Social Media Networking – Facebook for Business
Facebook is a social networking website with a target audience that is more for youths than adults. A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade ‘best-of’ list, saying, “How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers’ birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?”
Users can search for friends and acquaintances by e-mail address, school, university, or just by typing in a name or location for a search. When people become friends, they can see all of each other’s profiles including contact information. E-mail notifications let users know when new friends have chosen to add them to their list or when someone has sent a message to them within the system.
Ways to use Facebook for business
Manage your profile
- Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
- Establish a business account if you don’t already have one.
- Stay out of trouble by reading the Facebook rules regarding business accounts.
- Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile.
- Keep any personal parts of your profile private through ‘Settings’.
- Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.
- Post professional or business casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.
- Limit business contacts’ access to personal photos.
- Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.
Connect and share with others
- Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.
- Add your business Facebook URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.
- Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as “Working with such-and-such company on website redesign.
- Share useful articles and links to presentations and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.
- Before travelling, check contact locations so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
- Research prospects before meeting or contacting them.
- Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.
- Use ‘Find Friends’ for suggestions of other people you may know to expand your network even further.
- Look for mutual contacts on your contacts’ friends lists.
- Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event (useful general blogging advice).
- Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
- Share survey or research data to gain credibility.
- Use ‘Facebook Connect’ to add social networking features to your website.
- ‘Suggest Friends’ to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.
- Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.
Use network, group and fan pages
- Start a group or fan page for a product, brand, or business. Unless you or your business is already a household name, a group is usually the better choice.
- Add basic information to the group or fan page such as links to the company site, newsletter subscription information, and newsletter archives.
- Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences, and other programmes where you or someone from your company will be present.
- Update your group or fan page regularly with helpful information and answers to questions.
- Join network, industry, and alumni groups related to your business.
- Use search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location, and career.
- Do not, however, mix business and social. This is unprofessional and could backfire badly for you personally, and professionally.
Glossary: Brand Loyalty, Customer Loyalty, Facebook Ad Server, Friend of Brand, Lifestyle Segmentation, Networking, Pay per Click, Personal Page, Relationship Marketing, Social Marketing, Trust