We’ve discussed why using Facebook is important for your business’s social media marketing campaign, so here’s a short list of rules to follow when using Facebook as a way to interact with your customers and encourage new customers along the way.

1. Go Slow and Steady, Don’t Overdo It
   Your fans use their Facebook as a personal communication tool. While they have shown interest in your product or services, remember that there is such a thing as too many updates. Keep your status updates, videos, pictures, and blog posts consistent, but don’t overwhelm them with information. Post at least something a day, but don’t overdo it.
2. Contact Your Fans Directly
   Your small business is built for customer interaction. You may not have thousands of fans and tons of comments on each of your blog posts, but you’ve got an advantage on the large companies because they have no way of interacting with all of their fans. Follow up with new fans and reply to comments. Don’t spam them with messages to buy your stuff right now, rather encourage that one-on-one relationship.
3. Don’t Spam
   Treat your customers like you would want to be treated. Posts in all CAPS and with big flashy buttons won’t help you sell your products any faster. Instead it will likely result in a loss of fans.
4. Consider it an Educational Experience
   We’ve said it before, but it’s still not old. The most important part of social networking for businesses is to make your content interesting. Let your visitors in on a few industry secrets and they’ll come back for more later. Establish yourself as an industry expert.
5. Create a Facebook Page, Not a Profile
   Take a look at our recent blog post called “The Difference Between a Facebook Page and a Facebook Profile.” Don’t risk getting banned from Facebook because you didn’t obey the rules.
6. Use Incentives
   Your marketing tactics may have changed, but those traditional marketing pulls are still just as strong. Offer new fans a discount the next time they come into your store or order your services.
7. Post Occasional Entertaining Statuses
   Put some personality in your updates. Fridays are always a good opportunity to post something a little off topic. If you find a funny video post it on your facebook. Or share a joke with your fans. Especially if there is a way to tie it into your own business. Like a dentist might post a joke about a kid with braces. It’s a great way to break the ice.

Interested in talking to us about advertising on Facebook? Contact us or visit our website. Become a fan of LEVELTWO on Facebook.

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Facebook is now a household name (especially for those with teenagers in the house) and as business owners become more aware of the effectiveness of using social sites to market their business, there are many frequently asked questions about how to put your business on Facebook.

Let’s start by noting the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page.

Facebook Profile:

• Strictly for people (not a business or product) to interact with friends and family
• Any individual can create a profile, just not a commercial business or product
• A business that opens a profile page is in direct violation of the Facebook Terms of Service and will be disabled
• Other users become FRIENDS of a Facebook Profile
• A Facebook Profile can upload pictures, videos, status updates, and can invite people to become friends

Facebook Pages:

• Designed for businesses, brands, companies, products, and celebrities
• Other users become FANS of a Facebook Page
• Can upload pictures, videos, status updates, host a discussion board, display wall posts, and other features
• Can track metrics like fans, page views, interactions, gender, age, location, language, and more
• Can not invite other members to become a fan

Example of Facebook Page metrics:

The reason for keeping companies and individuals separate on Facebook is to reduce the amount of spam. If a business was able to invite you become a fan of their page, users would be flooded with businesses looking to inflate their number of fans.

The purpose is to make the user experience as enjoyable as possible. Sites like MySpace and Twitter do not have such strict boundaries between individuals and companies. This unrestricted access has contributed to the ongoing decrease in MySpace’s traffic and could lead to the death of Twitter if stricter rules are not put into place.

This points back to the first three rules of social media marketing:

1. Content
2. Content
3. Content

If you don’t provide interesting content with a positive experience for your readers and fans you will never achieve success in developing a strong online following. It wouldn’t be good business practice to cut corners in your trade, so it’s equally unprofessional to break social networking etiquette.

Questions? Comments? Let us know in the comment box below. Or contact us here.

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TechCrunch.com recently posted an article about how Facebook’s total traffic is nearing Google and Yahoo.

While it is interesting to see how the hot social networks stack up in terms of traffic, I thought I’d also take a look at how well Facebook is doing compared to other Web giants like Google.com, Yahoo.com and MSN.com. To my surprise, Facebook appears to have become a real challenger to these Internet juggernauts, who are relatively old compared to the social network that started out in 2004 as a university student-only service and only really opened up to the public in September 2006.

So what we are seeing here is a very fast growing SOCIAL network that showing traffic trends that could overtake both Google and Yahoo. This is very significant because while Yahoo is more of a destination search engine that frames its site to be a fully functional website, more people are using a social network on a regular basis AND at an increasing rate.

With visitor stats this strong it’s even more important for you business to dive into a social marketing campaign. You might be using search engine marketing and other forms of lead harvesting, but unless you are present on the social networks, you are missing out on a very large part of viewership.

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