Facebook Marketing – Tapping into the Enormous Marketplace of Facebook

Facebook marketing gives companies the opportunity to tap into the enormous growth of social media on sites like Facebook. The community-centric nature of social networking sites can help businesses greatly expand their name recognition and product awareness. A general idea of how this works is to illustrate how information is released on Facebook.

Upon joining Facebook, members can set up either a profile page or a fan page. Profile pages are for individuals looking for social networking. Fan pages can be for companies, organizations, or celebrities. Facebook marketing starts with having a presence on Facebook.

With profile pages, the member sends friend requests to others on Facebook that must be accepted. Fan pages have a ‘Like’ button that other Facebook members can push to become a part of the organization’s community of followers. Each time members take action on Facebook, such as when they add friends, ‘Like’ a page, or post a comment, the action appears on their wall (home page) and the walls of all the member’s friends. In this way, information spreads similarly to a direct marketing company, only much faster. You tell all your friends. Then, as they comment, befriend, or ‘Like’ your business, their circle of friends find out as well. If those friends interact with your profile or company page, then their circle of friends is alerted too. This pattern continues over and over.

However, a Facebook marketing campaign is not limited to the exposure you may get by chance. By offering good information, actively pursuing Facebook friends, running opinion polls or other games, and giving incentives like coupons, discounts, etc, your business can increase the traffic to your page. Increased traffic usually means an increase in awareness of your products or services. More awareness of the quality offerings of your business can lead to higher sales.

However, even more tools can be used in your Facebook marketing strategy. Online marketing companies can create customized fan pages for your business and integrate other social media marketing tools for Facebook, like coupons, shopping carts, videos, Flickr, RSS feed and Twitter.

At the very least, the company Facebook page should guide visitors to the main company website page and the corporate blog. Connecting the public to the various online representations of the company can help to increase knowledge of your business policies, products, and services. Facebook also offers pay-per-click advertising opportunities.

A comprehensive marketing strategy that allows access to the over 700 million active Facebook users is simply smart business.