How Facebook Marketing Can Help Grow Your Business

Last month, a study by UK-based Hitwise was aimed at finding out how much additional web traffic was generated by a single Facebook fan.  In order to do this, Hitwise analyzed data from the top 100 retailers and their result was that each fan of a Facebook page resulted in an extra 20 visits to the retailer’s website.  The investigators also found that brands using Facebook the most saw searches for their brand increase on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  The top British retailer, Topshop, saw their brand searches increase by 54% after a fan’s visit to their Facebook page.  You can view the article about Hitwise’s study here.

The above data is astounding and changes the way we as business owners need to be approaching Facebook.  It is understandable that owners can become discouraged very quickly when using Facebook as a marketing tool.  Not only is the specific ROI very difficult to determine, but it also can seem like having just a few hundred Facebook fans isn’t worth the effort being put into maintaining the page.  These are both legitimate frustrations, but given the magnitude of Hitwise’s data, it is much easier to believe that every fan we have is a very big deal.  Even if your page only has 100 fans, that still may account for up to 2,000 independent views of your website.  Now, not only do we need to worry about getting new fans, but also in keeping the ones we have worked so hard to get.

Here are some tips for using Facebook to help grow your business:

1. Don’t Wait for People to Come to You! Add Friends: Once you begin to add friends routinely, you might be surprised at how fast word spreads about your brand on Facebook.
2. Be Engaging: Get your name out there by posting interesting and informative things on your Wall.  Content that is interesting and fun is more likely to get shared by your fans (and thus will increase your impressions).
3. Engagement is Not a One Way Street: It’s a good idea to comment on other members’ (fans and other businesses alike) posts, but make sure not to spam anyone or you’ll risk getting a negative reputation, or getting booted from Facebook.
4. Create an Event: Facebook’s Events function is a great way to spread the word or send invitations to an event you’re hosting.
5. Be Unique: The best thing to do is come up with something no one else is doing.  That could be an application, game, or just a fun and unique main page.
6. Post Photos and Tag Fans: Photos are a great way to get views of your posts and page.  If you take a picture at an event, make sure to tag your fans in the picture, or ask them to tag themselves in it.
7. Reward Your Fans: Be sure to come up with some way of rewarding the people who have taken the time to be a fan of your business, such as a discount or free prize.
8. Use Contests and Polls: Be creative and think of a contest or poll to get fans to interact directly with you.
9. Be an Active Member of the Community: Don’t just post things on your own wall.  Get out there and find other related companies’ pages and participate with them.  You will likely get a lot more exposure this way.
10. Use Facebook Analytics: The Insights section of your business page provides a huge amount of very useful information.  For instance, you can get data about how many people view your page (daily, weekly, and monthly), how many direct interactions your posts and page are receiving, the makeup of your fans (gender, age, location, and language), and the kinds of activity your page is receiving (posts, likes, comments, and un-likes).  For more in-depth information about using Facebook Analytics, check out this article.
11. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help: There are millions of resources out there about how to use Facebook effectively.  Everyone has their own opinions and in the end, only you will be able to determine which strategies work best, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get ideas from others.  Here’s a list of “100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base.”

Stay tuned for the next part in “The Social Media Network Battle” series coming up soon on the Orange Collar Media blog.

For more information about social media optimization, web design and development, or search engine optimization, please contact us directly by email at info@orangecollarmedia.com or toll free at (866) 262-1517.

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