Facebook business pages and why you need one

By now it's almost impossible to not have heard of Facebook. They've rolled over the 500 million user mark this year. Aside from that, digital marketing analyst comScore recently reported that Facebook accounts for almost 1/3 of online display advertising in the United States so it's pretty clear that Facebook is going to be around for awhile. The question real question is, what are you waiting for?

Here is a bare minimum set of things your company should have going on Facebook unless of course, you don't like money.

Create a professional company page

A company page is different than a personal profile page. Your company's Facebook page should include a custom welcome page that visitors land on when they first visit rather than the Facebook wall page. The welcome page should have something to pull your fans in. A common approach is have something beneficial for your fans but they have to like your page in order to unlock it. Update your page with articles that you would want to read or sales or whatever else. Treat it very much like you would a retail store. You can also always add photos, testimonals, links to your blog. Again the main thing is publish content that people will like otherwise they will just "un-fan" your page.

Get some fans

Once you have a page for your business, the next step is getting fans. There are many ways to go about this but the best ways are to tell your family, friends and colleagues to join. When people seen them joining your page, they may follow and possibly turn into new customers. If you have a brick and mortor ship, put up signs to your fan page or you can also put it on your business cards. If you have a mailing list, you can include a link to your fan page in your signature. Those are just a few ways to get fans. Get creative.
Get people involved

Be interesting

Be sure to keep your fans engaged with a regular flow of status updates, contests, and fun posts. If you don't want to run contests or incentives, you can consider sharing exclusive information like coupon codes for "Facebook Fans Only". Only provide valuable information to your fans or people will think you're a spammer and delete you very quickly. The #1 reason why people become a fan of a page is because they're already a customer and want to support your business. Use this already-established good will as a way to reward your loyal customers and let them know how much you appreciate them.

Stay involved

Having a Facebook business page is something you have to remain active with. It's not something you can set on auto-pilot but at the same time, it's not hard. I personally only release stuff I find valuable to the fans so I generally publish things on a weekly to bi-weekly basis and make sure it's high quality stuff. It's called "Social Marketing" so BE SOCIAL! If you follow these tips, you can help a lot of people and make a lot of money in the process.