Facebook for Businesses
Since starting in 2004, Facebook has grown
at an astonishing rate to dominate the social media market. As
more businesses are looking to contact the 400 million users, we
have created a guide on how to create your own Facebook page and
advertise to users.
Who uses Facebook?
Facebook has been one of the biggest internet success stories
over the last couple of years, and having such a big user base,
it's no surprise that they are trying to reap the rewards. The
idea of Facebook is to keep in touch with people around you. You
have your location and personal details all stored, and with it
being easy to share information, it looks like a great
advertising platform. But is it?
Though Facebook started in the student demographic, it's
quickly growing out of it with the fastest growing demographic
being the over 25s. Around 34% of users work as professionals,
including people who are in sales, are executives, educators or
hold a technical role. So, whether your organisation provides a
product or service, chances are that at least a few of those 400
million active users (of which 50% log on in any given day) are
prospective customers of your business. The question is, what do
you do about it?
Facebook Business Pages
Rather than creating a personal profile page, businesses can
create official pages providing an introduction to what they do.
Photos, videos, links and forum discussions can also be added.
Businesses, for example, can use Facebook to announce latest
news, press releases or special offers. You can even
automatically update your Twitter page when making an update on
Facebook.
Uniquely, your business Facebook page can gain reputation
from users who choose to like your page using a thumbs-up icon.
Naturally, this attracts their friends to take an interest, so
suddenly the page can be distributed widely. Further connections
can also be made by creating adverts that direct users to your
page.
Facebook Advertising
Facebook's advertising platform works in a similar way to Pay
Per Click advertising models used by popular search engines. As
an alternative, you can also Pay Per View too. The word 'per' is
a little misleading though, as you don't actually pay for
individual clicks, but for a set amount of people.
Naturally, you can change advertising settings at any time,
including the time of day the ads run or city you're targeting.
There is a full reporting system too, but it's fair to say that
overall Facebook Ads aren't as easy to use as Google AdWords'.
The adverts currently are image based with supporting text
underneath (135 characters). They appear on the side bar with
two other advertisements. Rather uniquely, users can literally
give the adverts a thumbs up or down if they don't feel they are
appropriate.
With Facebook showing only three adverts on a page, if you're
advertising at a broad base it may be expensive to run your
Facebook Ad. However, being 1st or 3rd is largely irrelevant as
you are not competing for space like on search engine results.
Creating an effective Facebook Ad
Being image based, the design is very important. Not only has it
got to grab attention, but it has to look professional and
trustworthy, otherwise you simply won't get the clicks.
In most Pay Per Click campaigns, you would normally link to your
website. However, to increase viral opportunity, you can link
the advert to your Facebook Business Page. This makes it easy to
share, and with the more people in a network that join up as a
fan, the more other people will see it on their Facebook
homepage.
Unless you are advertising an extremely general product, and
have masses of advertising revenue, there isn't a reason not to
be targeted. As with tried and tested Pay Per Click
alternatives, if your product/service does appeal to many, you
can at least create separate ads for different locations or age
groups to test effectiveness.
Community Pages
Facebook has also now launched 'Community Pages', serving as an
alternative to the official Facebook Pages for businesses. The
aim is to let people create unofficial pages around topics,
themes or ideas that don't fit easily into more narrowly
tailored Facebook Groups. Feasibly, this would increase viral
activity of any Facebook advertising.
The new initiative will allow Facebook users to link information
from their profile pages directly to community pages about
related interests, affiliations and favourite activities,
according to a company blog post.
Facebook has begun prompting users to edit profile information
to link either to either official Pages or the new Community
Pages. When they go to their profile pages next, they'll see a
pop-up box recommending Pages based on interests and
affiliations they've already added. Users can select which pages
will be made public to people who aren't Facebook friends or who
aren't logged in when looking for someone.
The British Assessment Bureau's reputation was
established in 1969 and we achieved pre-eminent status
in 1997. Today we are a revered UKAS accredited
Assessment Body with an enviable reputation for customer
service.
As well as providing certification to internationally
recognised standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, we
provide bespoke assessment services for people, services
and organisations of all sizes.
For more information visit
www.british-assessment.co.uk.
Who uses Facebook?
Facebook has been one of the biggest internet success stories
over the last couple of years, and having such a big user base,
it's no surprise that they are trying to reap the rewards. The
idea of Facebook is to keep in touch with people around you. You
have your location and personal details all stored, and with it
being easy to share information, it looks like a great
advertising platform. But is it?
Though Facebook started in the student demographic, it's
quickly growing out of it with the fastest growing demographic
being the over 25s. Around 34% of users work as professionals,
including people who are in sales, are executives, educators or
hold a technical role. So, whether your organisation provides a
product or service, chances are that at least a few of those 400
million active users (of which 50% log on in any given day) are
prospective customers of your business. The question is, what do
you do about it?
Facebook Business Pages
Rather than creating a personal profile page, businesses can
create official pages providing an introduction to what they do.
Photos, videos, links and forum discussions can also be added.
Businesses, for example, can use Facebook to announce latest
news, press releases or special offers. You can even
automatically update your Twitter page when making an update on
Facebook.
Uniquely, your business Facebook page can gain reputation
from users who choose to like your page using a thumbs-up icon.
Naturally, this attracts their friends to take an interest, so
suddenly the page can be distributed widely. Further connections
can also be made by creating adverts that direct users to your
page.
Facebook Advertising
Facebook's advertising platform works in a similar way to Pay
Per Click advertising models used by popular search engines. As
an alternative, you can also Pay Per View too. The word 'per' is
a little misleading though, as you don't actually pay for
individual clicks, but for a set amount of people.
Naturally, you can change advertising settings at any time,
including the time of day the ads run or city you're targeting.
There is a full reporting system too, but it's fair to say that
overall Facebook Ads aren't as easy to use as Google AdWords'.
The adverts currently are image based with supporting text
underneath (135 characters). They appear on the side bar with
two other advertisements. Rather uniquely, users can literally
give the adverts a thumbs up or down if they don't feel they are
appropriate.
With Facebook showing only three adverts on a page, if you're
advertising at a broad base it may be expensive to run your
Facebook Ad. However, being 1st or 3rd is largely irrelevant as
you are not competing for space like on search engine results.
Creating an effective Facebook Ad
Being image based, the design is very important. Not only has it
got to grab attention, but it has to look professional and
trustworthy, otherwise you simply won't get the clicks.
In most Pay Per Click campaigns, you would normally link to your
website. However, to increase viral opportunity, you can link
the advert to your Facebook Business Page. This makes it easy to
share, and with the more people in a network that join up as a
fan, the more other people will see it on their Facebook
homepage.
Unless you are advertising an extremely general product, and
have masses of advertising revenue, there isn't a reason not to
be targeted. As with tried and tested Pay Per Click
alternatives, if your product/service does appeal to many, you
can at least create separate ads for different locations or age
groups to test effectiveness.
Community Pages
Facebook has also now launched 'Community Pages', serving as an
alternative to the official Facebook Pages for businesses. The
aim is to let people create unofficial pages around topics,
themes or ideas that don't fit easily into more narrowly
tailored Facebook Groups. Feasibly, this would increase viral
activity of any Facebook advertising.
The new initiative will allow Facebook users to link information
from their profile pages directly to community pages about
related interests, affiliations and favourite activities,
according to a company blog post.
Facebook has begun prompting users to edit profile information
to link either to either official Pages or the new Community
Pages. When they go to their profile pages next, they'll see a
pop-up box recommending Pages based on interests and
affiliations they've already added. Users can select which pages
will be made public to people who aren't Facebook friends or who
aren't logged in when looking for someone.
The British Assessment Bureau's reputation was
established in 1969 and we achieved pre-eminent status
in 1997. Today we are a revered UKAS accredited
Assessment Body with an enviable reputation for customer
service.
As well as providing certification to internationally
recognised standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, we
provide bespoke assessment services for people, services
and organisations of all sizes.
For more information visit
www.british-assessment.co.uk.
