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The social networking site
Facebook is used by more than 150,000,000 million
people to share personal information with friends online. With those kinds of numbers, you knew it would be belong until businesses saw the potential. If you're looking to tap the marketing potential of Facebook, you can create free Facebook Business pages—leveraging Facebook business options can provide a new channel for you to interact with your
customers At the same time these pages, called Public Profiles,
can also help you acquire new customers as
your Facebook fans spread the word about your business to their friends.
In this Facebook how-to guide we will walk through the steps to create your
own Facebook Public Profile (also called a Fan page).
Getting Started: Get your Business on Facebook
To get started, you need to visit the
Facebook Advertising page.
Here you will find tabs to access the following business options:
- Advertising: Businesses use this tab to create advertisements that will run on
Facebook pages
- Pages: Businesses use Pages to create a presence on Facebook that will
let others join your page as a fan
- Connect: Facebook connect lets users seamlessly connect their Facebook
account and information to your site.
- Facebook Share: Design a button for your site to make joining your
Facebook Public profile easy for your customers
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Key Terms To
Understanding MP3 Players:
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on Webopedia:
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How to Publish a Facebook Business Page
The best way to start is with creating a Page for your business. Those who have
created a personal Facebook profile will find the process pretty simple, but the
step-by-step form pages will also make creating a Business Page painless for
those new to Facebook.
You will need to have basic business information ready before creating the
page —decide on a page name and find any images you want to upload. Remember that
your company logo is best for the profile picture. When you create the page you
will need to include a description of your Web site, product, brand or company.
With this information handy, simply choose one of three categories for your
business: Local Business (and the industry), Brand or Product, or choose if this
will be a Page for a public band, artist or other public figure. Once you select
a category you are required to enter the business name. When you submit this
information you will then see a Business Page that shares some resemblance to
personal profile pages on Facebook.
On a side note, Facebook completed implementing changes to the Facebook business pages that will make the
page look exactly user profiles.
In step 2, you'll want to upload your business logo, provide information
about your business, contact information, hour of operation (if you have a
retail or local office), and a general description that describes your business.
As you add more details about your business you can view the changes live on the
page you are creating. This is all you need to publish a basic Business Page on
Facebook.
Customize Applications and Business Details
On your Facebook Business Page you will see applications that you can include on
the page you have just created. When viewing your Business Page, there is an
Edit Page link on the top right. Here you can customize all options from a
single admin screen.
In the previous step we took care of the profile picture, basic and detailed
information boxes. Now, you will need to customize the applications that you
want to use. Each Application has a small edit option by the title, letting you
remove any of the available applications or customize the application to your
liking.
Here are the basic Facebook Applications for Business pages:
- Discussion Boards: Enable your fans to get their ideas out into the
open. Discussion boards let you know exactly what your fans and customers
think and want.
- Events: Organize gatherings or let people know about your upcoming
business events.
- Information: Manage settings for the Information application.
- Notes: Share your business news or engage your fans through written
entries.
- Photos: Upload photos to your page and allow your fans to share photos
on your page also.
- Reviews: Fans and customers can leave honest opinions about your
business.
- Video: A high-quality video platform for pages on Facebook.
- Wall: The Wall is an open forum for your fans or friends to leave
comments, thoughts, and ideas about you on your Page or Profile.
The last option you will need to use is the Settings area. This is where you
edit country restrictions, place age restrictions and change the published
status of your business page. When you are happy with the way your Business page
looks, you click the Publish this page link.
Visit Webopedia's own Facebook page.
You
can join us on Facebook by
clicking here.
Tracking and Gathering Business Page Fans
Within 48 hours of publishing your page, you'll be able to access
'Insights', which is Facebook collected data about how your business page is
being used. Here you can track pageviews, number of fans, removed fans, wall
posts, discussion topics, reviews, photo views, and more.
After you have successfully created a Business Page you can link to it from your
own Web site, e-mail campaigns, or encourage your own personal Facebook friends
to become a fan of your page. Remember, when a personal friend becomes a new
fan, that message is displayed as a notification to all of your friend's
friends. Similar to word-of-mouth marketing, this is a great way to bring
Facebook users to your new Business page.
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DID YOU KNOW...
The Web research firm Hitwise reports that, overall,
Facebook was the fifth-ranked Web site in terms of total market
share of visits in January 2009. When compared to 2008, there
has been a pronounced shift in the age of the Facebook audience.
According to Hitwise, visitors aged 18 to 24 represented a 42
percent share of visits for the four weeks ending Jan. 26, 2008,
but have now dropped to 24 percent for the four weeks ending
Jan. 24, 2009. Now visitors aged 25 to 34 make up the largest
share of visits with 27 percent, with 18 to 24 and 35 to 44
closely following with respective shares of 24 percent and 23
percent. (Source:
EcommerceGuide.com) |
By Vangie Beal
This article originally appeared
on EcommerceGuide.com. You can
read the full article, which includes details on Facebook Advertising,
here.
Last updated: March 12, 2009
How
To Create a Facebook Group
Facebook Groups are pages that you create within the Facebook social
networking site that are based around a real-life interest or group or
to declare an affiliation or association with people and things. With a
Facebook Group, you are creating a community of people and friends to
promote, share and discuss relevant topics. The types of groups people
can join on Facebook are seemingly endless. Here's how you can create
your own group on Facebook.
Social Networking Sites
Social
networking services, also called social networking sites (SNS), are
designed to build upon interactions to create communities of people
online, and provide the required software to do this. Web-based social
networking spaces offer a way for individuals or groups to create a
profile of themselves, then share that profile with other members of the
social networking space.
Social Media: Tips for Small Business Marketing
Not
all businesses need a Facebook page or a blog to promote and advertise
on the popular social media sites. In fact, you might do better simply
by making your own online presence social media-friendly and let your
users carry your product through to these places instead.
Thirty Social Media Sites
There
are a large number of social sites that a business can consider to
further Web marketing efforts and connect with their clients and
consumers. However, just because the site exists, doesn't mean your
business should be using it. The following list is not a complete list,
but based on the site description it may help you narrow down which
social sites would be best-suited to your business. |
