In our previous issue, we discussed about effectively communicating with your Facebook fans. In this issue, we are going to talk about using Facebook marketing to give something of worth to your clients and customers.

Here’s the fact: Over 50% of the whole Facebook community log in to their personal accounts each day. This suggests that with approximately 500 Million users of Facebook, over 250 Million are able to view your page.

Imagine being qualified to tap a portion of that market for your own product or service. That represents enormous amounts of dollars in return.

Even so, that doesn’t mean you can just come up with a Facebook account and expect it to make you rich overnight. Like an official web page, a Facebook account must be worked tirelessly on, adjusted, upgraded and evaluated.

It’s essential that you first determine whether your Facebook business page is presenting worthwhile results while keeping your reputation healthy.

Do you want to give a touch of corporate professionalism as an extension of your conventional office?

Do you want to add a touch of fun and excitement which will appeal to your target audience?

Or do you simply want your page to be a customer service area where informal questions and inquires can be attended to?

It’s important that you always regard value as your top priority whenever posting anything on your page. Avoid posting boring or unnecessary things. This means resisting the urge to post personal content or even things that seem fascinating but aren’t helpful to your audience.

Here are a few more suggestions you should contemplate:

- Get Testimonials from Customers

Looking at a person’s Facebook wall is one of the most well-known pastimes of men and women who are enthusiastic about social networks.At present, social media management provides various benefits to entrepreneurs. You can win over prospects by using testimonials from your current customers or clients. So why not ask your past clients for testimonials? Of course, you would most appreciate highly favorable feedback if given under your own accord. Yet, this may not always be the case based on the value of your products or services. So offer incentives, give out prizes or hold a contest. Say, for example, that every Facebook feedback will give them a 5% discount during their next purchase.

- Interact with Potential Customers

Whenever there are queries with regards to your products or services on Facebook, be sure that you get back to them straight away. Also, you’ll gain a good impression by answering the inquiries very timely. If you cannot do this, apologize for the late reply.

To save yourself from answering the same questions over and over again, you’ll want to provide something like a FAQ segment on your page. If all the information can’t be provided in the space available, then try using a Notes Page or a similar application.

- Upload Relevant Photos

Some use the Photos Page while some make pseudo-shops where they feature their products. Any of these is fine as long as the product images are shown in good quality. Working with low-end pictures will give your products a low end impression. So be meticulous in choosing those. For instance, if you have a jewelry business, you can promote it on Facebook by posting photos that feature the intricate designs of your jewelry pieces.

Keep these simple tips in mind when interacting with your friends and fans for a successful Facebook marketing venture.

Be sure to read our next issue of Facebook for Business soon.

You can get the traffic if you choose to make use of Facebook for Business. However, if you want to learn more, click here to know more Facebook marketing strategies.

In our previous issue, we looked into the ways on how to get individuals to like your Facebook business page. Today, we will be discussing about utilizing advertising campaigns, contests and give-aways to generate more fans.

Using a social media management site entirely for promotions, contests and giveaways is a wonderful way to measure whether these said promotional tactics is working for your business. The site allows anyone to find out the number of traffic that comes to their page.

This can be a double win situation too because making the promotion exclusive will gather a new set of Facebook fans which is vital to the growth and maintenance of the company’s social network page. Contests give a touch of anticipation to your site.

Now that you know this, let’s proceed to how you can implement Facebook marketing and start making traffic-pulling contests and promos.

Well, firstly, you have to make certain that all contest mechanics and update are accessible to Facebook users alone. The business must not promote it in emails, newsletters, other social networking sites or even in their official website other than saying that the promotion is exclusive to Facebook users, of course. Additionally, the mechanics have to be clear and simple. Overcomplicating matters would make contestants think you’ve set the bar too high and can discourage them from joining.

As an early warning, contests, incentives and promotions tend to be costly as the apps needed to develop and run it are also expensive. For example, the application Wildfire has a $5 setup fee and charges $0.99 for each day the campaign runs. In addition to that, Facebook has strict rules when it comes to running contests within their system. Generally, a lot of different contests are not even made possible. You are not allowed to have an official contest posted in your wall.

There are some exceptions though. Any business that wants to run contests in Facebook must first purchase at least $10,000 worth of Facebook ads within just three months.

For businesses that are able to use contests, there are a lot of business applications that help create these. Wildfire offers all the necessary tools to create photos, videos, and graphic entries to develop a contest campaign. You can also pimp out your campaign as much as you want with these tools. You can change the look of graphics ,control contest mechanics, deadlines as well as the level of involvement of people in your network. To make navigation easy, consider placing a contest widget in your Fan Page so the competitors will be able to link straight to a mini site. Other platform services include Strutta.com and Vertigo.

To really entice a lot of participants, make sure you present incentives which people can’t resist. A company named Regus, for instance, offered a fully furnished office for the photo entry which showed the messiest office. But you shouldn’t stop there. Think of prizes such as tickets to the most sough-after concert in town.

A contest that’s managed successfully will certainly bring in lots of qualified prospects to the organization. Despite the costs and additional work, ventures such as these are really worth it if only for the brownie points you win with present and potential customers.

Be sure to read our next issue of Facebook for Business.We will talk about a very exciting topic: Earning profits on Facebook!

Using Facebook for Business and as well as creating advertisement campaigns are two best ways to achieve the best results you want in online marketing. Find out more about Facebook marketing here.