5 Effective Ways Businesses Can Use Facebook

Image via CrunchBase

If you listened to my podcast posted last week, you’ll know that I have mixed feelings about FaceBook.  It is an awesome marketing tool, yet can be a bit cumbersome to navigate and manipulate.  That being said, it does provide many opportunities for businesses to effectively build brand loyalty and drive sales (yes… you can drive sales!).  As a side note, since FaceBook has changed their format from “fanning” pages to “liking” pages, I now refer to “fans” as “followers.”

1. Provide followers “first look”.

Got a new program you’re launching or a fantastic product that will be on the market soon?  Let your followers know before you send out the press releases and notify the rest of the world.  Getting a first hand look into what’s going on in your company gives people a reason to follow, it gets them excited to buy, provides you with marketing info based on their response and, if people start buzzing about it, once the press releases get sent out the media will want to hurry and jump on the band wagon so they are not left with “old news.”

2. Feel the pulse of your followers.

If you aren’t looking at your FaceBook “insight” you should! On your Fan Page, in the left column, you’ll see a section labeled “Insight” with a star rating for “post quality” and a number of “interactions.”  What you really want to click on is the “see all” link in the upper right corner of the box.  This will take you to a wondrous assortment of data.  Here you will get charts and graphs of what is going on with your FaceBook page and who follows you. Raw data can even be exported to excel and played to your heart’s content! This will help you get a better understanding of who your followers are and what they are interested in so you can customize your marketing messages.

3. Customize the experience.

FaceBook limits what you can do with your fan page, but I’ve always thought true creativity comes while working within limits.  FaceBook has provided some excellent tools, FBML (facebook markup language) is one of them. While some technical knowledge is necessary (if you don’t have the technical know how, I’d be more than happy to accommodate ) it is possible to create custom tabs and set a specific tab as a landing page. These tabs can include video, links and images.  For an example, take a look at this custom tab, http://www.facebook.com/trxsuspensiontraining?v=app_7146470109.

If you are interested in learning more, google search FBML and you will come across ample information.

4. Provide Exclusive Content.

Now we are getting into a bit more of the technical aspects of FaceBook, but it is possible for you to have content that only your followers will be able to access. Put up the velvet rope, let everyone know that only those chosen few who have “liked” the page will be allowed to pass. Nothing creates more brand loyalty and generates buzz than having access to something no one else has access to. This will help build a bigger following!

For those technical people… here is the coding behind this functionality.

5. Thanks For Following!

Lastly, what better way to show appreciation to your followers (and drive sales at the same time) than providing a special promotion just for them.  This can be done using the above method to make the offer only visible by followers or you can just announce it through FaceBook.  People love being treated special, and what better people to treat like royalty than those who have shown an active interest in your company? After all, aren’t those people the smartest, most deserving people in the world?

I am always interested in hearing what people are doing with FaceBook so let me know if you have any tips and tricks in the comments below!  You can even comment using your FaceBbook account .

Tags: Facebook, Facebook features, Google, Marketing, Markup language, Online Communities, Social network, Video