Facebook Marketing Information
If you’re not receiving the kind of results marketing your product the traditional way, maybe it’s time you take your product to a whole new level with Facebook marketing.
Why go on Facebook?
Facebook currently boasts somewhere in excess of 500 million users and growing. With these kind of numbers, I would say there is a pretty good chance that some members of your “ideal target market” are already on Facebook. There are many companies already on Facebook now and reaping the rewards of their marketing efforts. If your business isn’t doing Facebook marketing, then you’re missing out on a wealth of opportunities.
Facebook lets you have access to their growing and very active users from all over the world. I would also wager to bet that a great number of these active users are working people who have money to spend. On average, each Facebook user will have at least 150 contacts or “FB friends”, so you can image how you can expand your brand by tapping this market.
Our research shows that one of the hurdles facing most companies from Facebook marketing is that they don’t know where to begin. Because Facebook is a new phenomenon, there aren’t any clear-cut ways to crack it. It was a trial-and-error thing for the earliest people who tried Facebook marketing. So if you’re feeling clueless, don’t worry. You are not alone.
I want to put your mind at ease and say “there are things you can do”. For example, it helps to observe how other companies, brands or services are approaching their Facebook marketing. Some online marketers start out by simply putting up a fan page. This helps to build and grow their “fan base”—that is, the network of people on Facebook who are interested in their brand, product or service. They engage their fans through status updates and by posting pictures and links that are related to their brand product or service. Through these techniques, many of these marketers get to know what goes on in their customers’ minds.
As in any other relationship, you don’t want to irritate your fans by bombarding them with special promos and offers as soon as they join your fan base. Many advertisers new to Facebook marketing think only of the money factor and forget that social networking is basically about creating and maintaining relationships and relationship marketing is key.
What sets Facebook marketing apart from traditional advertising is that the possibilities for growing your brand, product or service are endless.
It’s only on Facebook that marketing actually is fun. For example, some companies carry out contests, conduct polls and even prize giveaways. The goal is to get contestants who are Facebook users to post entries, answer polls and invite their friends and contacts to “like” their entry and do the same. This is how “word of mouth” works on Facebook—a user asking another user to “like” an entry, a page, or a photo. The other user in turn may ask another to do the same so on and so on and before you know it, your Fan Page has gone viral.
Another factor that makes Facebook different is that it doesn’t require a big budget. Putting up a fan page is free. Placing an ad can be done for as little as $20. Some companies who have gone the Facebook marketing route attest that their customers have increased via a simple ad placed on the social network. This is a “no brainer” -- especially for small businesses and nonprofit organizations who have limited resources to work with unlike large companies. Facebook marketing is simply about being creative—it’s not about the money.
If you’ve been doing traditional advertising and marketing for some time, it helps to keep in mind that not everything that works in a newspaper or television advertisement will work on Facebook. It is a new world and you should be prepared to look into Facebook and one of the new ways to do relationship marketing.