If you’re tired of reading your friend Amy’s thousandth status update about her son’s potty training progress, you’re not alone. But Facebook is about so much more than TMI status updates, how many “friends” you have and photos of college kids making bad choices. Eighty percent of ComScore’s U.S. Top 100 Websites have established a strong company presence for their brands on Facebook. Here are a few reasons why you should too.
Let’s start off with the obvious: it’s a marketing tool to more than half a billion people. According to Facebook, 50 percent of its active users log on to the site every day. Digitalbuzz Blog found that more than 1.5 million local businesses have their own Facebook pages, and more than 20 million people become fans of pages each day. In fact, the average user becomes a fan of at least four pages and writes about 25 comments each month. Furthermore, those who use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active as non-mobile users. And we all know how many smart phones are out there nowadays. Facebook has clearly proven itself to be the prime location to get people discussing and checking out businesses around the world. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get more people talking about you. The public is interested in you and likes to be heard, but it’s your job to show them you’re listening.
Which brings us to reason No. 2: Facebook allows people to get engaged in your company. Every time you post an update, comment on someone else’s post or “like” a comment, you’re showing your audience that they’re important to you and reminding them you’re there. Encourage your fans to tag themselves in your photos, create contests for them to participate in (such as fun trivia), or reward them for “checking in” to your company. The more fans you can get, the higher Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you receive for your name. And yes, for those keeping count, that’s reason No. 3.
If you have a Facebook page, it automatically gets indexed on Google, increasing your SEO. By including all of your information under the “Info” tab on your Facebook page (city, state, address and zip code, etc.), you’ll optimize local searches on the Internet. In the same regard, all of the information inserted in the Company Overview, Description and Mission fields will optimize your company name in product searches. You can add as many keywords dealing with your business as possible to heighten your SEO. This is done by captioning your photos and videos, adding descriptions to your event postings and allowing a discussion forum. If you pack everything you can with those key phrases, all of that information will be made available on search engines. The more your fans are involved in your page, the higher your SEO becomes. It’s basically like telling Google you’re pretty important.
But it doesn’t stop there. (Are you ready? You’re going to really like this one.) When used correctly and frequently, Facebook has been proven to increase businesses’ ROI. Take Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG organization for example. According to Social Media Examiner, LIVESTRONG appointed a full-time social media employee in 2009 and raised a record-breaking $10.8 million for their charity — even with the troubled economy. In fact, more than 60 percent of LIVESTRONG’s website traffic is due to its social networking sites.
So be proactive and use this marketing technique to your advantage. We’d love to help. Whether it’s incorporating your branding into your Facebook, YouTube or Twitter page design, maintaining your status updates, or developing a social media campaign, we love this stuff. Give us a call at 407.839.8599 or contact us at info@bigeyecreative.com to learn more.
And while you’re at it … why not Like us on Facebook?
