Facebook tips for small business marketing

Most business are online these days. And a lot of businesses are now using social media strategies to reach a wider audience than their website alone can achieve.

Facebook is one of the big two (Twitter being the other one) where small, medium and large businesses are now realising the massive potential that social media has for their overall online marketing campaigns.

Before we look at some Facebook tips for business I thought I'd share some facts about this social media giant with you:

• Over 800 million users

• Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook is estimated to be worth in excess of $30 billion

• Over 1 million new users weekly

• 120+ million log on daily

• Fastest growing demographic 35+

• 5 billion minutes spent on Facebook daily

Wow! Sobering statistics aren't they! Now you can see why as a small business using Facebook and Twitter for online marketing is quite important.

Here are some of my favourite Facebook tips for business:

• Post 3-5 updates a day

• Post a variety of content such as videos, links to websites, articles, photos, quotes etc

• Don't directly market your product or service, build relationships through trust marketing

• Pick high traffic times and days (Thursdays and Fridays!)

• Automate your posts using software such as Hootsuite

• Make sure your social media strategies are synergised (same objective)

• Create an enticing landing page (welcome page)

• Interact with people with post on your site

• "like' business pages and ask them to 'like' your business page back

• Create a group in your relevant area and invite people to join. This is the oldest but very simplest way to start to build a community around a brand

• Offer something free to those who 'like' your page

• Activate the function whereby your Facebook posts become your tweets (easy!)

• Post unique content

• Consider using an ad on Facebook -pay per click

• Hold a contest

The evolution of online marketing has come a long way from monthly email newsletters. We can now do immediate, real time interacting showcasing our expertise and building rapport at the same time.

It's a good idea to have a look at other business pages to see how they are marketing themselves and learn from the good and not so good. Remember not to overwhelm readers or bombard them with information about your products and services. This would be like seeing the same ad on TV in every ad break of a show. Most people will tune out or switch channels.

Facebook is an extremely powerful way to market a business. I get the feeling that it's potential hasn't been fully reached.

As a small business it is almost essential to have a presence on Facebook. Using the tips above can give you a competitive edge and take your online presence to the next level.

There are literally hundreds of powerful online marketing tools available to small business. Are you using them?