Web Marketing: Face the Facts About Facebook, Part 2

Once people have found you on Facebook, you can drive traffic the other way as well. Be sure your Facebook page includes a working link your website address, email marketing sign up screen, and every way possible to contact you. Your Facebook page is where you’ll keep your customers engaged and happy with your business, but your website, email, etc. is where you’ll make sales. Each one must feed the other to find true success.

Following the best practices will take you a long way when it comes to Facebook success. But if you want to rocket past your competitors, consider having a Facebook landing page that welcomes visitors to your page. When someone visits your business page, instead of coming straight to your wall full of posts, they can be directed to a page that’s all about saying hello the right way.

Take a look at Dell’s page for a good example of how the B2B world can use landing pages. This is a place to put a call to action, and a much more appropriate place for offers and promotions. Start by rewarding visitors for “liking” the page. For example, your landing page could be an offer for a free personalized notebook if the visitor “likes” your page. Once that visitor “likes” your page, not only will your posts begin showing up in their newsfeed, a note on their wall will tell all their friends that they “like” your business. You can’t get a much better referral than that.

Play a Little Tag

Stretch the viral mention of your company name even further by remembering to tag every photo you post to your business page. A tag means that you identify the person or company in your photo. In turn, that photo gets posted on the “tagged” person’s wall and all their friends and friends of friends get to see the photo. If they click on it, they’ll be redirected to your company’s page. Now factor in a landing page with your offer or promotion encouraging them to “like” your page, and we’re really beginning to understand the massive potential of Facebook as a marketing tool.

The potential for this type of exposure is hard to find elsewhere so take full advantage. Post pictures of your customers as much as you can, post pictures of community events, ribbon cuttings, maybe even a job delivery now and again. Imagine how thrilled your customers will be to see their smiling faces acknowledged on your site, and if they’re one of the handful that may not like this type of publicity, they can easily “untag” themselves from any photo—no long term damage done.

Facebook is more than a phenomena, it is the way in which a large majority of the world is choosing to interact these days. It’s not going anywhere—not any time soon anyway. So it’s time to embrace this monstrous, powerful marketing tool by following some very simple steps. You’ll be glad you did. And your customers will “like” you even better than they did before.

Contributing columnist Tawnya Starr is a former successful print shop owner who is now president of FireSpring’s PrinterPresence. Contact her at Tawnya.Starr@Firespring.com.