Although Facebook first got its start as a social networking service for college students, it made its presence well-known in the business world beginning in November 2007, with the advent of the Facebook Page—which was designed for brands, businesses, celebrities, and other public figures. While Facebook certainly has its share of competition in the social network arenas, it’s well-suited for businesses of all sizes and industries in ways other networks can’t compete.
As Facebook states, “Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information in an official, public manner to people who choose to connect with them. Similar to profiles, Pages can be enhanced with applications that help the entity communicate and engage with their audiences, and capture new audiences virally through friend recommendations, News Feed stories, Facebook events, and beyond.”
3 Key Ways to Use Facebook Fan Pages
# 1: Broadcast Great Information
Businesses can share their own content from innumerable sources e.g. company videos, blog posts, white papers, PR updates, PowerPoint presentations—content that you think people will value and appreciate. By adding the URL of a blog post or YouTube video from one of the sources you follow, you can help share a wealth of information.
One of the greatest features of creating Facebook posts are the four calls to action built into the process: 1) leave a comment, 2) like an item, 3) share by sending to friends or post to your own profile, and 4) promote by creating an ad.
#2: Communicate and Engage with Audiences
Facebook offers unique ways for businesses to communicate and engage with audiences by giving businesses the ability to comment on their own post and have back and forth conversations.
#3: Capture New Audiences
Friends can recommend your business by clicking on suggest to friend. Your posts can also spread quickly in a person’s news feed. Keep in mind that a person can view their news feed by choosing to see Top News or Most Recent, so if the person has a lot of friends and pages they like on Facebook you may need to think about when and how your posts will be seen. Thomas E. Weber suggests in his post, Cracking the Facebook Code, updates which contain a link appear more frequently than status updates and are more effective at driving user engagement. So all the more reason to share links!
Facebook suggests engaging with your audience via eight key ways: 1) publisher, 2) notes, 3) photos, 4) videos, 5) discussion boards, 6)groups, 7) events and 8) Facebook platform.
You can also capture new audiences by adding a Facebook share button or like widget to your blog or website, enabling you to share information and point readers back to your Facebook page.
There’s a lot to keep up with about Facebook (and social networking for businesses), so, we’ll be continuing the discussion here on DaBomb Media’s blog, in the weeks and months ahead. For starters you also may want to familiarize yourself with Facebook marketing terms created by All Facebook: The Unofficial Facebook Resource.
Also, if you’re just getting started with a social media strategy for your business, check out our post to learn more about Guidelines for Corporate Social Media Use.
Final Thoughts: We’ll leave you with a key take away from Samir Balwani’s post, 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page:
“Creating a Facebook fan page is simple, but getting it to work well takes time, dedication, and some planning. Don’t expect to create a page and then have a huge following instantaneously. Build good content, make it easy to share, and let people know about it, and over-time the community will grow.”
How do you use Facebook for your business communication? Please share your comments below.
Facebook image: benstein’s photostream
Tags: audiences, calls to action, facebook for business, facebook pages, user engagment
