Be a Social Butterfly for your Brand on Facebook

Posted by Sarah Miller Designs

With more than 400 million active users on Facebook, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have your brand on the social network.  It’s not a fad.  Facebook will be around for a long time and you should be a part of it.  Sure, you’ve had your personal profile for years, but why not create a Fan Page for your brand?  Small businesses, musicians, large corporate companies, you need to have your name on Facebook.

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Brand should be on Facebook

1. Exposure
With more than 400 million users on Facebook, and more than 20 million people becoming fans of Pages each day, you are sure to find someone who is interested in what you have to offer.  When you are ready to launch your Fan Page, you can “Suggest to Friends”.  Let’s say if you already have 900 friends on your personal profile, then you can suggest your new Fan Page to all 900 people.   Not all 900 people will accept the page suggestion, but if even 9 do, this will spread your brand.  When one person accepts your page suggestion, that will then show up on their friends New Feeds. “Jon Smith has just become a fan of Jane Doe Productions.”  This is where the exposure really gets going because now people you’ve never met are viewing your brand, and they might be interested in what you provide.

2. Free Marketing
Without making it too blatant, companies are able to let their fans know about new deals, new products, new music, new anything.  Subtle marketing on Facebook is great.  Let’s say you are a restaurant trying to get people in to eat that day.  Without saying “EAT HERE,” companies are able to post a status around lunchtime just mentioning the soups of the day or the drink specials.

3. Customizable
Brand your Fan Page exactly how you want to be perceived.  Set up a splash/landing page so when people come to your page for the first time they will get an idea of who you are.  This splash page should include your logo and also important links you want your fans to go to.  You can also customize your page by adding tabs such as an event calendar, discussion page, and more.

4. Easy to Update Content
Do you have new pictures of your products or videos of important things you’ve been doing? More than 3 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month, so that pretty much shows that it is not difficult.  All you have to do is go to your Fan Page, click the Photo Tab, and click the Create a Photo Album button in the right corner.  This is where you can make specific albums that relate to your brand.  Do you sell clothing or any type of merchandise?  Put those images in your photo albums under different categories like t-shirts, jackets, mugs, etc.   If you have an online store on your website you can put the link to specific items into the captions of each picture.  You want to make sure to somehow always link back to your website.

5. Stay Top of Mind
More than 35 million users update their status each day.  People are doing this because they want everyone to know what they are doing and not to forget about them.  Yeah, we laugh at people who update their status and say, “I am sitting on the porch.” But it shows up in your news feed and they are remembered.  Think of a status update as 200 people walking by your storefront at one time.  In real life that is not going to happen, but by reminding people you exist and giving them updates of what your brand is up to, you will stay top of mind.  One day maybe twenty of those people who saw your status will actually walk into your store.

6. Connect with Fans
Facebook has a personal feel to it.  Make your status updates conversational.  Unfortunately right now, Fan Pages cannot post comments on their fan’s walls in the same way a normal person can, but there is a trick.  By creating a status update that mentions one or more of your fans, it will post to their wall.  You can do this by tagging someone in your status by typing the @ symbol and the person’s name or someone’s fan page name.  This will make your fans feel a connection with you.  Another way to connect is by commenting back to people who write on your Fan Page wall, photos, or videos.  Make those connections with potential customers, clients, and fans.

7. Collect Information
With the Insights feature on your Fan Page you are able to track all of the interactions people are having with your page.  You can see, by day, the page views of your photos, videos, and audio, the demographics of your fans, and so much more.  With this information, you will be able to tell when you are posting what people are interested in, and who likes it the most.

8. Search Engine Optimization
Search engines love Facebook.  In a short amount of time your Facebook Fan Page will be ranking well in Google and other search engines.

9. Build traffic on your website
Put links to your website in your Fan Page and people will click.  Fans want to know more about you and sometimes Facebook doesn’t do it all.  Make sure your website and your Fan Page have a similar look and feel.  You want to be consistent with your image, not to confuse people.

10. Your competition is using Facebook
More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.  So you should to.  Quit rebelling.  Don’t let the other guy in your niche have the upper hand.

Source: Facebook