which really reduces the usefullness of a fan page. If you look in your update folder you will see your messages, event updates, etc.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:37 am
nice gift
January 29th, 2009 at 7:52 am
great post will try to apply all the great info/
thanks
January 29th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
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January 29th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
brilliant
January 30th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Great post with lots of ideas. I am wondering if you have it in video form that would be cool. I have just really started with Facebook and would love to see video on how to bring it all together… Just a thought. I am a watch and do person
Gail
January 30th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Great post…do you have more helpful insight like this? please share
January 30th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
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January 31st, 2009 at 5:02 am
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January 31st, 2009 at 11:05 am
Thanks for this article. Figuring out how to effectively use facebook has been a mystery to me. Though my target audience, baby boomer entrepreneurs, are not widely associated with facebook due to the early orientation to college student, they are probably significant users. It is estimated that a third of all Internet users in the US are baby boomers.
I did get some useful ideas as a result of this post. I finally have an idea of where to begin.
Shallie Bey
Smarter Small Business Blog
January 31st, 2009 at 6:37 pm
They should have mentioned creating a “Fan Page.” Excellent article.
January 31st, 2009 at 6:44 pm
It’s a must read for any business and for the average person as well since it can streamline usage and save time.
Now to integrate this feed as well.
http://www.ssr4.com if you’d like to stop by and visit my blog.
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February 1st, 2009 at 6:26 am
Facebook has certainly become a more challenging environment from a business point of view since their major facelift last year. On the other hand, those changes did clear the clutter and make it easier for businesses to stand out… if they really are good, strategically targeted, and committed to maintaining an ongoing presence. Thanks for the suggestions on how to be exactly that.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Excellent information. I am finding business applications all over the place. It isn’t difficult either, just making connections in a targeted way is powerful.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Great article! Thanks for the great tips
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 am
Good list for cracking Facebook. It’s a wide open opportunity that most aren’t taking advantage of. Marginal cost, measurable and significant return.
February 5th, 2009 at 6:53 am
This is super helpful information, thanks so much for sharing it Justin!
I was wondering, however, how an admin can generate a poll on a ‘group’ page? I was under the impression you couldn’t have one if it were a group… Do you know of an app that will work with such?
Thanks for any insight you can offer.
February 12th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
nice post with good information.
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April 20th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Now this is the type of stuff a body’s mind need to know as much about as possible.. what, is facebook going in a new direction? sounds good, I will keep my eyes and mind open for future rev.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 am
[...] Facebook Pages are great marketing tools. Pages allow you to post videos, photos, notes, blogs, and other interactive and community-building applications. Once you have created a Facebook page, you can promote it through Facebook’s Social Ads, although you should make sure to stay within the ethical rules for client solicitation in doing so. For more information about how lawyers can market themselves and their businesses on Facebook, read 3 Things All Lawyers & Attorneys Should Do to Market More Effectively on Facebook and 10 Things All Businesses Should Do to Market More Effectively on Facebook. [...]
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December 1st, 2009 at 7:12 am
does anyone have any additional resources for why a business should integrate facebook connect? thx.