Would You Become A Fan Of A Business On Facebook?

If one more person sends me a message asking to become a fan of their page on Facebook so as they can get to the 100 fan mark (so as they can clain their vanity business URL) I am literally going to have to pull what hair I have left out.

Last night I had a chat with Peter who is a landscape gardener and John a photo blogger. Myself and John came to the conclusion that we would never become a fan of a landscaping company even if it did belong to a friend and that the whole fan page thing for small business was a little flawed.

Facebook fan pages on the whole are a really great way of showing off content but I do have a couple of small issues with them that small businesses especially should be wary off…

1.Does anybody really care about your small business on Facebook?

Using the example of Peter’s Landscape gardening page is there any value in him acquiring fans? Even if he produces the best content ever are people actually going to care enough to interact with it? Is he going to get business out of it? Direct sales? I’ll be totally honest here and I like Peter as a guy and follow him on Facebook and twitter but I have no interest in seeing anything about landscape gardening in my personal stream, I’m just not into it, I live in a flat. This is the problem…who wants to become a fan of a chemist, flower shop or accountants? If they made great content like videos and photos maybe but chances are the won’t. I won’t say don’t do it but I will say don’t do it just for the sake of sending out links to your friends through the page.

2.Is it really a good idea to pay for ads on one part of Facebook to send people to another part?

So just think about this for a second….Lots of people are currently paying Facebook a handsome daily sum to send Facebook users from one part of Facebook to their shiny fan page!!! Now the big winner here is Facebook! There is no doubting the power of fans and a fair price can always be put on their acquisition as they add value and can interact with your content but are fans really going to help a small business? My feeling is that they are perfect for a big brand who have the marketing budget but I would question this sort of tactic for acquiring fans for a small business.

I think Facebook fan pages are a super tool and advise most clients to get one but just make sure you can give them the time they deserve and please don’t come asking me to become a fan to get to 100 fans only to abandon the page and never update it again

Our Facebook fan page with lots of cool content is here, become a fan