An increasing number of budding businesses are treating Facebook and Twitter as an integral component of hanging out their shingles. In fact, many small business owners now realize the importance of using today’s highly popular social networking platforms to reach out to their prospective customers, create online communities of followers and dig into vast demographic information that can prove to be a real goldmine.
Networking platforms hold the key
As marketing experts point out, businesses need to be where their prospective customers and key stakeholders are. And in today’s fast emerging era of social media, it’s obvious where the people are. More and more of them are turning to Facebook and Twitter. This has altered the business dynamics.
If you want to create a buzz about your products and services, there is no alternative to the all-pervasive and powerful networking platforms. They hold the key to successful and cost-effective marketing because that’s exactly where the target audience is.
Build a Web presence with social media
No surprise, for most emerging and even established business ventures, Facebook Pages are the best avenue to start. These pages are distinct from Facebook groups and individual profiles. Importantly, they let businesses collect ‘fans’ the way politicians, sports teams, musicians and celebrities do. There are now millions of Facebook Pages that collect countless fans every day.
What are the important features you can leverage with the networking platform?
- You can seek a vanity address so that your Facebook address well reflects the business name and identity. It can be something like ‘facebook.com/Starbucks’.
- It is easy to link Facebook pages to your company’s official website or leading direct sales to e-commerce websites, such as Ticketmaster or Amazon.
- Facebook has on offer a wide array of tools as well as networks. It is easier to wander down diverse paths as it suits your needs.
Define your basic objectives
Before you launch a fresh Facebook initiative, pose yourself a very basic question: What is my basic objective as a businessperson?
- Is it to draw more customers and to get them in the door?
- Is to build brand awareness over time?
- Is to create a resource for customer support?
You can define and fine tune your strategy once there is absolute clarity about your end goal. You then can spell out your communication and marketing ideas in a precise manner. As the past experience shows, some businesses not clear on this count lose precious time and energy in needless experimenting. As a result, they end up missing out on major opportunities. This is something that you cannot afford.
