Everyday, people are fascinated and ask us about social media, especially Facebook.

Business owners want to know how they can properly utilize the tools, and potential customers want to connect with business to learn about their products, promotions, sales, etc.

So here are couple of ideas:

1. Use Facebook for business and marketing purposes:

• Personal pages – everyone is allowed one personal page on Facebook. Use it touch base with people you know or really want to know. Be very strategic and intentional. Remember, you’re building a reciprocal relationship. People who use personal pages may have as many as 5,000 friends. However, you still must be very strategic. Find the influencers of influencers who will help you craft and brand your company among your friends. Be sure to brand yourself as a person. Many, if not most, do not do this. Let people know the person, not just the business in front of the person. People buy from people they know and trust. This is a great opportunity to build that relationship.
• Like Page (Formerly known as Fan pages) – This is a business profile, and you will want to have one. This is the only feature on Facebook that is indexed by Google. According to the Alex rankings, it has a 2 ranking, and is the second highest ranking on the web behind Google. This is free Search Engine Optimization. You should be using it.

When you think about it, social media is a big database that allows a business to go back and forth and create relationships with customers and prospects.

Facebook is an advertisers dream with over 325 million active users every 30 days, with an average of 25 minutes each session. You have a captive audience. Why not tap into it. It’s cheaper and more effective than any other marketing tool by far when done properly.

That’s it for now, more tomorrow.

Don