FACEBOOK FOR BUSINESS

Facebook for business
Through what other media channel can your business
reach over 1 billion people, target exactly the demographic you wish and have direct communication with your customers?

This is why any business – big or small – should
consider advertising on Facebook. It’s a great
opportunity for a company to make online sales, get a
following around the brand, create a platform where
customers can discuss the products and, when done
successfully, let people spread the word about your
qualities.

“A large part of companies’ potential customers are
there. Therefore, in my opinion, all companies should
have a Facebook page where they can interact with
their customers ... No other advertising channel, at
least where you can communicate, can compete with
those numbers.”

Online Sales vs. Attracting Likes
When creating a Facebook business strategy, it’s
important to think through what you want to achieve. Is
your goal to make ads and drive traffic to your website – perhaps a web shop where visitors can make a purchase – or do you want to drive traffic to a Facebook fan page where visitors can “like” what you do?.Many businesses benefit from both, so perhaps a combination is the best choice. Just make sure your primary reasons for being on Facebook is clear before you start working.

Online Sales
This is a straightforward way to advertise your
business on Facebook. You make traditional external-
website ads and when someone clicks through, he or
she is directed to your web page where a purchase or
sign-up can be made.
This way of using Facebook for business advertising
has proven to be very successful for countless of
companies. And when you do it, you’ll get the results
right away. Just compare how much you spend on
Facebook ads to the revenue and you’ll know whether
or not you need to tweak your campaign in any way.
However, when doing external-website ads you may
miss out on the social aspects Facebook is made up
of.
Don’t forget that “liking things” is the backbone of this
entire network.

Attracting Likes
Businesses may see better results – even when
advertising a product or service – by first sending
visitors to a fan page where they have to like the page
to see the offer. After that, they can click out to the
web page to make a purchase.
By doing your advertising in these three steps, you can
combine brand making with sales.
However, a lot of businesses’ main reason for being of
Facebook is just to get a fan base and not to make
online sales. It might be a physical shop, say, a restaurant, a clothing store or any company that’s on
Facebook primarily to raise brand awareness.
In that case, ads directly to the website might not be
the best choice. Instead you want people to like your
Facebook fan page where you can talk to them, run
contests, arrange polls or other activities your
customers want to engage in.
The goal is to have active fans that spread the word
about you to their friends, which in the end can be
profitable for any business.

TIP: To succeed in small-business marketing on Facebook you don’t need to run a modern IT company. One benefit with Internet marketing for small business is
that it allows you to compete with larger corporations.
If you offer a niche product or service, you might even
have a competitive advantage. A large business will
not have time to focus in depth on a single niche.