Facebook for Business

Hello, and welcome to our Sixth Social Media Blog. This month we look at the largest social media platform of them all – Facebook.  Why Facebook for Business?  How about, over 1.6 Billion active subscribers and the second most popular web site in the world. 

Most people consider Facebook as a social web site useful if you wish to market your business to consumers.  However, Facebook presents the usual opportunities for all businesses -
   - Get found by people searching for your products or services
   - Connect with existing and potential clients
   - Create communities around your products or services
   - Distribute your content
   - Generate leads for your business

With Facebook, people create and engage via their profiles.  Businesses use Pages (and Groups).   Facebook encourage this by offering functionality for business that is only available via pages.

Difference between Pages and Profiles.
   - Pages can have multiple administrators.
   - Pages are by default public, helping ranking in searches.
   - Pages are categorised by business type, helping with more focussed search ranking.
   - Personal Profiles have friends by reciprocal acceptance, anyone can be a fan of any page.

Facebook also have Groups, that can be used to create interest and promote your business.  

A Facebook Page is like a diary or blog.  You updated it. Use it to promote your business, website, or other entity.  Recent change - ‘Likers’ can also post. 
 

A Facebook Group is like a message board.  You moderate it, it has a purpose or focus, and contributions / conversations are posted to it by you and other members.

Creating a Facebook Page for your business is very easy and FREE, so - no excuses.  Check out http://www.pagemodo.com. 

Pages have a number of benefits –
   - Page updates appear in fans' news feed. 
   - Pages appear in the "suggestion" column. 
   - Pages are visible to non-Facebook users, and can be crawled by search engines.

AND Facebook Pages have their own URL - http://www.facebook.com/247BusinessNetworking