Network your business on Facebook
Facebook.com, Facebook's website, reconnects old friends and schoolmates, but Facebook also has value for your business. Sure, if you visit the Facebook website you'll see many just-for-fun pages. But the Facebook company lets your company build and maintain a Facebook business page.What value can a Facebook business page have for your company? Well, while the Facebook website is pretty straightforward, the uses and advantages for your company are wide and varied. This guide can start you on your way to building a Facebook corporate profile that benefits your business. You can start out with three relatively simple ways to get your business and employees noticed on Facebook, including:
1. Facebook corporate profile
2. Customer participation in the Facebook corporation phenomenon
3. Facebook employee pages
Build your company's Facebook corporate profile
Before you do anything else, take advantage of the free advertising you can get in the form of a free Facebook corporate profile. Facebook has a template you must use for your business, and while this may seem like a disadvantage, Facebook users get used to seeing things in the same place on each page. It makes it easier for them to navigate your company's Facebook page.
Try: Create your company's Facebook.com Facebook corporate profile. If you need a bit of help marketing your business on Facebook.com, Justin Smith, who maintains the Inside Facebook website, sells a book called The Facebook Marketing Bible.
Encourage your customers to join your Facebook page
You can communicate with your customers using the Facebook website. A company newsletter e-mailed to your customers could get eaten by a spam folder or lost in the shuffle. Get your customers to visit your Facebook.com page for information about your products and services, and they'll likely remember the information you post there.
Try: Tippit has a guide to getting your customers to use your Facebook website. Once they get there, use the six steps suggested by The Bivings Group to market your business on Facebook.com.
Ask your employees to take advantage of Facebook
If your employees have Facebook.com pages that link to your Facebook corporate profile, then it will drive more traffic to your Facebook web site.
Try: Master New Media has a Facebook tutorial that will help even your most reticent employees enjoy building a page on Facebook. Your more computer-savvy staff may want to build an application for their Facebook page (or for your business' Facebook web site). They can learn how at the Facebook Developers page.
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