This article was written by Pete Lisoskie, CEO, BeLocal
Next in the series of articles from beLocal is social media marketing. The reason: Your potential customers are using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in massive numbers. And they use social media to share, communicate, and interact with others and with products and services. Y our potential customer’s eyeballs have shifted from TV to social media. And Facebook has now surpassed Google in weekly traffic! So you need to be there. Facebook is by far the largest social media platform at over 800 million users. The numbers are staggering! In this article we’ll show you how to get a Facebook business page and then make your Facebook business page to go viral. Here’s how:
For those companies who do not currently have a Facebook page, the process to get one is very easy...
1. Go to Facebook.com and click Sign Up.
2. Provide some basic information like a valid email address. You will receive an email confirmation. Confirm and you now have a Facebook profile.
3. To create a Facebook page, go to http://www.Facebook.com/pages/create.php
4. Type in the name of page exactly as you want it to appear and as you think users will search for it (Important: you won't be able to change this later). Try to pick a name that customer’s would use to search for the page not necessarily your company name.
5. Select the category most appropriate for your business. (Note: avoid choosing other unless there is absolutely nothing else that matches your business)
6. Add content and publish your page — and you are done!
7. Review the help guidelines at http://www.Facebook.com/help.php or send an email to info@Facebook.com if you experience any problems.
Creating a Facebook business page is only the first step. Now you have to optimize and promote the page to benefit from the free viral marketing that Facebook can provide. And we have some great ways for you to do just that.
· Make your business personal — People primarily use Facebook to share information with friends and family; although they do “Like” pages of interest. As a business, you need to make your Facebook business page “Like-able” with products and services content that connect with users on a personal level. The more you show the human side of your business, products, and people to the community, the more likely you are to be successful.
· Use News Feed — the news feed on a Facebook user’s home pages tells them what their friends are doing. When users become your fans, News Feed tells their friends and invites them to become fans of you as well. This leads to a friends-of-your-friends viral effect. This viral effect can really drive traffic to your Facebook page.
· Update your Facebook page frequently — Facebook was designed so that people can share content on a regular basis and Facebook highlights new information and recent content changes. Updating your page with fresh content will result in more users coming back regularly to visit and interact – especially if what you are putting up there is interesting to those that “Liked” your page. You can also send updates to fans (Facebook's term for your subscribers, friends or colleagues) to announce new products, in-store giveaways, special promotions, coupon, contests, or events. To find out more about how to do this, visit http://www.belocalgroup/Facebook.
· “App” up your Facebook page — Facebook users and developers have created hundreds of applications you can integrate into your page to provide more functionality and make it feature rich! The apps you are interested in; however, relate to the business aspect of using Facebook pages so that you are not missing out on valuable traffic that could be potential customers or clients. Check out our Top 13 Must-Have Facebook Applications for Business by going to http://www.belocalgroup/Facebook.
· Promote your page with Facebook Ads — Facebook ads are a way to laser focus on a desired audience with relevant targeted ads. If the ad image and copy is well-designed and executed, it produce amazing branding and lead conversion results for you and your business! These are pay-per-click ads that run in both traditional banner format and in the news feed. The ads can be audience targeted based on age, gender, geography, educational level, interest, relationship status and keyword. Facebook ads do not always convert well, but if you test and measure you may come across a winning campaign and more importantly, you are developing “mental” brand with these ads by getting thousands of impressions in a short amount of time.
There you have it! While Facebook is only a small piece of Authority Marketing principles we use at beLocal, it can be very effective for getting your business in front of thousands of potential customers. And with proper integrated marketing techniques, it can be very powerful. If you would like to know more about Facebook business pages or how to use Facebook to get in front of potential customers or clients, go to http://www.belocalgroup.com and look for the Facebook tab. Here’s to making you the Authority in your local marketplace!
In Pete’s 14+ years experience as a small business entrepreneur he created businesses in financial services, publishing, seminars, recruiting, construction, network marketing, radio shows, and internet-related products and services. His groundbreaking book “Customers for Keeps” led the customer relationship management movement. Lisoskie applied these timeless concepts to the internet platform when he founded beLocal [http://www.belocalgroup.com] and developed the exclusive “Authority Marketing Program” for local small business.