by Michael B. Perini, ABC
perini &  associates

So, you have a new Facebook company or business site.  Congrats!  Consumers purchase brands and products they like or follow on Facebook, a popular social networking site, 51% of the time these days.  Facebook users login every day at 41%.  Both of these percentages are increasing monthly.  In other words, if you don’t have a company presence on Facebook you are likely loosing opportunities to connect with current customers and potential new customers.

As exciting as having a company, business or orgazinational site is, now what?   By using Facebook, you can communicate with your customers, know what they want, and use them to help promote your business. This is done when people add themselves as a fan, write on your Wall, upload photos, and interact with other fans.

Here are useful tips that we use for our popular site.  We encourage you to try these out:

• Keep your fans engaged by giving them useful and relevant info. Share quality content with them to incite comments and send updates at least once a week. Content should be a mix of your own content and what is called in the industry, “OPC” – other people’s content.  It’s a good thing to share other industry blogs, links, resources, etc. That way you’ll be seen as a business that cares enough to share a good depth and breadth of your topic and not just your own opinion.  Always provide the source for the information.

• Link your facebook page to your newsletter and to your website – Remember, it’s about getting your customers and members to connect and interact with you through social media  The more users interact with your page, the more publicity you get that helps increase awareness about your products and services.

• Add your unique logo or a picture that represents your business as your profile picture.  Seems easy enough, but lots of facebook sites don’t take the time to upload a photo that is representative of their product or service.

• Tell your customers about your fan page and ask them to show their support by joining Facebook and becoming fans.  Want to be a fan of our site?  Click here!

• Regardless of business, share a video of one of your staff offering tips or something like that, it’s a great opportunity when that functionality is built into the page.  We upload our “pclips” to our Facebook page on a regular basis. Check them out here.

• Keep in mind it’s better to have a smaller, highly targeted, qualified and engaged audience than a large audience who doesn’t pay much attention to you. Encourage customers to “Like” you on Facebook; give them a coupon if they do. You can do this in your store or from your website or blog.

We would like to hear from you.  What useful tips have you tried that have worked.