Marketing with Facebook Fan Pages

Facebook is one of the fastest growing and most popular websites on the Internet today. It is full of amazing opportunities for small, medium and large-sized business to promote and market if done correctly. The problem is that this is still new territory and there is no simple rulebook on how to market on Facebook successfully. Those who are doing so mostly learned from trial and error and not everyone is willing to share that info with others.

One of the best ways to build and market your brand on Facebook is with a custom fanpage. Facebook fanpages are very popular and are similar to personal accounts but with a few differences. You can personalize them and instead of having to approve friends, anyone can "like" your page. Businesses are using this approach to drive traffic to their sites, increase brand awareness and to communicate with their target market.

There are different stages to marketing with a Facebook fan page. First, you need to create a stellar page that will suit your brand, get attention in a saturated marketplace and have something useful to offer. Next, you need to create and enact a marketing plan just like you would with advertising or marketing elsewhere.

Creating Your Facebook Fanpage

Anyone can create a Facebook fanpage for free but if you want your company to stand out, you also need to personalize it. Once you get 25 "likes" to the page, you will also be able to create a custom shortlink URL. Choose the name of the page and the shortlink based off your company name. This should be something easily recognizable and memorable.

You can also build (or hire an expert to build) a custom design for your fanpage with a flashy landing page, personalized profile pictures and more. When you do your research, these are very affordable or if your company has an in-house graphic designer, you can assign the work to them. The custom design is well worth it because it draws attention to your site and also shows that your company is savvy enough to know that it can be done.

Build Your Marketing Plan

Once you are set up with a quality site, you are ready to build your marketing plan and start promoting the site. It's not about how many "likes" you have but rather how many of those likes are actually interested in your product or service. The numbers don't mean anything if those people are not interested in becoming customers or clients.

Your marketing plan should include your target market and what you plan to do to reach them as well as what your marketing goals are. Why do you want a fanpage in the first place? Do you want to drive traffic to your website? Do you want people to buy your products or sign up for your services? Do you want people to fill out a survey? This is all part of your marketing plan.

Put it into Action

Once your marketing plan is ready, it's time to put it into action. Solid, interesting information on your fanpage and good, regular interaction with the fans is important. If someone posts a question on your wall, you need to be there to answer it. You can use quizzes, questions, polls and other interactive tools to get people talking and give them a reason to return to your page.

Being active without spam is essential in building followers and fans on your Facebook fanpage. Make use of all of the pages you can have on your fanpage account. These are often referred to as "tabs". You can have tabs for your Twitter account, tabs for your product lines, tabs for contests and more. Be sure to refer fans to these to get the most from them.

Reap the Rewards

Once you have it all set up, you have created a marketing plan and you have put it into action, it's time to reap the rewards that come from successful social media marketing. Remember that the public runs social media and they control when and where it goes. This means that over time, the tactics you need to succeed may change. You have to be flexible as a company to grow and change with it, or risk being left behind when the next trend comes along.