Small Business on Facebook

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 · 0 Comments

Small Business on Facebook

Everywhere you go today you here "Find Us on Facebook" from your local Cafe, to products such as 'Coca-Cola" and M&M's to major banks such as the Commonwealth. For business marketers Facebook is a way to engage with their audiences directly and obtain feedback. So as a small business owner, I urge you to tap into the marketing potential of social media - especially Facebook. 

A few months ago bsale.com.au decided to start a Facebook page. With reccomendations from collegues and friends that it is "the new markting tool". After launching our facebook page and making various changes and errors along the way, we now have roughly 1,073 likers and are using it in our marketing plan.

Alot of small business owners that i speak with either (a) have a facebook page and think its amazing (b) have a page, but think its a waste of time or (c) dont really know anything about facebook pages and marketing. 

Facebook has a number of things going for it including:

1) Targetted audiences: unlike Google and other SEM tools, in Facebook you can specifically target your audience (dont worry, im sure Google is on its way to having this capability), but at the moment Facebook has it hands down. You can target - age, gender, location, interests, education level, sexuality, relationship status, birthdays and so on. It gives you the ability to specifically target your audience. 

2) Likers = Keepers. Unlike Google searches and paid advertising. Once you have a "liker" on your facebook page there is every likelyhood they will stay and watch your updates. But be careful not to offend them, or they may hide your feeds and not read anymore. 

3) Cost. A Facebook page is free, advertising is where the cost is involved. Facebook campaings used to be a lot cheaper, but as Facebook see's its potential, pricing appears to be increasing. Depending on the type of ad and its distribution you could be paying anywhere from 30c per click to $3.00. You also have the option of paying by 1,000 impressions which is helpful if targetting a smaller audience or have a very appealing advertisement. 

4) Engagement. There are a number of different ways to keep your audiences engaged. Looking at many small businesses success on facebook. Interaction is the key. Having giveaways, asking questions, posting photos. Anything to make the audience feel they are interacting with you are your business. You need to make it "cool"

As a small business owner, if you havent tried Facebook yet or still cant see its benefits, i urge you to just keep trying. As a marketing manager I can see its benefits, but also the amount of work and money it takes to succesfully establish a page with a targetted audience as challenging. I think it also depends on your industry and the product you sell. 

Have you tried a Facebook page? Or engaged in its ads marketing? How did it go?