Should My Business Use Facebook? As of today, 60% of businesses use social media to promote their business in one way or another. On the forefront of all social media is Facebook. Facebook recently said that they have over 1 billion users in the world. One billion… that is a lot! Ask yourself how many of those people could be your potential customers.
Businesses don’t necessarily have to buy ads in order to see the benefits of marketing on Facebook. The main way that Facebook can increase your company’s exposure is by increasing your visibility to the search engines. Creating a fan page can at least increase your exposure and engage your customers without spending any money. Once you have the basics of Facebook down, your company can invest in some Facebook ads.
What Do I do?
A recent study found that over 70% of companies that use Facebook don’t have an idea of what to do with it! It’s important to use Facebook while keeping your strategy in mind. Updating Facebook with interesting post, links, comments, and pictures, will help your business acquire more likes and shares for your company’s product or service. As your Facebook page gains popularity and exposure… so will your company!
So which kind a Facebook page does your business need to open? There seems to be some confusion about this, and there are some important factors that you should keep in mind whenever opening a new page. Most of all, having a goal in mind will help determine which kind of page you may want to start. Let’s briefly look over the different kinds of Facebook pages so that you can decide which page will best benefit your company.
Picking Your Type of Page
After logging into Facebook, you will be prompted to create a new page for your business. (You must already have a personal FB page to even get this far) You will be presented with the choices on which type of profile you want for your company. You can choose local business or place, company, organization, institution, artist, band, public figure, entertainment, cause, or community. So many choices!
The first choice that you must make is: Which one of these categories applies to you and your business? Let me make it easy for you, if you are a local business which has an actual location, (as in a brick and mortar shop) then you should choose local business or place.
Local Business or Place
An advantage of choosing this kind of page is that your physical address will be linked to your Facebook page and people will be encouraged to visit your actual business location. When choosing this category you’ll be given a long list of business categories from which to select. If you do not see your business type listed here, you may want to choose another type of account.
Company or Organization or Institution
The next type of account that we will look at is the company, organization, or institution page. This is the kind of page you would choose if your business isn’t the kind of company that needs foot traffic… or perhaps you have more than one office or shop. With a variety of locations and different operating hours, or franchises, then choosing a company or organization is usually better. Again, when selecting this kind of page, you will be given a list of categories to select your most relevant. If you can’t find the right category to match exactly what your business is doing, then just select the general category or what matches “how you think your customer sees you”.
Brands or Products
One of the more popular types of pages is the brand or product page. A business would choose this type of page if you have products that are sold on more than one site, or sold in more than one store. This is the kind of page that companies like Nike or Coca-Cola run. Again, you will be given an opportunity to select the best category for this page.
Artist, Band, and Public Figure
One of the most used Facebook page types is the artist, band, or public figure page. This type of page focuses on promoting a person and not a product. This would be perfect for a politician, actor, athlete, chef, life coach, or entertainer. This also happens to be the kind of page that many musicians use.
Entertainment
The next is called the Entertainment page type. This category is for you if your business deals with entertainment… such as reviewing movies, books, or magazines. You will be presented with choosing a category which will include a library, magazine, movie, radio station, TV channel, or other type. I don’t recommend this type of page for businesses… as this type tends to not perform as well as the other types.
Cause or Community
The last type a Facebook page is the cause or community page type. If you are a nonprofit or charitable organization this may NOT be for you. You may be better off selecting an actual local business or place, institution, or brand instead. Communities are one of the most used types of Facebook pages on the Internet. They have tons of versatility and you can create a community based around just about anything. A good example of a community page is a small group of people who have a common interest. These people just want to build a small online community to discuss their interests. These types of pages can even be set to “invite only” or “secret group”, in order to keep strangers out. Of course, there are many more uses for Community and Cause pages… and we will go into these more in another post.
What’s The Verdict?
Whichever type of Facebook page your business chooses, the thing you will want to do is try to increase likes. Engaging people and creating likes is the heartbeat of the Facebook society. Likes and comments drive up usability and attention, and can be important factors for how well your Facebook page does in the Internet search rankings. As an SEO guy, I like to use Facebook as much as possible, to leverage my clients’ fans and to point their attention towards my clients’ websites. Once you get used to working within the confines of Facebook, you’ll realize that there is actually no limit to what you can do… all without spending a dime.
Finally, once you decide you would actually like to spend some money to advertise on Facebook, you can get more out of Facebook’s ability to target potential fans or customers. This type of “highly targeted advertising” can be cheaper than traditional advertising and is highly effective at bringing in specifically targeted customers to your brand.
Whatever type of business you have, nothing should be stopping you from starting a Facebook page today. It can be one of the best decisions that you can make for your company. As always, if SEO Tupelo can help you get started on your journey, just give us a call.
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