Using Facebook To Promote Your Business
Although Facebook is most often thought of as a personal social network, savvy businesses are starting to use the network to promote their businesses. There are several ways to use Facebook to promote your business:
1. Start A Business Page-
Facebook allows companies to create pages to promote their business. These pages allow registered FaceBook users to "Become Fans" or subscribe to updates from your company page. It's a whole new twist on email marketing. These pages also have a viral effect in that when a registered user from facebook becomes a fan on your business page or registers to receive updates from your page all their friends are notified that they did so and many times their friends will become fans of your business as well. Applications like one of the many RSS Readers that exists on Facebook can be added to your companies Facebook page as well. This allows you to feed information from your blog or company website to your facebook page automatically and saves you the time spent updating your page via cut and paste.
2. Start A Facebook Group-
Facebook allows registered user to join and create up to 200 different groups. These groups can be based around shared interests, services your company offers, company promotions or activities, or anything you like. Once you set up a group on Facebook, the Groups application page displays your recently updated groups as well as groups your friends have joined recently. Group members can actively discuss your business or industry or can be purely for fun. A great example of a popular "Fun" group is:
I Use my Cell Phone to See in the Dark - For those that can't live without their cell phones - whether it's to schedule appointments, see in the dark, use as an excuse to leave a conversation to "take an important call", figure out the waiter's tip, keep as a clock, take pictures, or simply to use as a device to converse with others - as it was originally designed to do.
I'm not sure if this was started by a cell phone company or not but it would have been a excellent way to build brand awareness for a company that sells or makes cell phones.
3. Build A Facebook Application- Facebook Applications are programs that interact with the core functionality of the Facebook platform. Applications allow Facebook users to insert them onto their profile page or Fan pages. A Facebook application can take many forms. It could be as simple as rotating random pictures or complex integrations other websites, online quizzes etc. Below is an example of a successful application:
Sony re branded a popular Vampires Widget with a upcoming Vampire movie. The application allowed members to bite each other to receive points. The application was combine with a a sweepstakes contest to generate registrations with a grand prize of 4 wheel ATVs and $1500. The campaign also featured a banner ads for the movie. The campaign was active for 3 weeks and received 59,100 sweepstakes entries as well as 11,642,051 visits to the bite page.
4. Use Paid Advert sing On Facebook-
Facebook has a unique ability to create micro-targeted ads utilize the built-in demographic information that users input into their profile and by the groups they join. Ads are charged on a ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) basis. The PPC model means that, every time that someone clicks on your ad, you are charged for that click.
5. Post Videos On Facebook-
Just like YouTube Facebook allows you to post videos on the site. Viral videos about your product or service are a great way to get a buzz going about your product or service.