Using Facebook to promote your business

Facebook demographics from quantcast.com

Frequently any business’ initial foray into social networking activity is to dive into Facebook. It’s easy and inexpensive. The Internet is the great equalizer and Facebook participation puts my favorite hot dog stand on a par with my favorite international insurer. 

The first step is to understand that Facebook, and social networking in general, is not just another marketing channel. It has a different language, tools and voice. As I’ve said, you can’t really have a “President’s Sale” promotion. You need to integrate with the medium a bit more tightly than that. My advice is to get on Facebook, get some “friends” and start interacting. The purpose of this step is to do much more listening than talking.

Next, based on what you learned while communicating with others on Facebook, start thinking about how your business offering can drop in and integrate. What is your audience demographic? What messages would they find appealing? How do I engage and draw folks into a dialog? Who on my team is going to manage the dialog and how much time per day or week will they devote to the Facebook endeavor?

Facebook has a number of standard tools you can use. Your business can have a fan page (this works a lot better for the hot dog stand than the insurance company). This looks a lot like your individual Facebook page. You can have a group page, which allows you to invite members and send them messages. You can create an event page, also allowing invites and messages. The event you create is obviously more date oriented and should culminate with a call to action. I’ve seen events constructed with no other purpose than to get folks to join the group or become a fan. And the one I like best, the poll or survey page. This lets you collect information that can ultimately steer your messages.

This is not a “batch” process where you set it up and forget it. You need to be involved by monitoring, contributing and improving your messaging. Your business’ designated contributor needs to answer your fans/members/customers/prospects questions. You need to post new events. Don’t forget social networking is as much about community building as anything else.

A quick scenario or two. I saw a downtown Chicago delicatessen with a fan page. They have a group and it has just the right amount of kitschiness that folks want to join for nostalgia’s sake. They first grew their number of friends and then did a couple of interesting things. First, because they serve corned beef, they created a Facebook event to track the St. Patrick’s Day parade participation going on in Chicago. “While you’re downtown, come visit us for authentic corned beef”. And then every day of that time period they messaged their friends with today’s specials, their hours and their proximity to the various St. Patrick’s Day hoopla occurring.

Another example is Social Networking By Dell. They post an informative video periodically, usually a small case study, on their fan page. People find it interesting, they repost the link so others can enjoy it and suddenly it’s a world of viral marketing. Viewers have a thorough discussion of what they watched. But, beware if it is too much of a commercial you can watch people opt out.

Certainly Facebook has a slew of paid advertising options. Facebook captures key words of their members and can help you place your ad on home pages of those that are likely to be interested in what you offer. You can optimize your chances for meeting your market. There are plenty of demographics to work with. See Quantcast for social networking web site demographics.

Many of have flocked to Facebook recently and have filled out surveys and questionnaires. There are ads on your home page and your bio page every time you click. Which ads show up is driven by what is on your page. It’s Facebook’s way of tailoring the message to the reader. And also Facebook’s method for increasing the likelihood you’ll click through to their sponsors. This operates just like the Google ads when you use a search term. Off on the side are ads that reflect your current interest. In fact, the new fan page Facebook Lexicon will tell you how often certain words are mentioned on any Facebook page. You can let your imagination stray into what viewers unique interest match with your business offering.

So when you tell the world what five albums shaped your life, what shoe you are and twenty five things no one ever knew about you before…. you’re telling Facebook what advertisement is most likely to make you responsive. The Facebook members get a kick out of the fact that they’ve always liked movies, but Netflix is thrilled to give you a small ad and a chance to sign up.

Good research is the right start. Look at the tools available and learn how to use them. Make your social networking marketing plan match up with your overall marketing plan. Use the Facebook tools available and do your best to fit in with a new voice designed to meet this unique market. Consider polls, surveys, fan pages, groups and events in your mix. Think about your call to action. Assign one of your team members to get involved. Think about whom that person is and what they can offer to this new community.

Facebook is a good start, especially for businesses marketing to consumers. If you’re a business-to-business company, come back and read about how to use Linkedin in a future blog post here.