By now you are probably aware of just how important Facebook is for creating an online presence and using it as a marketing tool. But more than just having a member page have you considered creating a Facebook fan page for your business?
A fan page is one of the newest and most effective ways to market your business on Facebook. Read on for some tips on how to use Facebook fan pages for success.
Advantages Of Facebook Fan Pages
Perhaps the largest advantage of creating a Facebook fan page is that the number of members is unlimited. If you have a lot of friends and associates, there are only so many you can friend before Facebook rules that you must move to a fan page. But hey, having too many friends is good news!
A fan page is also good SEO. You can easily optimise yours for your more important keywords. This will be picked up internally by Facebook as well as by all the major search engines. It won’t always happen overnight, but within a short time your page should start appearing in search results internally and externally.
It’s also a great way to build links. You can link content from your website, blog, and other social networking sites to your fan page as well as vice versa. Link juice is the number one way to organically gain search engine ranking.
How To Use Facebook Fan Pages
Once you’ve got your fan page up, you need to solicit fans. After all, the page will do you no good whatsoever unless you’ve got a group of potential customers to market to.
Use some creative thought processes to gain fans. In addition to the standard suggestion message sent to all your existing contacts asking them to become a fan of your page, try asking those who join to do some recruiting for you. For best results, offer them some kind of incentive to do so.
Facebook provides several ways to advertise your Facebook fan page. The site itself will drive referrals to your page. Facebook also offers pay per click advertising. Because your audience is very targeted, dollars spent on this type of campaign can be much more effective than a broader advertising campaign.
Be sure that as soon as you start gaining fans, you utilise the page to its full advantage. The best thing you can do is simply interact with your fans. Respond to each person who writes on your wall. Get some discussion started with your posts. Provide an interactive application to entertain group members. Consider offering some kind of special promotion, like a prize awarded to everyone when you reach a certain number of fans.
Use the statistics Facebook makes available on your fan base to create a detailed profile of your target market. Statistics show the gender, age, location, and language. You can also determine which posts are most popular and what demographic is most likely to respond to a post, or “like” it.
Many major corporations are using the power of Facebook and fan pages to drive traffic and sales. This type of targeted advertising is rapidly becoming one of the preferred forms of internet marketing across the globe. Don’t get left behind; learn how to use Facebook fan pages today and watch your business grow.
If you are interested in becoming friends on Facebook, feel free to check out my Facebook profile.
About Sean Rasmussen
Never thought of offering incentives for Facebook fans. Very interesting.
I haven’t actually used facebook fan pages for sometime (simply because there was no benefit that I experienced), however will need to relook and it. Possibly see if I can make it stand-out of the crowd somehow.
There are plenty of benefits of Facebook fan pages if you can encourage interaction Cemil. It may take time to see any monetary results, but don’t discount it’s power just because you don’t see results immediately. Just like anything online, it will take time, effort and testing to become a powerful tool for your particular market.
Regards – Sean
I love using Facebook Fan pages as a way to communicate and promote my website. Its probably a an area I can still improve on, in terms of my interaction. Thanks for the tips Sean
No matter what you are doing online, there are always areas to improve on Cade. It’s good to hear you have made a start and have your fan page up and running.
Regards – Sean
Sean, if you are a major corporation or a government entity, who or what profile page gets set up to administer it? No one person owns a corporation or public entity.
Individuals can be set up as “admin” for the fanpages on Facebook. That makes it even easier for a corporation.
Even though I have been on Facebook for a while I have never considered using the Fan pages for my own purposes. I am a fan of several things in which I am interested and contribute to them from time to time.
BUT, now I am going to go organize, not tomorrow but over the weekend, a fan page that will revolutionize the way in which Facebook works for me.
Thanks so much for the idea and the information.
Wow, the potential for facebook marketing is massive and it’s as though they’re only starting to gear up. There’s a lot of talk now about FB PPC, SEO, and other things. The future is very exciting.
Yes I know exactly what you are talking about Lina. I have read-up a lot lately on advertising on Facebook and applying SEO to fan pages and the like. Just when you think you have things rolling along, the bar lifts…
Hi Sean
I have setup a couple of fan pages and are surprised at how quickly the fan base has grown. I haven’t considered any special ways to get more fans so far.
Your suggestions are interesting. I will look at them
Fan pages seem to be great for very targeted traffic.
How often do you recommend to post something on there, besides interacting with posts on the page from fans? I am still a bit worried that I don’t have enough content up my sleeve to keep everybody happy.
The more the better Renee, as long as it is quality relevant info that you feel your fans would enjoy. Once you build a good base of fans, you will find that a lot of them will start posting relevant information that will make your job a little easier.
Sounds good to me
.
I am in the process of setting up my first fanpage, so I am a bit anxious I have to admit…
Hi Renee,
I have set up my first fan page for “Moreton Island Holiday” as yet there is not much traffic on it yet but its there.
Hi Sean,
I’m going to take the leap into creating a Facebook fan page very soon. I’m just a little concerned about getting enough interest for the page. I’m wondering if I should have more fans for my site first.
I also agree with Renee. I’m not sure I have enough content and I’m wondering how often I should post? I really like your suggestions though and I’ll be giving them a try.
It can’t hurt to give it a go Jazz, you may even get more site fans from your fanpage
I like the idea of incentives to get the numbers up. How about you guys and gals with Facebook Fan Pages offering some incentives? I’ll join
Wow, I didn’t realise you could do so much with a facebook fanpage! Thank you Sean.
Hi Sean
I really like Facebook Fanpage and I think it is a really good reason to have lot’s of fun if nothing else. The potential to use it as a marketing tool is unlimited because you have all your buddies, fans and all dedicated to visiting that one page so it is easy to get messages to them and for them to know what you are doing re courses, workshops etc. Plus you can keep a finger on what they are up to and support them too.
Like minded people doing like minded things.
I don’t have any fans as yet but I would like to work on that as I think it would be a great social marketing tool. I have bookmarked this page for future reference. Thank you.
I was hoping that if I built it they would come….but I really am the only fan at the moment which looks really sad! I need to be pro-active to start bringing in fans so they page doesnt look so desparate. Im sure that once the ball is rolling it will be a lot easier for people to join the page when there are more people there – safety in numbers!
I’m just wondering what the difference is between a Facebook fan page and a group?