Facebook is one of my favorite platforms for marketing, however, only really works, when used properly. Here are some important things you should know about Facebook Marketing.
1. Only use “Facebook Fan Pages” for your business.
Make sure to always use Facebook Fan pages for your business. DO NOT USE Facebook private accounts for this purpose:
Since profiles (timelines) are meant for individual people, they aren’t suited to meet your business needs…Further, maintaining a profile (timeline) for anything other than an individual person is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If you don’t convert your profile (timeline) to a Page, you risk permanently losing access to the profile (timeline) and all of your content. (Click here read more from the Facebook Help Center)
Not only do you risk loosing your entire account (and more importantly, all your hard work), but also miss out on some important features that are not enabled for private accounts. Firstly, private Facebook accounts have a friend limit of up to 5,000 people. Once you reach that limit you would then need to open an entirely new account and start all over again, while still maintaining the other original account (in other words LOTS OF WORK). Facebook Fan pages allow unlimited amount of fans.
Facebook Fan pages allow other third party applications to be installed and used. Private accounts or Facebook Groups do not allow these applications. Applications are a must for any small business. With Facebook Fan page applications you can increase your email database, do Sweepstakes, show really cool videos of your business and other neat things. Panama inDesign is a North Social Super Hero– check out their applications and you can contact us about customizing these for you.
2. Change your Username account for your Facebook fan page.
Creating a short readable URL for a page makes it more appealing to both people and search engines. Pages can set a custom page URL (also referred to as “Vanity URLs”) at www.facebook.com/username – as long as the page has at least 25 Likes.
The custom URL can only be set once and cannot be edited. Facebook maintains a blacklist of restricted usernames and advises:
Create a username that is as close as possible to your public figure name or business name. (Read more about usernames)
Make sure and choose a username that is closest to your business’ name and don’t worry about stuffing it with keywords that have nothing to do with your business.
3. Use search engine rich keywords on your Facebook title
This is where you should use keywords related to your business, nevertheless make sure it’s short. The Facebook title is actually a title tag, which is what search engine crawlers use to identify and index websites. With the right keywords, your Facebook Fan page can even out rank your competitor and help you dominate the search results. Remember, the more content you put out there that is optimized for the right keywords, the more likely your business will appear on the top of search engines, pushing your competitors further below.
4. Include a link to your website on your Info Tab
The info tab of your Facebook Fan page appears below your profile picture. If you add your website here, Facebook automatically turns this into a link. This means, that your user can reach your website without having to click through you Facebook Fan page.
5. Make sure to run Sweepstakes & Promotions correctly on Facebook
Facebook has promotion guidelines which, if not followed, could result in the closure of your Facebook Fan Page. Some important rules include:
- Promotions on Facebook must be administered by Facebook applications. You cannot administer these directly on your wall. You can share your promotion on your wall.
- Do not use Facebook features to or functionalities as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant.
- You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.
- You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.
- You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.
Read more about Facebook promotion guidelines by clicking here.
