Facebook … it’s not just something our daughter uses to keep in touch with her friends. For instance, she’s always praising its ability to send and receive up-to-the-minute status updates. She recently got her first cell phone and within minutes of posting this on her Facebook account, she had at least six replies from her friends saying things like, “Wow!” “That’s so cool!” “Text me!” If she can use this platform to keep her friends apprised of her social life, you too can use it as a marketing tool to share your business’s story and vision with the world.
Consider these facts for why Facebook is a great marketing platform:
- More than 400,000,000 people are active users
- 50% of active users log on to Facebook on any given day
- More than 35 million users update their status each day
- More than 60 million status updates are posted each day
- More than 3 billion photos are uploaded to the site each month
- More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each week
These figures alone demonstrate that millions of people turn to Facebook on a daily basis to keep in touch with the world around them.
Another great thing about Facebook is that it’s free. I hear many retailers say they are currently spending around $25,000 a month to advertise in the print, radio, TV and online media. But with Facebook, you can display your business’s vision, values, service standards and procedures to your customers at no charge. It even allows you to add your company logo, upload video and audio content, and even post blogs to your account. These are the exact same marketing strategies you’re probably spending a lot to implement. Therefore, it makes sense to compliment your current strategy with a free marketing tool.
Just because you have a Facebook page, people will not automatically visit it. Make people aware of your page and draw them to it. Begin by inserting your Facebook logo on all of your current ads, brochures, emails and even business cards. You’ll quickly notice an increase in your online ‘friends.’ Take the opportunity to utilize Facebook’s many features – mailing list, sharing videos, importing blog posts, listing events, conducting polls, starting conversations – to share your business’s goals with your new online friends.
Facebook has helped facilitate growth and proven to be a key marketing tool for numerous businesses. Because of this, I’m confident Facebook will allow your company to reach a broad demographic that traditional marketing may have missed.
This article was authored by David Lively, a contributor for publications such as Western Retailer and Furniture World, for Imagine Retailer.
Consumers have a lot to look at these days. We’re exposed to several thousand advertisements and websites each day, yet we remember very few of them – despite billions of dollars spent on advertising.
Bruce Springsteen sang about the Human Touch:
The last time paid newspaper circulation in the United States was at its current level
As I talk with a business owners of all sizes, and they explain how their hands are tied in moving forward with an internet strategy. They believe they are doing the best they can under the circumstances, of course, but really there are departments in their organization that need to be protected, prices that need to be kept, sacred cows that can’t be touched. “After all,” they argue, “why should I wipe out my current business just to succeed online?”