Needs of Your Business Facebook Page

If you use social media marketing for your business, you probably use Facebook for reaching customers. But is your page stalled at only a few fans? Did you set it up and then rarely update it?

Facebook recently made some changes to their business pages, which have made Facebook into an even more effective tool for reaching potential clients and customers. Facebook business pages give your company a home on the most visited website on the Internet. That means that you have a huge number of potential fans, but also that it’s easy to get lost. So if you want to start tapping the true potential of your Facebook page, here are five things that your business page needs:

1. Smart promotion

Don’t just send your Facebook page to everyone in your personal friends list. Put a link to your Facebook page in your business email signature so every email you send is accompanied by a reminder to “Like” your business. If you have a email marketing list, send out reminders about your page and encourage clients to join the Facebook page. Send these out repeatedly. Make sure that there is a blurb on all your printed materials touting your Facebook page. If your business has a physical office, put a small sign on the front desk or the window reminding visitors to become Facebook fans.

2. Personal involvement If you host events, take plenty of photos and encourage fans to tag themselves in those photos, or tag them yourself. Don’t use the page strictly for serious marketing–encourage fans to send questions and comments, and occasionally just throw out a fun question for your fans. (i.e., “We’re ready for summer here at Vital Design–what’s your plan to beat the heat?”) Letting fans know that there are real people behind the Facebook page will help fans feel connected to you and your business. And yes, this will take some time, but remembering to log in every day and spend even a short amount of time updating the page and communicating with your fans makes a big difference.

3. Widgets Facebook now lets you put “Like” buttons and other Facebook widgets on your business Web page, so that everyone who will be reminded to like your Facebook page every time they visit. If you have a Facebook page, you must promote it on your homepage–these widgets are a great, graphically appealing way to do that. You can get the plugin in the Facebook Developer’s page here, and there are more advanced tips about adding and tracking social media buttons at Yoast.

4. Link up with personal pages Put a link to your business’ Facebook page in the “Something about myself” box under your Facebook profile photo. You can also link to your business Facebook page in a status update using the @ function. Putting an @ before your business name will tag your business page in the post, which will put a link right in your status. Encourage the staff of your business to do this too, if they’d like. Also consider using a program like HootSuite or Tweetdeck that will allow you to share news and links to all your social media accounts at once.

5. Mobile connectivity Fans can link up to your Facebook page from their phones if their  phones are verified as a mobile device on their account. You’ll need 25  “likes” and a verified username. Then  people can just send a text to 32665 with the words fan (your  username). This could work great if you are hosting a mobile  event because attendees could like your page from the audience. Texting to Like a page is also useful in  TV and radio spots.