Internet Marketing Clinic

We have recently had several discussions about the advisability of using Facebook to promote your business. There are clearly some differences of opinion around, so I wanted to add a few thoughts that may be of some interest.

First, I have to say that it appears to me that if you are marketing to a particular demographic, and that demographic is heavily represented on Facebook in terms of presence, time spent on site, and ability to be influenced, Facebook is certainly a strategy that you should consider. Whether it is worth the effort required to become effective is a judgment call that different businesses might decide differently.

Several important things to keep in mind when considering your own strategy are:

• Facebook is relatively new and “unstable”, in that many features are being added constantly and changes are being made to how the whole system operates. This makes it hard to get a clear handle on how one should best utilize the application.
• Users’ familiarity with the features of the application vary widely from those heavily involved in their interactions with it, to many others who are basically just there to see what is going on, to everything in between. To be effective, you have to understand who you are targeting and where they fit on this spectrum.
• With all the changes taking place, you could easily find that on any given day, something has been done that wipes out all the effort that you have invested in establishing yourself in the community. In the near past, Google changed its policy about hosting their blog content on different servers and dramatically altered the benefits of using the free Blogger software that many of us depended upon.

As an interesting aside, I know several people who have recently complained that their involvement with Facebook has become a compulsion. Others have commented that being on Facebook is so involving that it takes away from work time. If the people that I want to reach fall into these groups that just can’t stay off of Facebook, I want to be somewhere on Facebook!

With that as perspective, I offer a couple of links that people might find helpful in getting some explanation of what Facebook might do for them. The first is a blog post describing new features that Facebook released in 2010 that are oriented toward business use. This is a good brief description that will help people who might have an interest in digging into this further. In that same post, they provide references to other sources of information, one of which is a Facebook Product Guide, which I thought was also useful and interesting. This is a PDF file that you can download to your computer (or read online, as you prefer).

I received a newsletter from Hubspot with a short list of reasons to use social media in your business. The list was very concise and to the point, so I found it hard to summarize. Here it is in its entirety:

“Why Social Media and Blogs Can Help Your Business

1. Start Fast. You could launch a page on Facebook today and get a blog going in a couple days.

2. Low Cost. You can get started in social media and blogging for very little or no money.  They are among the most cost-effective methods of reaching your audience.

3. Instant Interactivity. Both blogs and social media can give you nearly instant market feedback – good or bad.  We get all kinds of feedback through the comments on our blog, and people also leave reviews and other comments for us on Facebook and other social media venues.

4. It’s the Search Engines, Silly. Surveys indicate that 90% or more of people begin their purchasing process in search engines.  Blogs and social media make it more likely that your prospects will find you online when they search.

5. Inbound Marketing. If you read our blog, you know that we’re all big fans of inbound marketing at HubSpot.  Outbound marketing is telemarketing, direct mail, email blasts (not lovely nurturing emails like this one to you), TV and print ads – all the things that buyers tend to block out more and more.  Social media and blogs are essential inbound marketing tools.

6. First Mover Advantage. For blogs and social media, there is an advantage to moving first.  If you don’t jump into the conversation, your competitors, competitor’s customers or your customers will (if they have not already) and then you’re fighting an uphill battle to become influential in these online conversations.  Start now, and claim the virtual conversation-ground to your advantage.”

Hubspot is the same group that published the Facebook Guide that I referred to in a prior blog. They seem to have some good information and might be a good place to check in from time to time.

Facebook can be a powerful tool for marketing your business, but, like anything else, you have to understand how to use it and you have to put some effort into it. Many small business owners are just taking the first step in getting acquainted with Facebook as a tool.

I have just come across an eBook on the web that provides a great introduction to setting up Facebook. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a short course to get them started with this powerful tool.

The book is a free download and it contains links to other materials provided by the people who offer this guide.