Use Facebook to promote your Business Successfully

Here are a few things to consider when you are setting up your profile.  If you already have a profile and you use it in your private life, make another one for business.  It is not a good idea to mix business accounts with private ones for all kinds of reasons.  Once you have created a profile, you are good to go.  

Here is an overview for you about using Facebook for business. 

Fill out your profile fully, but don't use too many words, people don't read.  

Establish a business account, use a fan page (they will soon be known as like pages, they are dropping the word fan). 

Make sure your branding is consistent with your other social media platforms, your blog and your website.  

Integrate with the other sites, but do not post a constant stream of programmed Twitter posts on your wall, there is nothing worse than spamming your own wall, it will look like this:

Set your privacy settings carefully and make sure you don't make any private material public. 

Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.  You can also do this with the new Group function where you can add people into specific groups you want to keep private.  

Use a good photo of yourself on your profile page to brand yourself and brand your business on your business pages.  

Do not display any compromising photographs of yourself.  

Use the notes application in your business pages to add your newsletter subscription links, this will go into your homefeed and will also be picked up by Google.  

Once you have more than 25 fans on your business page, grab a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.  Do the same for your profile page.  

Add your Facebok URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.  This will help people find you.  (A vanity URL is a URL or domain name, created to point to something to which it is related and indicated in the name of the URL. In many cases this is done by a company to point to a specific product or advertising campaign microsite. In theory, vanity URLs are creatively linked to something making them easier to remember than a more random link.)

Integrate Facebook with other social media platforms. For instance, answer a question from Twitter on your blog and then post it on Linkedin and Facebook with a tweet to tell people about it, and invite people to join you on skype.  

Upload your contacts from your email to connect with them on facebook. 

Keep your eye out for interesting contacts whilst you are engaging with your friends and then request their friendship.  

Do not accept friend requests from obvious spammers, those without a profile photo or those who will not add value to your business, after all, your wouldn't invite them into a bricks and mortar business.  

Find evangelists, thought leaders and experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog and subscribe to them on facebook.  Make comments on their posts and then engage with their followers.  

Market your products but not too often or you will look like a spammer. 

Share survey or research data to gain credibility, you can subscribe to Google alerts to find them. 

Add a like button to your blog and a badge to let people like your business page.  

Use Facebook ads, you can target them to a T and they are very reasonably priced.  

Make sure your links to websites, blogs and business pages are in your bio box.  Add a Linkedin tab to your business page.  

Join relevant groups to meet new friends.  

Use advanced search to find people, groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.