Facebook for Business
While many people are comfortable with using Facebook for personal reasons, its uses doesn't stop at keeping in contact with family and friends. Through the creation of a company Facebook profile page, you can market your business, product, or organization. The creation of the profile itself is done in a few easy steps and can be easily tied to your own personal Facebook account for ease of management.
Creation of your Page
Select whether you wish to have your Page listed as a local business, an organization or a public figure. Once you have made your selection, you can now correlate it with your personal Facebook account. With the Page now created, you can begin the design that your potential clients and friends will see when they land on your Page.
Personalizing your Facebook Brand
Facebook is a visual tool, with many people adding or deleting friend requests based solely on the profile picture alone. Keep this in mind as you begin the search for the profile picture which will best capture your company or you as a brand. You can elect to use a personal picture or a company logo of your own design. You have the immediate option to keep your Page hidden until you are ready for it to go "live," so you can take your time until you find the right image to suit what you wish to convey to your target audience.
Facebook Profile
It is recommended if you use a personal photo for your business Facebook page that you use one that is a professional headshot and/or company logo (for branding). If you wish to not provide a logo there, you may also place it on other areas of the business Facebook page; however, keep in mind the profile picture is designed to market your company. Your goal is to brand clients so they recognize and associate whatever it is you do with your logo.
Adding "Likes"
After the creation of your profile, you can go "live" with your Page. At this point you will want to begin the process of adding "Likes." Search for groups who are involved in a similar business and add current and former coworkers. Don't wait for someone to come to you, become involved. At this time you can bring in your other social networking skills and combine them into your Facebook Page. If you have an existing LinkedIn and/or Twitter accounts, these can also lead to new contacts within your Facebook's network. Keep in mind you must always engage with your audience.
Live Stream Plug-In
Of the many plugins available for your Facebook business page, we will look first into Live Stream.
Live Stream allows the user who visits your site to post their comments in real time. This is helpful for when you are running an event such as a live speech, webcast, webinar or live streaming video for concerts. The application is easily available for download from the "Facebook Developers" portion of Facebook. While most users may not go through the expense of setting up a live event for their branding, it is possible to set up Live Stream to show static content.
The Live Stream application will require an application ID to function correctly. It is created in the Facebook Developer's area. When you have arrived at the "Developer's page," you will see a button in the top right corner that states Set Up New Application.
Now you will begin to set up your application by naming it. Once you finish naming the application, click the create button. You can find your new application listed on the developer's page if you're not redirected immediately to the proper page. At this point you will need an Application ID number, located on the left side, third row down (Facebook Integration tab). With the application ID you can set up the Live Stream code for your real time comments with whatever content you have decided to display for your potential clients.
The Activity Feed Plugin
The activity feed plugin is another valuable tool for those who have their own personal websites tied into their Facebook business page. It allows for the most recent activity taking place on your site to be displayed on Facebook. Perhaps more beneficial, however, is that because the content is hosted by Facebook, the plug in will display whether or not the user has logged into your site.
In using the Activity Feed plugin you must specify a domain to show activity for. You cannot use multiple domains with this plug-in at this time. The plugin is available either through a simple iframe you can connect to your Page, or if you are familiar with Javascript SDK you can use XFBML tag to activate it.
Like Box and Comment Box
The Like and Comment boxes are the most common features of Facebook; however, many users will be surprised to find that they are available for use and as a plugin on their own blog and website. These social plugins can connect your blog and website directly to your Facebook Page.
The Like box will allow visitors to your blog and website to like your Facebook Page and find yet another way to connect with you, while the Comment box will allow them to leave "wall postings" or "messages" regarding your company, product, or brand.
The Recommendation Plugin
The Recommendation Plugin is a great interactive plugin for sites with lots of content. Just as Facebook will recommend items you may want to like or follow, this plugin will suggest content on your website to your visitors based on their interests. This is great because you get straight to the point and grab your audience's interests right away.
If the user does happen to be logged into their Facebook account at the time of viewing your site and having this plugin running, then it will actively base content off of their Facebook data. If they are not logged in, then the plugin bases the content off of social interaction with URLs from your site.
It's also important to remember one important aspect of this plugin. You must specify a domain and it must be EXACT. - This is important because if you insert a domain of facebook.com, it will not load recommendations from www.facebook.com (as an example). If you do not make note of this, you will not have the full experience that this plugin can offer.
The Registration Plugin
The Registration Plugin allows users to register on your site with their Facebook login. When they are logged into their Facebook account a user's information will be preloaded into as many of the fields as possible, making registration as simple as a single click at times.
If you want to collect more information however, Facebook also allows the flexibility to create custom fields for this form (if needed). You are also able to use the same form if someone is not a Facebook user without them needing to sign up. The real benefit of this plugin is the ability to have users register with as little effort as possible.
These are just a few tips and easy steps to help you create your Facebook Page. Remember, Facebook Page is a business-related page and is not really intended for personal conversations. However, you cannot create one unless you first have a Facebook personal account. If you don't have the time to create it, this is one of those types of "to do" items you can outsource to your Virtual Assistant.
After Rita earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing, she was hired and trained by Sears to be a Sales Manager. She soon discovered retail sales was not for her. So, Rita decided to become an entrepreneur offering virtual assistant services.
Since 2002, she has provided word processing services and other virtual assistant services to entrepreneurs and small business owners. During the past eight years, Rita has used various Internet marketing strategies to market her online business and discovered that she has a passion for Internet marketing. As a result, she decided to focus on offering Internet marketing services and recently, decided to change her business name to RJ's Internet Marketing Services in order to reflect the niche service offerings.
Rita enjoys being an entrepreneur, as well as working with other entrepreneurs, especially, business and life coaches. She admires how they transform people's businesses and/or lives by helping them to become successful.
More information can be found about Rita Cartwright at http://rjsinternetmarketing.com.
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