Making Facebook Work For You

Making Facebook Work For You

For businesses the competition for precious resources when it comes to marketing seems to be getting greater. Although the Web has revolutionised how marketing is practiced most businesses are faced with a number of learning curves when it comes to taking on various aspects of online marketing themselves.

Recent years have seen Google’s dominance as a destination where our time is spent challenged by social networking platforms and particularly Facebook. For business the prospect of an online place which has over 500 million users and a near £100 billion possible public value, and the constant media and marketing message that a business should be using it, there has to be some potential for profits.

Business or Personal Use?

There is statistical evidence to suggest that approximately 80% of the use of Facebook is really for personal rather than business reasons and that professional use of social networking may be more focused on platforms such as LinkedIn.

Preaching to the Converted?

A good flow of new customers is an important part of keeping any business alive, and for many businesses their website is very much geared up to attracting new traffic and attempting to convert them in whatever way is appropriate.

There are some studies which suggest that most interest in a business’s Facebook page will come from people who are existing customers / have bought from the business / already used the service. This aspect of retention and continuing the dialogue with existing customers is often only addressed online e.g. by sending out correspondence to opt-in subscribers e.g. via online newsletters. Facebook therefore may be particularly effective at getting ‘interaction’ from people who are already converted, and are therefore more likely to engage in meaningful communication and help you to expand your Facebook network in a good way.

An Integrated Approach

Using your online marketing resources wisely means an integrated approach which plays to the strength of each channel. If we accept that Facebook is particularly good for existing customers who are looking for promotions and are prepared to interact (for example), and may be acting in a personal rather than a business capacity to do so, then the business Facebook page could be used mainly to serve these people. Other marketing resources could therefore be focused on SEO (including PPC), maintaining a Blog, and keeping the website up to date. The Blog and the website could help to drive visitors to the Facebook page as well as giving them good reasons to go there. In order for this happen, customers need to be made aware as part of the sales or ‘thank you for the sale’ that the Facebook page exists and where it is.

Proactivity

It may well be worth while proactively seeking known customers on Facebook and inviting them to become a fan e.g. using a personal profile. This may also be a good opportunity to make it easy for happy customers to provide recommendations.

Focusing Your Resources In The Right Way On Facebook

Using SEO and web pages as an example, Google takes approximately 200 page signals into account when indexing and ranking a web page. Those familiar with SEO however know that some signals carry more weight than others when it comes to achieving good rankings, and that the right efforts in the right areas can bring better results and help use resources wisely. The same is likely to be true when trying to achieve greater prominence in Facebook. Here are some areas to focus efforts on that can help you to make Facebook work for you:

Use and Share Videos and Photos
Some types of media can be really engaging to all of us, and can make us spend time while we experience them. Spending more time on a page / site is generally considered to be a good sign, as is taking the trouble to provide different types of appealing content – hence the value of videos to Facebook, and the reason why they’re so easy to upload there. Facebook is the largest photo sharing site, and sharing and tagging photos can be a great way to achieve more prominence.

Newer Services Are Important e.g. Facebook Places
Many of us experience the web through mobile devices, and companies such as Google and Facebook are keen to accommodate this, and apparently to give greater weighting to service which work with this trend i.e. using Facebook Places.

Sharing and Linking
Making use of the ‘Share’ button, and linking to other content on the wider web from within Facebook also seem to work well.

Regular Posting and Commenting
Regular updating of Status and Wall posts, plus making sure you contribute in a way that attracts comments can also work in your favour.

Interact and Ask Questions
High quality, topical, and interesting updates can attract interaction (which Facebook seems to like). Asking a good question can start off a stream of comments which leads to more interaction and greater favour from Facebook.

Build Your Network Carefully
Building a network generally is a good thing, but it also makes sense to focus on people with lower numbers of friends so that your feeds and what you write will be more visible.

Make Sure There’s A Point
Calls to action are important in all business communications, and that includes those on Facebook related to your business.