How to Use Facebook Pages for Business
Social Networking Provides Low-Cost Web 2.0 Exposure
Nov 30, 2008
Capitalizing on its millions of existing users and the “News Feed” feature that announces to users what their friends on the site are doing, in 2007 Facebook released its Pages application. The idea permits businesses, for little or no investment, to gain online exposure and access to the interactive features of this Web 2.0 site. Any registered user can create a page for a company, celebrity, or idea, and incorporate a number of the site’s interactive applications into the page itself. Other users may become fans of the site, an action that is itself announced to their friends via the New Feed, and which permits them to receive updates from the page’s administrators.
Search Engine Indexing
Facebook pages are indexed by major search engines and benefit from Facebook’s considerably high ranking. This writer created a page for a holistic veterinarian which ranks nearly as high as the practice’s own web page in search results. Pages may be viewed by surfers that do not have accounts with Facebook, unlike the personal Facebook profiles which many businesses had already established Another advantage for businesses to create a page rather than adapt a personal profile is that profiles are limited to 500 friends, while pages do not have such restrictions on fan numbers.
Web 2.0 Interactive Features
The ability for web surfers to provide content and otherwise interact with web pages, referred to as Web 2.0, is the hallmark of the modern internet. Facebook allows businesses to include this level of usability to their customers without any significant investment of time. Some examples:
- This writer’s own Facebook page automatically provides links to Suite101 articles. Viewers may share them with friends or comment upon them.
- The aforementioned HolVet page includes speaking engagements as events to which fans may RSVP.
- Pages may include other Facebook pages as favorites for cross-promotion.
- Other applications allow pages to share videos, links of interest, and shopping opportunities with fans.
Advertising on Facebook
Creators of Facebook pages are given ample opportunity to gain new fans through the use of Facebook’s context-relevant advertising system. Facebook ads are placed discretely throughout the site and in the user’s News Feed. Leveraging the considerable amount of information Facebook collects about its users’ habits, it serves up ads that are highly targeted. In addition to the data collected by Facebook itself, page administrators may elect to focus ads on particular demographics, such as location, age, and gender.
Advertising is not required for use with Facebook Pages, and may be used for external sites as well. However, the administrator of a Facebook page that has garnered a sufficient number of fans will have access to demographic information that is useful in creating such online campaigns.
More information on internet marketing in general can be found in the articles on keyword selection, writing killer web copy, and blogging for money.
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