What Your Local Business Needs To Know About Facebook Business Pages
The trend towards online and digital marketing is growing, and it is not hard to see why.
Not only is it cheaper and easier to implement than print and television advertising, it is also capable of reaching a much wider audience.
One of the most significant benefits of this marketing transition is that it is now far easier for small businesses to compete with large organizations.
Facebook business pages, a new alternative to Facebook’s standard profile page, are one of the most valuable advertising platforms available.
Setting up a business page allows you to build a closer relationship with your customers, and it gives your company access to advertise within the world’s largest social network.
Read on to find out how you can take advantage of this cost effective marketing opportunity.
What is a Facebook Business page?
A Facebook business page is Facebook page developed to specifically suit the needs of a business or organization.
It lets you post photographs, contact details, information, and updates about your products and services.
Facebook users that choose to become ‘fans’ of your page can interact with it by adding their own comments and using the ‘like’ function.
Facebook initially offered the same standard profile page option to all of its users, including businesses.
Recently however, the social network has introduced a much wider variety of page alternatives designed to suit brands, charitable causes, public figures, and other more targeted groups.
Unlike its less specialized predecessor, business pages are set up to protect the privacy of fans and provide a marketing advantage to companies.
Here are just a few key benefits of using the new Facebook business page:
– Your fan numbers are no longer capped at 5000
– Facebook users that wish to become fans are automatically accepted
– A person does not have to be a fan or even a Facebook user to view your page
– Certain personal functions, such as private messaging, are disabled
– You can view a more limited selection of information about an individual fan
Unfortunately, some companies still choose to stick with their existing profile page because they are unfamiliar with the newer alternatives.
However, doing this is against Facebook policy, and it offers less advertising potential.
Developing a Facebook Business Page Strategy
When establishing your social media page it is important to develop a management strategy.
Doing this ensures that you can expand your fan base as far as possible and as fast as possible, while seeing this expansion translate directly into improvements in your earnings.
Here are some of the aspects that a successful strategy should include:
– Product promotion
Promotion is a key feature of every good Facebook marketing strategy.
By posting exclusive updates about your new products and services, you can build up interest in you company and reach out to potential new customers.
These posts will even by visible on your fan’s newsfeed which is the first thing they see once they log onto the site.
– Buildup positive relationships
A lot of the benefits of a business page rely on having a large number of fans to communicate with.
One method of increasing fan numbers is to provide them with valuable content, such as exclusive vouchers, advanced product knowledge, or attractive competitions.
– Search engine optimization
Including keywords, keyword phrases, and backlinks which are related to your field, as well as updating your content regularly, will help you to increase your Facebook page’s visibility.
– Get some feedback
Large companies spend huge amounts of money surveying their customers in an effort to understand and improve aspects of their service.
Facebook however, allows you to get customer feedback easily and inexpensively.
By viewing your fan’s comments, posting open questions, or setting up an interactive pole, you can build up better knowledge of your target audience.
What Results Can Expect From Your Facebook Business Page?
A well thought through and implemented Facebook marketing strategy can benefit your company in a number of ways:
– Increased sales
Facebook has over 900 million active users who each visit the site for an average of 52 minutes each day.
This offers huge advertising potential to anyone who is able to take advantage of it.
By providing fans with direct links between posts about a new product and the exact page where they can buy it, you can dramatically increase your sales.
– Increased online visibility
Business pages can be viewed by anyone, and they are often a prominent search engine result.
Part of the reason that they are ranked so highly is that Facebook is a well-established and trusted website.
By filling you page with search engine optimized content, you can make the most of this search engine boost and ensure that your page is one of the first results for key search terms related to your company.
– Growing fan numbers
The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
When one of your fans interacts with your page by liking it or commenting on a post, this action becomes visible on their friend’s newsfeeds, and they are given the option to become fans as well.
It is easy to see how a well-managed marketing strategy can result in quickly increasing fan numbers.
– Gain a better understanding of your customers
Although you will not be able to see personal information, by building up a large fan base you will have access to important statistics about your fans.
Details about their age range, gender, location, and language will give you an insight into your customer demographics.
How To Begin
Implementing an effective digital marketing strategy on a social media site like Facebook can boost your sales, widen your customer base, and allow you to build up a positive relationship with your fans.
However, for a relative newcomer, the process can be daunting.
Common mistakes like bombarding fans with too many updates or not focusing on SEO can result in a bad fan relationship and poor online visibility.
Fortunately, using an online marketing specialist can make the process far easier.
By hiring professionals to implement an advertising strategy on your behalf, you can reap the benefits while saving the valuable man hours it would take to get the same results without such extensive experience.
