Virtual tips for the savvy business owner!

Inbound Internet marketing is all about offering interesting content and connecting with your customers. One of the easiest ways to engage with your audience and serve your customers well is with a Facebook presence. Whether you’re a Facebook novice, or already have a personal page, you can get started with Facebook marketing today.

Why Bother with Facebook?
With over one hundred million active Facebook users, you can’t afford not to be there. Of all the websites on the Internet, Facebook is fourth in traffic volume. That’s an amazing pool of potential customers!

Having a 24/7 networking forum available that doesn’t require you to attend conferences or hand out business cards should also be attractive to you. The rules of social networking are different, of course, because the primary goal is bringing value to your social networks.

But think about the possibilities. Once you post information on Facebook, it’s available to interested parties until you take it down. There are no geographic boundaries, either. With all those “pluses” in its corner, Facebook is the perfect place to start your social media marketing strategy.

Getting Started
Here’s something to remember as you get started: your presence on Facebook is social, not corporate. It means developing a “face” for your company that engages authentically with your audience. It means finding networks where your target audience, and likeminded businesses, go to find and share information.

To build your Facebook presence, first create a profile through the easy-to-use wizards on Facebook. There’s a business page wizard that allows you to identify your brand or product, upload your logo and add company information. You can also add applications that help you communicate outside Facebook to other social media.

Once you’ve created your Facebook profile, you publish it and become searchable on Facebook and search engines. If someone finds your page and wants to become a fan, there’s a widget that appears that allows them to do that easily. They then begin receiving updates whenever you post new content.

Promoting Your Facebook Page
It’s not enough to set up a page and hope others find it. Avoid doing these things if you hope to attract inbound traffic:
1.    Don’t make your Facebook page an advertisement. If you want to place ads on Facebook, subscribe to their advertising service.
2.    Don’t use heavy-handed marketing language. Remember, social networking equals helpful content, not advertising.

Here are some things you definitely want to do for a successful Facebook page:
1.    Engage with your networks by offering useful information. Some examples:
a.    YouTube Videos
b.    Link to Your Related Blog Posts (add your blog’s RSS feed)
c.    Link to Other Interesting Blogs
d.    Host Discussion on Topics Relevant to Your Audience
2.    Leverage your activities through your News Feed, a record of what you’ve done lately on Facebook. Here’s the cool thing—that News Feed is also published on your fans’ Facebook pages! This is one way business pages “go viral” or get lots and lots of Internet word-of-mouth. Having great content also has fans linking to it from their pages so others can see.
3.    Connect your page to your other marketing channels. Put links to it on your webpages and blog, and vice-versa. Blog about your Facebook activities.

When you add together the boost in search engine ranking to the ease of setting up a free Facebook page, there’s really no reason not to use this valuable marketing channel. Set up your business page soon on Facebook and start exploring a whole new world of marketing.

Filed under: Online Social Networking