We are excited to say that we have 49 likes on Facebook for our COLEwebdev business page.  We would love to see more people like us, but for now…we will take what we can get.  Using Facebook for business exposure and marketing is a great idea and we recommend all businesses do it.  If you can set aside at least 2 times per week to write a small blurb to your Facebook page it will help your business.  Some of the things you can write about include: business events, business news, photos, recent projects, tips, specials, local news and so much more.

Keep in touch with your friends and customers via Facebook and let then know what’s going on in your business, they like to know what your doing and it also makes them feel better knowing your business cares enough to do as much marketing as you can..even writing to Facebook each week.

When setting up a new Facebook page, it may be hard to decide what type of page to setup.  With several options to choose from such as: company, brand, cause, local business, fan and artist, you may have a hard time deciding which type is god for you.  Generally is you are setting up a page for your personal life and friends to interact on, a fan page works best.  To sign up for a personal fan page you can do so right on the Facebook homepage.  If you want to setup a company/cause type page you would do so here.

The differences between a personal Facebook page and a business page are:

Personal Fan Page: Indexed in Google, fans can only friend you and cannot see your profile unless you are public, connect with friends and family.

Business Like Page: Indexed in Google, fans can like you and see your profile at anytime, connect with customers/clients/vendors, ability to use widgets to pull content from your page onto another website/blog.

If you would like to interact with friends and family, a personal fan page works best.  If you own a business and are looking to connect with customers/clients/vendors and such, a business page is a must have.

Either way, Facebook is a great way to connect with people you know and to market yourself and your business without even leaving your house.

Once you have successfully setup and filled in your Facebook Business page with content you will want to use it to generate solid leads and to connect with clients regularly.  In order to make full use of your Facebook business page you will want to post to it on a regular basis, and this can be done daily, weekly or monthly.  Whichever amount of time you choose, try to stick with, this will help you with time management and also your fans will know when to expect something from you.

Facebook is a great place to promote your business using specials, news, quotes, testimonials, photos and general business information.  Let your fans know when you have something going on that is of interest to them.  If you are looking to sell your fans something, let them know what your products are and how they can benefit by using them. If you are selling a service, let your fans know what your service is and how it will benefit them.

Be sure to look around on Facebook and find businesses, profiles and groups that you can “like”.  This way you can connect with the Facebook community.  You will also want to actively look for fans who will “like” your business, this way more people will listen to what you have to say.  Try giving away a product to entice people to “like” your page on Facebook.

Overall, update your Facebook page as much as possible and try to post only content that will be useful for your fans, if your fans get bored or your content is not helpful or interesting, they will not stay fans for long.