Facebook pages for small businesses

by Sarah Santacroce

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you have probably heard that everybody is talking about Social Media. Especially Facebook. So what is all the buzz about ? And how is it relevant to you, small business owner ?

Being myself the owner of a small business, let me give some insight about these famous Facebook pages and how I think they can benefit your business.

Why a Facebook Business Page ?

A ) It’s free
And not many things are, so why not take advantage of it ?

B) Huge audience
Facebook is expanding day by day. Here are some statistics from their website:

*Due to hit 600 million subscribers end of 2010

*More than 250 million active users, half of them log on at least once each day

*More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of university

*The fastest growing demographic are individuals 35 years old and older

*More than 8 million users become fans of pages daily

*70 percent of Facebook users are outside the United States

C) Optimized Search Results
Google and other search engines find and list your page. Even better is when you have more than 25 fans, you are allowed to customize the web address of your page. Instead of Facebook.com/and a long string of numbers and letters you can have www.facebook.com/yourcompanyname

D) Increased traffic to your website
On your Facebook page you will promote your website, post your blog posts and showcase your testimonials. This will automatically increase the traffic to your website and…

E) increase your sales
If you utilize your page the right way, you will increase your sales. This will not happen over night, since you will first have to establish a partnership and gain the trust of your fans. But in the long run, if they happen to need the services/products you offer, they will know you as the expert and come to you in the first place.

How can I measure my return on investment ?

True thing, Facebook does take quite some time to maintain. If you want your fans to interact and socialize on your page, you need to deliver daily updates, quotes, videos, articles, interesting facts etc. But will this time you invest be worth it in the end ? Below are two tools which help you to find answers to that question.

1. Facebook stats

Facebook will send you a weekly update with your Facebook statistics. In it you can see how many active users you have, how many weekly visits and how many additional “likes” you got that week. This basically shows you how popular your page is and let’s you adapt the style of your updates.

2. Google analytics

In your Google Analytics account you will find valid information on how many people come from Facebook to visit your website. In order to measure if they actually buy your product, you will have to set up a goal with your analytics account.

When preparing for this post, I asked the people in my network what they would like to know with regards to this subject. Here are a couple of questions I got:

Questions:

1. If I have a Facebook page, do I still need a website ?
2. I already have a Facebook personal profile, can I use that for my business ?
3. Is there a way that my clients can order directly through the Facebook page ?
4. I don’t know what to post on my page, can you give me some ideas ?
   

Answers:

1. In my opinion it’s still better to have a website. The site is where your clients find all the information about your business, your services and products. Facebook is just a door opener for your page, a way to bring clients to your website. However, if you feel confident that your main target public hangs out only on Facebook, you could probably get away with just the Facebook page. See also my response to Question 3 concerning a store front directly on your FB page.
   
   
2. I advise against using your personal profile for business purposes. The personal profile is to connect with your friends, share photos and experiences. But I would keep that separate from your business page. That doesn’t mean that you cannot share some personal info on the business page, but you will be more selective on what you share.
   
   
3. Someone asked me if there is a way to have a “store front” directly on your page, where clients can order and pay for your products and services, without ever leaving Facebook. Yes, there is. I have never actually used it myself, but I recommend you check out the Payvment application. Read this review for more information.
   
   
4. There are many things you can post on your wall. Here are some examples:
   
   - pictures of your products
   - pictures of your store front
   - quotes
   - interesting facts
   - links to your blog posts
   - polls
   - videos that you find interesting and relevant
   - questions and answers
   - discounts
   - etc. etc.
   
   Don’t forget that there are also many applications you can use to enhance the engagement on your page. Read this post on Social @ Blogging Tracker on how to increase engagement through applications.

If you have other questions, please leave me a comment below and I’ll be happy to answer. You can also e-mail me at sarah@simplicityadmins.com

I hope I supplied some valuable info on the benefits of a Facebook page.
I am not saying that every small business has to have a Facebook page. It does help in terms of the Search Engine Optimization, but it all depends on your target clientele. If your target public are other businesses, you might want to invest more time on Linkedin.

I’d be honored if you joined the discussion on my own page at http://www.facebook.com/Simplicityadmins. I’m looking forward to connecting with you !

Content Repurposing

by Sarah Santacroce

Content is king! That’s nothing new. In order to gain online visibility you have to create content. Every Online Marketer will recommend you create a blog and submit regular blog posts.

But that’s just the start. Since you have already invested the time in writing these blog posts, why not use that content and distribute it on other online channels ? This tactic has numerous benefits, here are just a few:

• brings traffic to your website
• creates back links (SEO)
• shows your expertise
• increases your audience outreach

To give you an example, let me tell you what I do after I have submitted a new blog post which I think is worth distributing on other channels

1. Submit it on Ezinearticles
   Ezinearticles is by far the best article bank out there. It is a great option to increase your SEO, since it let’s you create an author “resource box”, basically a short bio, with clickable links to your website. You will have to tweak your post a bit, since Ezinearticles does only allow a certain number of the same keywords and no links above the fold.
   
   
2. Submit it to Scribd and Slideshare
   After you have created a nice, clean pdf document (don’t forget to add your company details in the footer) you can upload it to different content sharing sites such as Scribd and Slideshare. I like those two because they are easy to use, and Slideshare can be linked to Linkedin so you can display your documents on your profile.

   If you create a series of articles, you can even create a small e-book and offer it for free on your website in order to build your list. Zinepal is one of the tools that simplifies that process for you.

3. Create a Autoresponder for your e-mail marketing list
   Sometimes, but not for each and every blog post, I let my subscribers know that I’ve just posted a new article or even send it to them in a pdf document.
   
   And here is what I don’t do, but know I should be doing :-)
   
   
4. Translate your content into another language
   If you work in a multilingual country like me, it also makes sense to translate your content into the other national language. Of course this costs either time or money, depending on whether you do it yourself or outsource it. That’s the reason why I usually just leave my content in English. But if you have the budget, a translation definitely makes sense since you increase your audience tremendously.
   
   
5. Create videos and submit them to Youtube or Tubemogul.
   If you are not camera shy, videos are definitely the way to go. Youtube is highly ranked in Google and video content really increases your chances of showing up on the first two pages.
   

Now it’s your turn. What other channels do you use to submit your content ? Please share your ideas in the comments below.