How to Use Facebook to Promote your Business and Blog
Jul-2007
It would be difficult not to notice the staggering growth of Facebook over the last few months. Facebook now has 31 million members across the globe and its growth has been so large that some people are talking of it as the new Microsoft.
Where there are members there is the potential to acquire customers, promote your business and drive traffic to your site or eBay listings. After playing around with Facebook over the last few days, I have come up with a list of ways in which it can be used to your business.
Connect with your business contacts
Chances are that your colleagues and business contacts are on Facebook already. Invite them to become your friends and join your company network (if you have one – see below). Facebook is a much more friendly and interactive environment than social networks like Linkedin and can be used to form closer bonds with your contacts.
Create a profile for your company
To create a foothold on Facebook, create a profile for your company and a company network. This will allow you to do the following things:
- Invite your business colleagues, and customers to become your friends, creating a facebook network around your business.
- Make postings which will appear in your facebook friends newsfeeds. These can be about special offers and company news such as job postings.
- List your items in the facebook marketplace (see below)
Promote your Blog
If you have a company blog such as ecommerce partners blog or personal blog, this can be imported into your facebook notes. Your posting will then appear in your newsfeed and that of your friends.
Facebooks notes settings can be accessed from the applications menu in the LHS of your profile page.
List your items in the marketplace
Facebook has a marketplace where items can be listed for sale. This is free and could be used promote items for sale on your website or eBay. Products such as Ztail, make listing items on facebook marketplace easy.
Write an Facebook application
Finally, if you think that there is a real opportunity for your business on Facebook, you should look into developing an application. Applications can help you develop friends and drive traffic to your website. Last.fm were one of the first companies to boost their business through a facebook application.
The sign the Facebook is a force to be reckoned with is that there are facebook only businesses developing. An example of a business which uses facebook is Social flowers, which enables facebook members to send each other flowers.
Re: Promote your blog section. I have placed my blog feed on facebook, but as you have to log in to view my profile and facebook is all about connecting with people you already know. How will this promote your business? I have seen a few company groups set up but they usually include existing customers. Or is this just a nice feature to add with no real marketing value?
i think that you are right in saying that this will not exactly set the world alight, however, if you use facebook as a method of keeping in touch with your business contacts, it will help keep them up to date with your blog.
Also, you can set a facebook profile up for your company, make is viewable to all on facebook and put the blog feed on that too
I think it makes sense to create a group for your company to make it possible for people to at least find the product/service you offer when they search for it on facebook. If they are interested they will add you and be able to see your blog feed… too bad that it is not possible to do a search without having an account, cause that would possibly reach a wider range of people.
Thanks for this Eddie, clear concise and easy to follow. I’ve juts imported my Blog in less than a minute :o)
Keep up the good work and remeber to have fun ;o)
Anth.
How can I import a blog into facebook?
Does anybody have a step by step method?
Thanks!
1. Go to your Facebook profile.
2. On your mini feed click import.
3. Click on the Blog/Rss button and add your blog RSS feed
Done!
I have created a Facebook company profile – https://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Motley-Health-Fitness-Strength-and-Weight-Loss/47797795040 – and invited friends to join, but how do you promote it outside of Facebook? Is that possible?
The easiest way to promote your facebook profile is through yoru site and other blogs.
However I think that purpose of a facebook profile is to promot the business to the facebook community
I used facebook to create a fan page for my blog. The fan page is only a few weeks old and it has already resulted in several new readers.
I am new to facebook, and found this post very useful.
My business should benefit from exposure on Facebook. But apart from that the community seems helpful and fun
I think FB is a great tool. But once you get on FB, you have to learn how to promote yourself on there too, which can sometimes be as challenging as promoting your business, but start with the friends you already have on the site, asking them to become “Fans” of your business.
i have had a facebook business page for over 6 months and i have not found it very effective for driving traffic to the website. looking for good ways to promote if anybody has any ideas?
I don’t think Facebook is a silver bullet to generate instant massive traffic except if your business is focused on IT gadgetry or viral marketing tactics mostly targeting active youngsters.
But it is an additional communication channel for your business and clients, and as such it will bring you some additional exposure and life. However, the trick as always is to want to advertise on too many channels, and to leave one of them unattended, which can be counter-productive. Facebook requires somes manual activity, except if you business can use a Facebook app, or after you built up a strong “Fans” or “Members” base for your Facebook group or page.
I have definetely seen an increase in traffic through facebook postings, along with pinging my blog by using Blog Buzzer
Adding your blog to your Facebook step-by-step instructions:
Edit Profile –> Wall –> Settings –> Stories posted by you –> Automatically import activity –> Blog RSS –> Put in your blog RSS feed
Happy blogging!
Great stuff. I am surprised to know that we can promote our business with facebook. Thanks for the tips Gino.
Hi everyone. I am new to face book. Found great ideas to promote business with facebook. Thanks.
Hi,
I am new in facebook. And I hope facebook can help me get more traffic to my blog.
Thanks to your posting. It is very helpful to me.
Great content. I wish that facebook allowed companies to create their own profiles (like personal profiles again). You could do alot more stuff! Thanks for the post
Can I set up a business profile for my employer? My CEO gave me an article which stated I had to set up a PAGE through my personal account! I would prefer to have a business profile and not have to have any work related things on my personal Facebook!
I still don’t quite ‘get it’ – when you are asked to sign up for facebook – is this where we type in our business/website/blog name instead of our actual names?
Or do we personally register for facebook and then set up a group related to our business?
One of the best ways to build a fb presence is to put your fb link on your website and blog so that ppl will join you on fb. This allows you to build a more solid relationship with them, build trust and keep you in their awareness so they’ll think of you if they want the product you offer.
I’m very new to facebook and even blogs. I have a website and have posted on it a kind-of blog. By that I mean it is an off-and-on journal of events, but it does not allow interaction. Is that a problem? I’m not sure I want to lose control of the content by permitting anyone to post to the blog. Having it on my website is safe. Someone please straighten me out
Hey Don, by the looks of things your “blog” is not really a blog. It appears to be a static page – blog.htm
To gain the benefits of having a blog, you need to use something like WordPress (although Google’s Blogger will suffice for small blogs). People should be able to leave comments. However, comments can be moderated by you. Personally I take the approach of reviewing everything myself before posting – nothing gets past me that way, my reputation stays secure. Askimet (anti spam) is good, but not 100%.
Blogs should have comments, RSS feed to feed to blog directories etc. Calling a page a blog does not make it so.
ok done tht created a fan page yipee!!
however people have to log on before they get to it
unllike:
https://www.facebook.com/STATravel
how do i do it like sta travel have ie not requring login?
thanks
Thanks for the nice information. I was new to facebook and I was just looking for the features of it, I was not known to the think like marketplace in facebook. Let me give it a try.
Good post, thanks for writing. cheers Ted