Break out from the Crowd with Facebook
For years, commentators have been saying that life in the Internet age will become less personable and that we humans will interact with their computers instead of other people. It looks like they didn't see the social networking and social media revolution coming! In fact, with social media and social networks individuals and even businesses can interact in new ways and can now be closer than ever. Savvy business owners can now stand out from their competitors by actively engaging customers and clients and leveraging the power of social networks and relationships to introduce themselves to new faces and friends. In America, the most popular and powerful platform for social networking is Facebook. Keep reading to see how Facebook can help power your business.
What is a Facebook Page?
On Facebook, every individual has a personal profile. This profile is where you can share messages with your friends and share information about yourself such as location and education details. Your personal profile allows you to connect with friends, play games, and other new and innovative features are added daily. Facebook Pages (also known as Fan Pages or Business Pages) are for businesses to share information and to stay connected with Fans. In the same way that any person can have a personal profile, any business or group can have their own page. Facebook Pages allow you to offer a mini-website of sorts within Facebook. Unlike a traditional website though, you can directly take advantage of Facebook's power and resources. A page can have a photo gallery, use Apps, and even has its own Wall/Feed. This makes Facebook Pages a very powerful toolset to connect and interact with customers. The best part is, a Facebook Page is often easier to maintain and costs significantly less than a full blown website, making it a suitable alternative or addition to the traditional website.
Why not just use a regular Facebook Profile?
Facebook Pages allow you to keep your personal life and your business separate. You may want to share latest vacation photos with your friends, but is that content appropriate for your business customers? A Facebook page is not tied in any way to your personal profile. This means you can continue to interact with friend normally and don't have to worry about them tagging you in an embarrassing picture or posting inside jokes that might not reflect your business identity. The visitors and fans of your page cannot view your personal profile unless they are also your friends. In addition, you are able to still enjoy all of Facebook's great privacy features and settings. With a Facebook Page, you can safely use the power of social networking for your business and keep your personal and business lives separate.
What can I do with a Facebook Page?
Facebook Pages are truly robust and integrate easily with all of Facebook's powerful features. You can enjoy similar features that you have in your personal profile such as photo albums and a wall. In addition, you can integrate custom pages and applications to help explain your services or to provide examples of your work. There are also other applications developed by both Facebook and third-party developers that allow you to easily collect testimonials or share content such as Flickr pictures or YouTube videos. All of these features seamlessly come together in ways not before possible with traditional web platforms.
My experience with web design and development allow me to give you an edge over your competitors on Facebook. While some competitors may just have a fall and an info page, I can help you create custom content and easily plug your existing business blog or other resources into your Wall. Other options include animation, contact forms, and other custom applications which I can develop to suit your needs.
How can Facebook Help my Business?
Facebook allows you to stay connected with your current customers and to help attract new customers. You can invite your current customers to become fans of your page. This allows them automatically have your updates and wall posts delivered into their personal feed. They can then respond and interact. The best part is every time they interact with your fan page, they are providing you with free advertising to their friends because their actions and comments will appear in their friend's feeds. Rather than reaching out to strangers, you have no reached new potential customers who have a friend who can provide a positive referral, increasing the likelihood of converting a new customer.In addition, with a traditional website it is often hard to stay fresh on your customers' minds, and they might forget about your. With Facebook, however, you can constantly interact with customers and easily provide them with news and special offers without worrying about complicated e-mail campaigns or other costly forms of engagement.
Facebook also offers the ideal platform for direct marketing. Unlike search engine listings where you can only target by keywords and limited demographics, on Facebook you can market directly to the age group, gender, marital status and other key demographics of your choice. You can also tailor your advertising to individuals who went to a specific school or work for a particular company. Best of all, you can further narrow your advertising's reach to people with specific interests or hobbies. This kind of control or focus cannot be found in any other medium and truly in few other places on the Internet. And of course, don't forget that it’s a social network so you can choose to advertise directly to friends of your business's fans! Facebook as a direct marketing platform is powerful and cost effective for businesses of all sizes. Have you ever thought to yourself while on Facebook, "It's like the ads are targeted specifically to me?" Well it turns out they are, and now you can optimize this power for your own business. It may all sound scary, but don't worry. I will help you to set up and manage your Facebook advertising campaign as well as your Facebook Fan page and other elements of your Facebook presence.
The Web Design Hero Advantage for Facebook
Because I am your partner, I will continue to work with you and provide long term coaching to ensure you will continue to receive value from your investment in Facebook. I will help you develop strategies for getting new fans, keeping your content fresh, and writing engaging wall entries. You are busy enough with your business, and it's often hard or too time consuming to figure everything out on your own. I will be with you every step of the way to answer your questions and to help you understand all the complexities of marketing your business through Social Media.
I am sure you have lots of questions, and I would be more than glad to start a dialog with you about Facebook and other social media opportunities for your business. I invite you to contact me today and I can provide a complementary consultation to discuss the best options for you and your business.