Facebook - for Professionals and their Businesses

Face it, Facebook is a strategy you shouldn't ignore.

Number One

Facebook is now the No1 website in the US, even over "poor' old Google with around 500 million active users using the site each month, and around 50% of those users visit daily. The average user has around 130 friends, and spends around 40 minutes on the site when they visit, which not only is a huge amount of time, but one no other websites comes close to. That means that Facebook is fast becoming the No1 choice for a lot of people to stay in touch with friends, and also to surf for information within their community.

Local Statistics

So how does New Zealand fare with statistics? There are approximately 1.7 million active users around the country, which given the size of the country, is almost half of the nation, and even when you take the younger generation out (13-17 age group) that still leaves around 1.5 million active users.

How it Works

Facebook works by you simply sharing information with your friends, and depending on how you have set your privacy settings, your friend's friends can also see certain information. For instance, if I click the "Like" button on a particular business page say Urban Gourmet, a note will be posted on my personal profile wall that I "like" that page. That is visible to all my friends who visit my personal profile and they can too click though to that business page and "Like" it.

This is one of the reasons that Facebook likes you to keep your privacy settings open, to keep it as easy as possible to filter things through to others, and really take advantage of the viral nature of the site. When you also think that friends very often share the same interests, you can see where I am going with this. When you add into the mix a company that may have a bit of a cult following such as Ford or Holden, it is vital to have a business page.

Facebook for business

Here are 3 good reasons why you should consider a business Facebook page:

1. It's free!
2. It's interactive
3. It's a growing community

There won't be many industries that wouldn't be able to make use of a Facebook page, and so for the majority of businesses, it is a case of deciding on the reason to do it, and supplying information to satisfy that need. By that I mean, if you are a corporate catering and event planning company like Urban Gourmet, the reason to do it is for brand exposure, to gain customer feedback and engagement and to share culinary information. Most people enjoy good food, and would find a page on gourmet food of interest. More "Likes", more exposure.

But beware, don't simply start a business page and leave it without regular, informative  and relevant content, because that simply screams of sloppiness and could be damaging to your brand, a bit like dirty windows and litter around your front entrance.

Facebook Do's

Here are 5 ways to get your Facebook page looking good in the early days:

1. Create an image for your wall page rather than just adding your logo. It's a good idea to include in that image a picture of the person who will be administering the page as this gives the visitor an idea of who it is they are talking to, your logo, and how the visitor can contact you easily. See an example of Blue Banana's Facebook page here. It not only makes good use of the space available but it looks great too.
2. Copy some relevant information from your website into the Notes tab. This acts almost as a blog post, and will filter through to your main wall page whenever you add something in. There is plenty of space for larger articles, but you will need to double check the formatting to make sure it looks nice. You can even add photos to the page.
3. Add any good video clips you may have of your company's products or service as these are easily uploaded and stay on your video page. Alternatively, you can link directly to the video on YouTube if it is a long one.
4. Get the office team and close friends to "Like" your page quickly as you want to get to 25 fans as soon as possible. When you hit 25, go to www.facebook.com/username and claim your unique page name or URL. Choose wisely as this can't be changed so watch out for spelling mistakes. This unique page name or URL allows you to have an easy to remember and shorter page URL than before so the format will be www.facebook.com/yourcompany
5. Link your page to Twitter if you have a Twitter account so that whenever you post something on Facebook, it updates your Twitter account simultaneously eliminating one job and spreading a consistent message.

Of course I have only touched the tip of the iceberg in this article, the site itself has a lot more to offer, but I will save that for another article. Think about if your business could utilise this massive community and put a great interactive presence together. Good luck!

Acknowledgement

Linda Coles of Blue Banana is a speaker and trainer on building and maintaining relationships online. More details on Linda's expertise and offer are contained in the flyer attached below.