Now that you know the audience that Facebook reaches and are using a Facebook Fan Page, how do you get people to your fan page? There are ways to do this both through Facebook and elsewhere.

Using Facebook, you can promote your business or product.  One way is by using Facebook’s advertising.  Using their advertising, you can target specific audiences, track your progress, and change your audience if it’s not working for you.  This option is pretty expensive for a small business. If you’re Coke, you can probably afford it. (Hey Coca Cola, do you read our blog?)

You can also encourage people to link to your Facebook page on their sites or through their fan pages.  You can do this with a contest or giveaways. However, do so with caution and make sure you know Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines.

You can also participate in discussions on other fan pages or with groups that target the same audience you do (and link back to your fan page).  But, be polite. Going on a competitor’s page and pitching your product or service is pretty tacky.  Also, make sure your participation is relevant. No one likes spam and you wouldn’t want people to leave it on your page.

You can encourage people to visit your Facebook page outside of Facebook as well.  For example, you should have a “Become a Fan” invite on your web site.  A Facebook page won’t do you much good if your customers don’t know about it. You can also link to Facebook from your blog.  See how easy that is?  It is important to build links from your web site to your Facebook and vice-a-versa.  You should also link to it from other social media you use, like Twitter. Think of Facebook as another piece of a puzzle, rather than an entity unto itself.

Tags: Facebook, fan page, marketing, small business

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 am and is filed under small business, social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.