Facebook

Conversations about your business are being had on Facebook with or without you…shouldn’t you become a part of that conversation?

Facebook today has a collection of more than 500 million customer profiles.  If one considered Facebook as a country, it would probably be in the top five for highest population.  Facebook is truly a social and cultural phenomenon, not a fad. Within the last two years, Facebook has become the foundation of all things social online.  Here are some Facebook statistics to think about:

• More than 500 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
• There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
• Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
• Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
• More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.
• Since social plug-in launched in April 2010, an average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day.
• There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users.

Facebook has two main options, Facebook Profile Pages and Facebook Fan Pages.  Profile pages are our personal accounts that we use with our friends, family & co-workers.  Fan Pages were created so that businesses have a venue to deliver new and relevant information to their customer base.  With profile (personal) pages, customers need to ask for permission (add as friend) before they are allowed to have access to that personal profile page and their data.

Facebook fan pages (business pages) on the other hand are much easier to gain access to by clicking on the "Like" button.  What is the point of having a Business Fan Page? How does having one make my business money?  Simply put credibility in your local marketplace and your current customer base.

Is it cheaper to get a new customer or to keep an existing one? When posting on Facebook you are keeping your audience up to date with new products and services, upcoming events, client success stories, etc.  This gives your audience “top of mind awareness”.  Your business/organization is showing up on their wall, once or twice a week, with interesting information that relates to them.  This information can then be shared with other friends and family, therefore, creating referrals for your business/organization.

One of the biggest misconceptions amongst business owners with Facebook is that by having one they have essentially cornered the "social" piece of the market and they have nothing more to do online, if only that were true. Facebook is a component of your overall Web Presence Strategy, not the foundation. Google recently released changes to its proprietary Page Rank Algorithm, which now includes a component called social authority. What social authority does is look at the number of Facebook Fan Page "Likes" and Twitter "Followers" to help Google determine your level of relevancy your marketplace. Essentially, Facebook can help you get higher organic rankings on Google by having a powerful social footprint online.

Need help setting up and/or managing a Facebook Fan Page, call us today @ (719) 205.3033. We can help. Google+