I don’t have to tell you that Facebook can be a tremendous source of web traffic. There’s a good chance that most of the people you know are on it, and the ones who aren’t may be eventually. The social network is consuming more and more of people’s time, and thanks to mobile devices, it is always accessible. If you don’t have a Facebook Page, you may be missing out on not only traffic to your site, but a chance to engage with customers and ultimately help your brand’s reputation.
One of our blog partners, Jay Baer, of Convince&Convert wrote a great piece about why you need Facebook for your company. He highlights "11 things you need to know." These things include how Facebook has 350 Million global users and counting (although Facebook has sinced announced reaching the 400 million user milestone), and how the average Facebook user spends 55 minutes per day on Facebook. Nearly 80,000 sites use Facebook Connect.
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He also notes that the Facebook Fan Box is becoming more pervasive, the average Facebook user has 130 friends and fans 2 pages per month. His statements are backed up by various reports and studies.
Perhaps you have a Facebook Page, but it’s not performing how you’d like. You feel it’s a waste of time. "If your Facebook fan page is a bit of a ghost town, you’re not alone. A fantastic study by Sysomos of 600,000 Facebook fan pages shows that only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans – and only .76% have 100,000 or more," says Baer. "That’s why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on activating the fans you have, not just collecting fans like baseball cards."
"The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the wall, and total number of fans. However – and this is important – there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans," he says. "Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content."
Promote Your Facebook Page. Here are some places you can do that:
1. Prominent link on your site
2. Facebook Fan Box
3. Author Bio section on articles/Blog
4. Email newsletters
5. Other social media profiles
6. Google Profile (which is getting more attention now as a result of Google Buzz)
7. Business Card
8. Signage
9. Email Signatures
10. Advertisements
Another one of our blog Partners, Dave Taylor, offers some tips from Patrick O’Keefe, author of the book Managing Online Forums, on making a Facebook page more interesting. Among these are:
– Participate and make it routine
– Ask questions
– Host events on your page
– Highlight contributions from others
– Go beyond just text
– Integrate your other online presences
– Take it easy with apps, boxes, etc.
– Run offline events, if you can
One thing you want to do is pay attention to your Facebook analytics. Pay attention to stats. Pay attention to changes Facebook makes in this area. For example, recently it was discovered that some admins were starting to see impression counts for each post, as well as the number of likes and comments for each impression. Like Baer says, test content types to see what works best.
Does your Facebook Page drive traffic to your site? Does it engage customers? How do you promote it? Discuss your strategy.