Facebook is a social networking service that lets you connect with friends, co-workers, and others who share similar interests or who have common backgrounds. Many use it as a way to stay in touch after finishing school, or as a way to share their life publicly. What makes Facebook different from other social networks are its extensive privacy controls, its development platform, and its large and quickly growing user base. Facebook has been called the "thinking person's" social network. Compared to many other social networks, Facebook gets new features and improvements on a regular basis.
Launched at the beginning of the online social network boom, Facebook has cemented its status as ‘the’ social network. With active users nearing a billion, Facebook serves nearly seventh of the global population. For using facebook for business, this is a wonderful opportunity to target the segment of the market. This is why more and more businesses are incorporating Facebook into their marketing strategies.
Online marketing was an afterthought a few years back. Now, it is at the forefront of advertising and marketing plans. Facebook has been an essential tool for businesses. Regardless of size of the business, Facebook proves to be useful. Facebook small business pages to large corporations’ pages, the website is used for promotion and marketing of all kinds of products and services. Any entrepreneur hesitant about using Facebook is missing out big time. Social media marketing has grown in a way no one could have imagined. If you are not using Facebook for your business yet, it is time you jumped on the bandwagon. Chances are your competitors already have.
Start a Facebook business page and set up a profile to bring your business into the public view. This works wonders for local businesses and small concerns. It is equally effective for large global corporations. There are many types of businesses that have been using Facebook successfully. From billion dollar entities to non-profit setups to charities, Facebook has become the preferred tool for online marketing for all organizations.
There are hundreds of ways in which businesses can make use of Facebook. The key is to using it in the best way possible so that you can maximize your business’ profitability. To use Facebook effectively for your business, you have to follow the best practices.
Your Facebook profile is an online manifestation of your business and the image that it wants to achieve. Hence, there are several things you have to be careful about when designing the profile. The way your profile looks will determine how the visitors react. Making a good impression on the users converts them into customers, which is what you should aim for.
The most important thing to do when making your profile is to provide accurate and detailed information about your business. Put in as much information as you deem relevant. There are various headings under which you can fill in the data so select carefully. This helps the visitors learn about your business, what you do and what you offer that is different from others. Moreover, providing comprehensive information enables you to gain the trust of your visitors. Trust building is vital for building long-term relationships and enhancing customer loyalty. This does not mean that you drown the visitors with information. Stick to relevance as the sole criteria.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Facebook
MANAGE your brand: People are talking and sharing their thoughts online, and if you’re not responding when they are talking about your business, you simply no longer manage your brand.
IMPROVE your business: Having a presence on Facebook puts you where the conversations are happening. Facebook is fast becoming the preferred communication channel for an ever growing number of people, some of whom are potential customers. By making yourself available and able to proactively respond to positive and negative feedback, customer complaints, suggestions or questions in (near) real time, you will learn more about your business and take what you learn to make your product or service even better.
BUILD relationships: If you take the time to listen and credibly engage with your audience, Facebook will enable you to establish deeper relationships with your customers by sharing your successes, community initiatives and behind the scenes business activity. Sharing more of your business will bring your customers closer to it, which will create loyalty and brand champions who will defend your brand in moments of crisis.
MARKET effectively: Facebook is a great platform to keep customers up to date about any special promotions, offers, contests and activities. Bringing new customers to your brand can be as - and in some cases more - effective as promotion through “traditional” channels, all at a fraction of the cost.
INCREASE awareness: Facebook is all about engagement, and if you can accomplish that, the platform will promote your business for free automatically. Well, not REALLY free. You get out of it what you put into it, like anything else in life. If you take the time to keep you page updated with fresh and interesting information, credibly and transparently engage with your audience, then it will happen.
