Facebook For Business – How you can use it

Over a billion people use Facebook for business or personal use. Facebook is one of the top most visited websites on earth. People spend hours on Facebook, browsing, sharing, connecting and more. Facebook is designed to be engaged in every way possible – desktop, laptop, mobile phones and tablets. In fact, the Facebook app is on 75% of smartphones and push notifications keep users informed about what’s going on their timelines. 90% of Facebook users visit Facebook every single day. With push notifications and text messages, Facebook is second to none as far as potential to reach new customers. How do you tap into this great behemoth and use Facebook for business purposes?

The Basics of Facebook for Business

Should you have a Facebook page or a Facebook profile? If you plan to use Facebook for business, then a page would be more beneficial. The difference between a page and a profile is that a profile is for personal use while a page is the Facebook for business use. To become friends, two Facebook profile users must mutually agree to allow each other to see their private content.

A Facebook page is more like a blog, where you can post information publicly to visitors. When a visitor likes your business page, they can follow your content via their Facebook feed. There does not have to be a mutual agreement to follow each other’s content. Facebook pages can like other pages. The benefits of having a Facebook business page is that you can track your visitor metrics (after 30 likes). You have a much better picture of which posts are getting great engagement and which are not.

If you don’t have a target audience, now is the time to start defining one. Identifying a target audience will save you a lot of work as far as what kind of content to put on your Facebook Business page.

When using Facebook for business, take control of your message. Define who you are, what you stand for, your beliefs, your style, everything. Make it unique to you. Why? You may or may not know that the failure rate of business is around 90%-95%. The competition on Facebook is fierce, as it is anywhere. People want someone they can identify with, a someone they can rally around and who fits their view on life. They want someone unique and likeable. They want value – whether you give it to them with discounts on products, unique products and services, or information (articles, info-graphics, and videos). They also identify with content that taps into emotions or states: happiness, empathy, thoughtfulness, humor (works especially well).

Facebook For Business: Getting Started

It is imperative to realize that for most businesses, using Facebook for business and other social media is becoming more of a necessity. Therefore, proper management of your account is essential to build and maintain a profitable presence online. What should you put on your Facebook Fan Page? Putting content on your fan page will always be a work in progress, but you will want to remember a few essentials.

1. Pictures. They are 5 to 10 times more likely to be shared than simple text updates. Pictures should best represent your business and be tastefully and carefully considered.

2. Articles and blog posts. When you publish something new, be sure to share it with your followers on Facebook. Get them to read the post, then comment either on your blog or on Facebook. Publishing regularly ensures that your followers know they can expect new, helpful information.

3. Be real. Posting stats about how well your company is doing is OK once in a while, but most likely, it will not engage your audience. If you really know your target audience, you will be able to deliver laser-focused status updates that push their buttons. Getting them talking, getting them excited, informing them, helping them with a problem and even getting them to laugh will boost your engagement. This can increase the likelihood that they will become customers. Behave like a real human being who can solve problems for customers, and not a robot that spams sales and promotions, and be ready for a higher level of engagement. Using Facebook for business means having more input, time and better strategy than simply going in to check what others are doing.

Managing Facebook For Business Pages

Now that you have content, you will need to manage it. Using Facebook for business can be an incredibly time-consuming endeavor. Some days, you will be able to manage your page. At other times, you will be in meetings, working on a project or on vacation. Enter social media management. There are now added tools that were created to use Facebook for business. Social management tools can let you schedule your posts, measure engagement, give you feedback on demographics and more. You can also hire someone to manage your social media for you. The key is not to rely completely on social media management, but to be sure that you are getting consistent streams of information out to your followers, even on days when you are busy. You will also need to spend some time replying to comments, adding to discussions, liking comments and other tasks. You can also hire someone to take care of most of this for you.

How To Get Likes To Your Facebook Business Fan Page

Many businesses who use Facebook for business get a few likes on their fan page, no engagement, and then abandon their fan pages. A “like” is someone following your page, updates and notifications. Getting likes is imperative to the success of your Facebook presence. Getting likes from your target market is a crucial component that will increase conversions into buying customers. Here is how to get started:

Ask your current Facebook friends to like your page.

Put a link to your Facebook page on other social media networks like Twitter, etc.

Link from the bottom of your email broadcasts.

Link from your website.

Connect to others by liking their status updates, commenting and sharing (when appropriate and if it benefits your fans).

Another way to get likes on your Facebook Business page from your target audience is to buy advertising on Facebook. Facebook enables you to write ads, select who you want to market to and set a daily budget. The ads will be visible to people in your target market who use Facebook.

I have a profile and a fan page. My profile is maxed out at 5,000 friends. My Facebook for Business fan page, has over 10,000 likes at the time of this writing. There is no limit to how many followers I can have. This large following is a combination of providing educational videos on YouTube, which link back to my website and Facebook page, sending out links to my email list, buying pay-per-click ads on Facebook and connecting with people in general.

Recap of using Facebook For Business

Many business owners are aware of the benefits of using Facebook for business. I’m hoping that this article will show just how necessary it is to commit time, resources and care to building a strong Facebook presence. Building such a strong following when using Facebook for business will help you draw in new customers who may have never found you.

Read more info here: