10 Ways To Use Facebook To Help Your Business

So you have probably already heard that you need to be getting into social media if you want to promote your business online and that Facebook is one of the elephants in the room when it comes to where to start so with that in mind we came up with 10 tips that will help you establish a presence on Facebook. Some of them are simple and quick to implement but not all of them will suit your own business so pick and choose a couple that can get you started.

1.Build a Fan Page

This should be your first stop on Facebook if you have a business of any shape or size and it would be one of the first things we would recommend to anybody trying to engage in social media. Fan pages are very easy to manage, great for publishing content such as photos and videos and have great analytics built in.

2.Adverts

The reason that Facebook has a valuation of Billions of dollars is because of the data that people willingly share on the network. Facebook allow you to use that data to very effectively target specific users so if you are a florist you may want to target engaged females in your local area with wedding adverts to make sales.

3.Build your network

Everybody has heard of social networks and some people even want to go as far as building their own but you should forget about that and instead leverage the great tools that Facebook have 100s of developers building. Engage with your friends and followers to create a community of your own without the headaches that building the technology to create one would involve.

4.SEO

Owning your own name on the internet and making sure people find you when they search on Google is very important. Facebook is perfectly optimizd and will nearly always return as one of the top searches for your company name. Far better that people find your Facebook page that you control than a poor review of you or your brand.

5.Organize Events Through Facebook

Facebook is really great for organizing events and it is a great way for you to dip a toe into the world of social media. Next time you have an event use Facebook to organize it and to pass on information to your guests as this will let them start building some trust in you and your business with the next logical step being that they become a fan of your business.

6.Gaining Feedback

Facebook is a great tool for asking for feedback and listening to what your customers have to say. People are usually reluctant to fill in surveys or complete lengthy forms but ask them a couple of informal questions on Facebook about how you could improve your business and they will be more than happy to help you out.

7.Facebook Connect

This is for a slightly more advanced business but you may want to build some of the functionality of Facebook into your own site including allowing users to comment and interact with their Facebook profiles. This will work well as they will be more likely to sign up without having to give away more of their personal data and it will also push your data into their Facebook stream.

8.HD Video content

Facebook is fast becoming a great place to share video content as they are improving their service by the day and will soon be in a position to start challenging Youtube for the user generated content. If you have any video already or even want to start then Facebook is a great non threatening place to try it out and you will already have a tailor made audience with your friends and fans.

9.Make Facebook Your Homepage

Some small businesses won’t even have the budget to have their own site but if that is the case there is no reason why you can’t have a simple fan page represent your business online. As soon as you get 100 fans you will even be able to grab a nice friendly URL like www.facebook.com/mybusiness so as users can easily find you.

10.Competitor Research

You may want to see what your competitors are up to but looking at their website won’t often reveal much information. Spending a little time around their facebook profile or pages will often let you know what they are at and even reveal some plans for the future as their guard will be well and truly down.

Do you have any innovative ways in which you have used Facebook yourself or examples in ways it could help a business?