Like most of us know, Facebook is a website where we can keep in touch with our friends and acquaintances, learn more about them, share photos, videos and links, meet people, and get other benefits inherent in a social network.
But besides these advantages, Facebook is also a great tool for companies or businesses, allowing them to promote their products, services or brand, attract new customers and retain those who already have been.
By having our company presence on Facebook can reach millions of people who often check their Facebook accounts every day, and that, unlike what happens in their mailboxes, on their Facebook accounts do tend to pay attention to companies or products that are recommended or considered by his friends.
Today, Facebook is used successfully by several companies, and we can not stay back and let this opportunity pass, and for that, then see a road map for how our company can take advantage of Facebook in seven steps:
1. Open an account at Facebook
The first step for our company to take advantage of Facebook is to open an account, or sign up for Facebook.
After opening our account, we will create your user profile or personal page, where Facebook users tend to upload your photos, post messages, meet people, etc.
You must create a user profile or personal page, and that from this is that we can create and access the page of our company.
2. Create a company page
The business pages are pages specially dedicated to companies or businesses, which are similar to personal pages, but who have other characteristics or benefits.
For example, unlike personal pages, have allowed an unlimited number of followers or “fans” (the equivalent of “friends” in the personal pages), people who wish to be our fans do not require our prior approval to be, we can send updates to all our “fans”, etc…
In short, we must enter the name of our company or business, the category to which it belongs, upload a profile picture (preferably one that shows our logo or mark), and enter basic information about our company, as its profile, mission and description.
3. Designing an attractive page
Having a corporate page on Facebook is like having a website, so if you want to capture the largest number of followers or “fans” and make the most, we must design an attractive page.
To do this, we can upload photos of our company or product, for example, photos of the facade of our company, its facilities, personnel, daily operations, activities or events held in our products, etc.
Also, we can add more information about our company, as the products or services we offer, our activities, a summary or history of the company, our hours, address, phone, etc..
Our goal should be to design an attractive site for visitors, where they have a clear idea of our company or product, are encouraged to become our fans or fans, and encourage them to recommend our site to your friends or acquaintances.
4. Making applications
One way to make our site more attractive business, as well as be fully utilized, is through the different applications that Facebook offers, which are small programs that can add to our business page and allow us to perform different activities such as communicating events, create promotions, surveys, syndicate content from a blog, etc.
Our company website already includes some applications, which we can place the tabs at the top of the page.
Once you choose an application, we need to access your page, click on the “add to my page and follow the instructions, let us see what are the main applications for a page of company:
* Events: application that allows us to communicate to our fans or “fans” the approximation of an event, and then know who have confirmed their presence and who have decided not to attend. This application is included on our business and we can locate one of the tabs at the top of our page.
* Promotions: application that allows you to interact with our fans or “fans” with the launch of promotions such as sweepstakes, contests, distribution of coupons, etc..
* Polls: application that allows us to conduct surveys among our followers or “fans” and so their views or makes a feedback.
* RSS Social: application that allows us to syndicate the content of our corporate blog (if you have one), putting a summary of our blog entries on the wall of our site or in a separate section.
* Static FBML: application that allows us to add advanced features to our site or give you a better customization, although we used to know a bit about HTML code.
We can, for example, create a page (within our business page) to be the first page that visitors are and where they can locate all relevant information (landing page), we can also create a side navigation bar, or a tab where visitors can invite your friends to visit our site.
5. Promote our website
Once we have an attractive business site, it is time to promote it, or make it known and try to capture the largest number of followers or “fans” possible.
To do this, we can begin to invite you to visit our company website to contacts or friends we have in our personal Facebook page, and then it’s become another way to promote our company website through the website or our company’s blog (in case it has any).
To do this, we can use some of the tools that Facebook offers such as “buttons”, “logos” or “panel of fans, which we place on our website in order to invite guests to enjoy our website Facebook, or to be followers or fans of it.
We can also promote our Facebook page through other online media, for example, other social networks such as Twitter, or on our e-mail signature.
Finally, we can promote our company website through advertisements provided by the same Facebook, which in return for a particular payment; appear in the profiles or personal pages of Facebook users.
6. Communicate and interact with our fans or “fans”
Once we have followers or “fans” on our business, it is time to communicate or interact with them, either to promote our products or services, sales incentives, or loyalty to our fans.
To do this, we can make use of different applications we have seen above, for example, we can announce upcoming events, create surveys, post news about our company, open discussion forums, etc…
We can also send updates, which consists of sending a message to our fans, where we can communicate, for example, launching a new product or a new sales promotion.
7. Maintain the web page
Much of the success of our business page updated depends on what you are, why we should seek to publish new content, and keep in touch and interact with our fans continuously.
A continuously updated company website, encourage visitors to be followers of it, and simultaneously, to invite other people to visit the page or they become fans of it.
In addition, a constantly updated page will create a kind of community where fans will be encouraged to interact with the company to post their publications, and share content with other people, which, in turn, will be identified with company and insure their loyalty.