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May
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You should know by now that millions of people use facebook as a social media tool. Besides just enjoying yourself online at this site, interaction with others can be very useful for your local business marketing.
Here are 5 ways that you can use facebook to your advantage if you have a business. By the way, I am in progress on each of these steps as I create this post.
1.After you have a personal facebook account, be sure to put links to your business inside your profile. Here is what mine looks like right now:
Remember to type in the whole URL to create a real link, and by that I mean add in the http:// part at the front. Also, you can add the URL to specific pages within your site, it does not just have to be your home page that you link to.
2.Create either a fan site or a business page within facebook.
Facebook has lots of help areas within the site to get you started on how to create these pages. The idea is that you can keep your personal facebook account separate from your business facebook pages. Why would you? Personal facebook friends may not be interested in the content that you would have on your business pages, and you do not want to confuse the two groups with that content. My nephew’s graduation photo is not appropriate to my local business contacts, for example. So, what should you put on your business facebook fan page? Let me suggest this – search within facebook using terms that relate to your business, and see if you can find some existing fan pages. Join a few, and watch how they interact with you. What I take note of also is how often there are updates to the pages. Please make regular updates to the pages to keep your business fresh in the minds of your customer base.
3.Update your business website with links to your facebook fan site or business page.
This may be obvious to you, however, it is very important that this is done. First of all, it will increase the SEO factor ( also known as link juice ) to join your sites together. And, you can gain new fans to either website simply because you do have the links visible. Also, if you have not done so by now, please do add a link to your twitter account, linkedin, friendfeed and whatever other sites you own.
4.Update your business cards with links to all your social media accounts – twitter, facebook, linkedin, blogs, friendfeed, etc.
Are you using the other side of your business card yet? This is an excellent area to update with all of your social links, if you do not have room on the front of your business card. You can grab icons for the various social media sites all over, but here are some various samples and styles you can provide your printer.
Time for an updated business card? Great! Run a google search on “printer” and check out the printers local to your town. While you are searching, take a minute to observe how the local google search works. Check out the local map, and how many names are listed. Looking to increase your own local business marketing footprint within google? Please visit Marketing Local Online to get more detailed info on just this process.
5.Network with other businesses for cross promotions by running a search within facebook to find possibilities.
Go into facebook and again perform some searches for other businesses, but this time, think about what types of businesses could work well with yours as a network relationship or to create a business relationship with. Be very creative here. Here is one example - I know the owners of a greeting card site, and I referred them to network with a wedding photographer who was looking for resources for his clients. And, that is another essential tip – when you put your fan page up, please add a discussion area and ask for other businesses to contact you with their resources and ideas. Please do not underestimate the power of this idea.
Please share your thoughts in the comments area.<–>
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