Your Assistant Lisa

 

Why You Should Consider Facebook

We could possibly describe Facebook as an Internet within an Internet. After all, there are more than 300 million Facebook members these days, which is equivalent to the population of the United States. As a domain by itself, this is not just impressive but is every reason why Your Business Should Consider Facebook.

Facebook is of course the ultimate social networking site. It was designed to allow friends to update each other about their social lives, to spread the gossip in a personable way and has by any stretch of the imagination exploded from there. Even though it was designed for college students it has found favor among virtually every demographic and the biggest growth area appears to be among those who really can’t remember much about their college social activities anymore!

With a membership of this size, there is a marketplace for virtually any organization. It’s simply a question of creating a presence that is applicable, interesting and engaging and making sure that you reach the correct demographic and market segment. Facebook’s designers keep moving the goalposts for marketers in many respects, but their latest tip of their marketing cap is the “page.” This is distinct to a profile and is meant to create an environment for an organization or company of some kind.

Setting up the page for an organization is not as intuitive as you might think. As seems to be usual for Facebook, it takes a bit of digging and a certain amount of trial and error, but the good news is that Facebook has an API that has been released to developers. Therefore, there are now a number of different applications, giving even more functionality and sparkle to your potential page.

The big distinction between your profile – or personal – page and the company page is that you will have people who “like” your business page and who, as such, agree to receive more information and updates as and when you post them. These are not “friends” as you might find on your individual, profile page.  We should always remember, as in anything to do with social media marketing, that we have to treat the development and on-going maintenance of a page like this in professional terms.

I am sure you have noticed all the big changes going on at Facebook and have seen the panic spreading on business pages with posts such as this: New Facebook Procedures – all page owners are asked to tell fans: If you are not an active fan of mine (liking or commenting on photos) as of October 31, 2011 you will no longer see updates from me in your news feed! They will also be removing the “Discussions” & “Reviews” tabs. PLEASE LIKE THIS STATUS if you want to keep seeing my news, promos and sales!

I know the minute I saw that I freaked!  Of course, it was usual Facebook whiplash, people spreading information without knowing all that was going on with the new guidelines.  So let’s break it down so we understand what is going on with our business page on Facebook.  The first part is Fact.  Facebook will be removing the review and discussion tabs on 10/31.  This tab was valuable for business owners that were dependent on reviews regarding their products or trying to build a following of new customers.

The second part is part fact and part myth.  Facebook uses and Edgerang system that uses an algorithm to place a value on the post s you make on your business page.   To read more about this system I recommend reading this article:  Edgerank System it explains how the algorithm works and what you need to do to make the system work to your best advantage.  Basically your posts are not seen by everyone only by the ones that Facebook select.  So the people that see your posts are the fans that are interacting with you and want to hear from you.  This is great!  Finally, fans that are reading what we posts and wanting to see what we share, so yes change is scary but change is good!

Just remember the creation of a Facebook business page is an important consideration for any organization. A virtual assistant can help to create this presence and be actively involved in the regular, ideally daily, process of updating it too. When handled correctly, this can be one of a company’s most beneficial marketing tools. It can develop and grow alongside the business and be a dynamic “front page” alternative.  What are you waiting for?  Go out and create your Facebook Business Page.

Make it a great day!