Written by: Laura Espinosa
A while back, Jesaka wrote a post about Entrepreneurial marketing, and how using social sites like Facebook and Twitter can really grow your business.
I’m going to take it one step further and expand on the topic of Facebook fan pages for those of you who have them or are thinking of creating them.
While you can do quite a bit of subtle promotion on your personal Facebook profile, there are some posts that you just cannot make. For instance, if you are running a discount sale for your services, it’d be considered a little spammy to your nearest and dearest to get status updates not on you, but on your business for the entire length of the promotion. Personal profiles should be for what it’s designed for: personal updates on what you’re doing right now.
That being said, a fan page is a perfect venue for the many things you can’t post on your profile (without annoying people). People who like your fan page are there because of one reason: they want to be kept up to date with your business. Sure they wouldn’t mind a personal post on yourself as the owner every now and then, and I encourage it to show off your personality. But they are mainly there to get updates on your products and your services. So you are free to promote to your heart’s content.
Some of the benefits of creating your own page are:
- It’s public: You have to log in to facebook to view individual profiles, but fan pages are public and searchable. So non-Facebook users can still find your business.
- You can send mass updates to all your fans: It’s almost like having an email list, but on Facebook. You can send out personal messages that are more in-depth than a wall post will allow, and you can even turn this into a regular newsletter to all your fans.
- It’s extremely customizable: For something that’s entirely free, you can create almost a mini-website with Facebook’s custom FBML tabs. Check out what companies like Adidas and Victoria’s Secret have done with it. You don’t have to go nearly as over the top. But the point is that you could.If you’re tech savy, you can learn Facebook’s markup language and program some of the tabs yourself, or use some of the free apps available to customize your look. If you don’t want to deal with that, hire someone to do the programming for you.
Facebook fan pages are a great way to differentiate yourself and reach new people outside of your sphere of influence. As well as demonstrate your expertise by the quality of posts and links that you provide on your wall. You can even start discussions on your fan page and interact with your prospects, making your fan page a place people want to visit again and again.
How about you? Are you thinking of setting up a fan page for your business, or have one already?
Laura Espinosa is a freelance copywriter and WordPress website developer who recently joined forces with Holly Jackson over at CottageCopy.com, where she now blogs about how running your own business sometimes means foregoing clean clothes. You can follow her random musing on Twitter(@thecopycorner), or check out Cottage Copy’s fan page over on Facebook.
Jesaka Long 
Great post! I have a Facebook Fan page, and one thing I’ve noticed is that it really allows me to reach people I might not reach through other venues, like Twitter. I also interact with them in a very different way. Aside from not having a character limit, FB allows people to have a continuous conversation on your wall. On Twitter, the life of a tweet is just a few seconds, unless it gets RT’d. The feeds from your FB page stay on people’s newsfeeds longer depending on how much they interact with you. So I think it’s important to have both (at least for me, since all businesses are different).
My FB page: http://www.facebook.com/inkyclean
Haven’t gotten around to customizing it yet, or sending updates, but it’s still growing!
You have the cutest logo, Natalia! Rather apropos for your branding! 🙂 You’re right, FB does have a longer shelf life than Twitter does. I use Twitter a lot for instant action (what it was really designed for) and FB for more discussion. And it’s a great place to build community and be a little more casual and intimate. Your fan page doesn’t just become your space, but everyone who’s a fan starts to claim that space as well.
Good luck on growing your page! 🙂 I’m still playing with ours and it’s always a continual work in progress. I’m glad you liked the post!
Thanks, Laura!