Facebook Fan Pages Are Great For Small Business – Top Three Reasons Why

Two big questions small business owners have for me when it comes to Facebook are: 1) is there a way I can separate my personal information from my professional information and 2) what is the best way to engage others and bring attention to my business?

Facebook “Fan Pages” are the answer to both.

A Fan Page is simply a public profile that allows you to share information about your business, services or products with other Facebook users. To create a Fan Page, click on “Advertising” in the lower right hand part of the screen. After doing this you will be taken to a page with several choices listed at the top. Click on “Pages” which has an orange flag next to it. Then, just click the green “Create a Page” button.

Once you have created your Page, you can now reap its benefits. What are those benefits? There are several, but here I will highlight the top three:

Driving Traffic. Facebook Pages are public. Most of Facebook requires a login for you to access it. However, Pages are not behind a login and thus are visible to the search engines. This means people can not only find your business listed, but it is likely to be ranked highly due to the fact that Facebook itself is. Therefore, you might want to consider using relevant keywords in your Page title as well. For example, Facebook expert Mari Smith’s Page title is Mari Smith – Relationship and Buzz Marketing Specialist.

Of course, once people visit your Page, they will also have a way to continue on to your main website or blog which you will have listed.

Promoting Discussion. Pages are a great way to communicate with potential clients and customers. You now have an opportunity to listen, watch and provide answers when needed. People will notice when you take the time to help and add to the discussions. Send updates periodically through the update feature and concentrate on building relationships and being a part of the conversation.

Spreading Awareness. By utilizing the wall for discussions, providing links, adding pictures, importing your blog posts and more, you are making it easy to connect with you. This will help turn people into fans as well as encourage others to visit your Page. When others become fans it will show on their profile as well as in their mini-feed. When your fans interact with your Page, these interactions are visible to their friends via the News Feed. This is fantastic for word-of-mouth and for exposing your business to an ever-increasing circle of Facebook users.

Some Tips:

*To get to your Page from your main personal profile, click on “Applications” at the bottom to the left and then click “Ads and Pages. ”

*You need to click on the link that says “publish this page” for your page to become public. This is nice as you can have your Page all set up and complete before you begin promoting it.

*If you click on “Edit Page” you can add applications to your page such as discussion boards, reviews, events and more.

*People can become “fans” of your page. To encourage this, you can click the link for “suggest to friends” under your picture. If you click on “Share” on the left side under “create a page” then you can also post a message about your page to your personal profile or send a message to others.

Create your Page today and start building your community of raving fans!

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Christine Gallagher, MLS, MSIS, founder of CommunicateValue. com, teaches small business owners and professionals how to conquer the overwhelming online media and social marketing to increase business and maximize profits. For free advice on how to build profitable relationships, leverage technology and create your own successful online business, http://CommunicateValue visit. Com>