If you read the media, watch the news, and follow certain news outlets (blogs, etc.) you might think that any business that does not have a Facebook Fan Page is doomed. You might get the impression that Facebook fan pages make a lot of money and that every business should really jump on the bandwagon immediately. But is this hype about Facebook fan pages justified? Will your business need a fan page to succeed online? [Read more...]
Do You Really Need A Facebook Fan Page?
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: facebook fan page, facebook marketing, facebook marketing strategy, online marketing, online reputation management, reputation management, social media
Is Facebook Important For SEO?
I often hear the question from people about Facebook and SEO and if there is a connection or not. Officially Facebook data is used by Bing, but not by Google. Bing (Microsoft) is actually a minority shareholder of Facebook and the 2 companies came to an agreement of Facebook data being used within Bing search results. It is not officially confirmed though that a Facebook page will help with your Bing rankings, but even without official confirmation I would leave this untouched accordingly.
Google on the other side has no official relationship with Facebook, but some observers in the search engine optimization field believe that there is a strong relationship between Google search rankings and Facebook. This might not be based on actual data integration, but if your content becomes popular on Facebook and lots of people visit your website from Facebook this might count as a signal for Google search rankings.
My approach is to setup a Facebook account no matter what. Don’t use it for SEO purposes, but to interact with your customers and fans. if additional benefits come out of this effort, even better. Social media is not going away and it has grown stronger and stronger over the years. Many business owners do not see the need for being active on platforms like Facebook or Twitter, but just think about new generations of customers down the road. The kids from today will grow up with smart phones and the Internet being a major part of their life’s. They do not know differently and if you are advertising on the Yellow pages, but your customers are on Facebook then you are off the chart.
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: facebook, facebook marketing, facebook seo, facebook small business, fan page on facebook, social media, twitter
Facebook Fan Pages
Facebook is all over the place and more and more potential customers are on Facebook. So, it is important for your business to be on Facebook, too. However, many business owner are still hesitating to do so. The learning curve in the very beginning is steep and then there is also the limited amount of time that we all have. But here are some of the benefits that you can reap when using Facebook for your business.
Branding – Facebook is a great way to build up a brand – be it nation-wide or local. Name recognition becomes more and more important and so this is a great way to get the name out and established.
Customer Engagement – Social media is one of the top ways to engage with your customers. And Facebook is the largest social network on the planet at the time of this writing. Here you can communicate with your customers and also find out more about them. Knowing what your customers want and expect from you can move your business up quite a bit.
An often over-looked benefit is viral marketing. Word of mouth is and has been the most reliable way to drive business. Facebook can play a huge role in having news go viral. People like to share great content and Facebook makes it easy to do so. Post some exceptional content and you never know – the power of Facebook can drive thousands of visitors to your website.
Many business that use Facebook actively have developed certain marketing strategies to get the Facebook crowd involved. Facebook exclusive content is the magic tool they use. As an example a Facebook exclusive sales deal could be a good step to start out with. For one, the existing Facebook fans of yours will have access to this coupon, but non-Facebook fans and customers would like to get the same deal. They are “motivated” to join you on Facebook and as a result your Facebook fan base is steadily increasing.
The key to a successful Facebook strategy is having your own Facebook Fan page. A fan page can be a custom designed page or some content that is being pulled from your website. You can also mix the 2 for a very unique Facebook experience. And even better, besides your own development cost there are no additional fees involved. Facebook provides this service free of charge.
I will write a little more about Facebook pages and Facebook marketing in upcoming blog postings.
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: facebook, facebook fan page, facebook fan pages, facebook marketing, fan page, social media, social media marketing