Facebook.
The land of the inside joke and the silly status update. Where baby photos and music videos dominate.
Or do they?
Millions of companies might disagree. Every day, they “conduct business” on Facebook. They successfully attract fans, keep them engaged and ultimately turn them into paying customers. But how? What are the secrets to making your business “work” on Facebook?
Here are my 10 favorite “must-do’s” when creating and maintaining your business presence on Facebook:
- Secure your own Facebook URL, so you can direct folks to Facebook.com/YourCompanyName. This is called a “vanity URL“
- Now plaster your vanity URL everywhere. On your business cards, print ads, Twitter profiles, email signatures, brochures, etc.
- At least once a day, post a business update of some kind to your wall. Don’t get overly personal, but add a ‘behind the scenes’ glimpse now and then to allow customers to get to know the personality of your company.
- Any time you are about to hit the road – skim through your contact list and see if any of your fan/followers are in the city you are about to visit. Then reach out to meet them for a cup of coffee!
- Expand your business page network via the great little Facebook Find Friends tool.
- Once you have established your page as a fun place to visit, make sure you reward your fan/followers with “Facebook Only” discounts and package deals.
- Have your Twitter talk to your Facebook page and have your Facebook page talk to your blog. For instance, you could post a long blog post about something. Then mention it on your Facebook update, with a small excerpt. Then tweet about your new FB update!
Just go do this Stuff!