Free Social Media Networking with Facebook – Using Facebook & Facebook Apps Effectively

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Facebook offers many marketing opportunities for businesses – some for free. You can find these Facebook features to help you promote your business on the social network by clicking the “Advertising ” link in the footer of the Facebook site, or by following this link: http://www.facebook.com/business .

Facebook Pages are specifically for marketing a business or a product. Much like a profile, Facebook Pages offer a way for a business to represent itself to the Facebook community in an authentic way. Facebook users can search pages the same way they search for people within the network community.

Create your page by going to “Page Manager ” in the left sidebar of your Facebook profile, or by following this link: http://www.facebook.com/business/ and choosing Facebook Pages. Choose the best category for your business.

Since Facebook pages are searchable, use key terms in the Name of Your Facebook Page! It appears that only the actual page name is the only text on a Facebook page that is used in a search. With that in mind, use at least two of your best key words in your page name.

Create your Facebook Page with your best information. You may have only a few seconds to catch a reader’s attention, so put your best key words that relate to your business and competency.

Once your page is in place, add applications to help represent your company in your own unique way. To find applications for your page, click on “Applications ” in the upper left corner of your page, or search for them here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/ .

A few of the favorite Facebook Applications that can help promote your business faster:

My Flickr : Display photos from your Flickr account using this application. These photos can include logos, product photos, photos from events, etc.

Upcoming : This is a calendar application that announces your upcoming events. Add all of your events to upcoming.org , and display them on your Facebook page with Upcoming’s Facebook application.

YouTube Box : Allows visitors to play your YouTube videos right on your Facebook page. You could share promotional videos, videos on your business culture or even short product demos & customer referrals.

Simply RSS : This allows you to display up to eight RSS feeds on your Facebook page and display the feeds from your external blogs. There is also a share button that you could use to push key posts to all in your network.

Since Facebook Apps have to be installed by the user, you may have to invite your community to install them. Not many people like to clutter their pages with apps, so you have to be selective when requesting people to install new application.

Promoting Your Social Networking Presence: Facebook also provides tips on how to can promote your new presence both inside and outside of the network. Here is a link to Facebook’s promotional guidelines .

Once done, set up links to your Facebook profile & Facebook pages on your websites & blogs. Many also use Facebook “chicklet ” in their signatures. It is an impressive way to direct interested people to your business profile on Facebook.

If you are publishing articles on the internet, you could also provide a Facebook button for your readers who wish to find out more about your business. While on print media, it might not be as effective as the internet, you could add the Facebook URL along with your contact information.