With more that 62 million users all over the world, Facebook is capable of playing a vital role in web-marketing. Here, I will briefly talk about utilizing Facebook at the various levels of your marketing expertise.
At the beginner’s level, your Facebook page can provide you with a link to your website. Links are very important to improve your website’s ranking in search engines. Opening a company page in Facebook is free and you can add the link of your website with no additional cost. Further, it does not require a high level of technical skills. To start with, you can visit Facebook’s help centre.
https://www.facebook.com/help/
At the intermediate level, you can start marketing your products/services through Facebook’s networking. First, you need 25 fans in your Facebook page to get your business address in the Facebook. For example, if your business name is Unique Furniture, with 25 fans you can get a Facebook address as:
www.facebook.com /uniquefurniture
These 25 fans can be anyone with a Facebook ID. If your company sells motor parts in Cleveland and your 13 year old nephew in L.A. or 87 year old grandma in Michigan is a fan of your company, there is no harm! However, gradually, you should try to include the people you have done business with, your potential clients and the companies related to your industry in your fan list. Remember, people as well as companies have their Facebook accounts.
Some key features to utilize:
- Facebook’s status update works like news-feed and you can let your clients know about the latest update of your business simply by updating your status. Try to post at least one update of your business in every week.
- You can plan an event and send the invitation through Facebook. You can make it public for everyone to see or make it private if you want to maintain a specific guest list. People willing to attend can send you their RSVP through Facebook.
- You can display your portfolio or product catalog.
At this stage, you should consider getting some help to give your Facebook page a professional look. You need to invest a certain amount of time on your Facebook page on regular basis. Apart from that, you don`t need to spend any money.
At the pro level, you can use Facebook’s ad centre for paid marketing. People share many of their personal information on Facebook-their age, gender, marital status, personal interest, hobby, education, work, the city they live in and so much more. That makes it easier for you to target your marketing campaign at geographic or demographic level. For example, if an office supply store wants to promote their back to school sale in a certain state, they can only target the high-school going users of Facebook at that state and make their ads visible to them while they are Facebooking. For more information please visit:
https://www.facebook.com/advertising/
Besides, you should continue to develop your networking through Facebook and start exploring other social media such as Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn or your industry specific forums.