First Newspapers, Radio then Television and now Social Media. This is the way Marketers are reaching their potential customers around the world and the coming ‘Era’ is of Online Advertising i.e. through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.
More and more businesses are jumping into social media as the ROI of Inbound Marketing continues to show that online tools like Twitter and Facebook are an effective – and inexpensive – way to reach potential buyers.
What Is Facebook?
Facebook is a social media platform for connecting people with those around them – friends, family, co-workers, 
or simply others with similar interests. Facebook started in 2004 as a closed community for college students (requiring users to sign up with a valid university email address) but has since expanded beyond that to high schools, corporations, regional networks, or any user across the world. Facebook allows users to connect and share information in a variety of ways. Facebook has over 250 million active users and that number continues to grow steadily. It is the third most trafficked website in the world (behind Google and Yahoo) and the most trafficked social media site in the world.
Business Goals for Using Facebook:
- Get found by people who are searching for your products or services
- Connect and engage with current and potential customers
- Create a community around your business
- Promote other content you create, including webinars, blog articles, or other resources
Tips for Reaching your Customers:
1. 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.
- Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for better control over your profile privacy.
- Post a professional photo or business logo to reinforce your brand.
- Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.
2. Connect and share with others
- Obtain a Facebook URL so that people can find you easily.
- Add your 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 on Product development strategy” etc.
- Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers to establish credibility.
- Combine Facebook with other social media tools like Twitter. For example, when someone asks question on Twitter, you can respond in detail in a blog post and link to it from Facebook.
- 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.
- Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
- Use Facebook Connect to add social networking features to your web site.
- Suggest Friends to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.
- Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.
3. Use Network, Group and Fan Pages
- Start a group or fan page for 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 company site, newsletter subscription information and newsletter archives.
- Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.
- Update your group or fan page on a regular basis 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.
