Create a Facebook Fan Page

You may have a Personal Facebook Profile and even belong to a few Facebook Groups, but do you have a Facebook Fan Page for your business? You may be missing out on one of the greatest marketing strategies if you don't. Today I want to share with you one way you can use Facebook for business: by creating an Official Facebook Page, also known as a Fan Page.

If you still aren't sure Facebook is right for your company, first I'm going to provide some statistics that may have you taking a second look, then I'll discuss why and how to set up a Facebook Page. Does Facebook really matter? Yes! Definitely yes! Here are some noteworthy facts about Facebook that clearly indicate its importance and potential impact on your company:

Half of Facebook's 400+ million users spend approximately 55 minutes on the site each and every day.
The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 60 pages, groups, and events-this means massive viral exposure for your content is possible.
People are sharing more than 25 billion items of interest (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) each month.
Women over 55 years old are the quickest growing group of users and the average person on Facebook is 35.

Hopefully you can see from those facts and demographics, your company belongs on Facebook and setting up a Facebook Fan Page for your business is an incredibly wise marketing tactic.

The Importance of Establishing a Facebook Page. The biggest distinction between a personal profile, group, and page is that the only one viewable to the public and indexed by search engines is a page. This provides you, your business, and your page with SEO value-you will rank higher in Google when people search for your product or service. And because it's public, individuals don't have to have a Facebook account to view your page-there's no barrier to entry.

Even though you can only have one personal profile (with a limit of 5,000 friends), Facebook will let you set up several pages with an unlimited number of fans. You're also able to message all of your fans at once with a Fan Page, but can message only a few people at once on your personal profile. What's even better is that you can focus in on a targeted niche when you send a message. For example, you could message only females of a certain age in Dallas, Texas.

The viral potential of Facebook is also important to keep in mind. This means that posts on your Official Page's wall show up in the News Feed which reaches a broader audience on all of your fans' personal profile pages (remember the average Facebooker has 130 friends-that's an additional 130 people on average that view your post X the number of fans for your page).

Another common feature of Facebook is Groups, but bear in mind, Groups aren't public content and therefore, aren't indexed by the search engines.If you want to set up a Group, I recommend you first create an Official Page for your business, and then set up a Group as a subpart of your Page.

How to Create an Official Facebook Page. It's easy to set up a Page for your business on Facebook. Just go to the Facebook homepage and click on "Create a Page." Next, you'll either sign into your Facebook account or create a new one.

When creating your Official Page, keep in mind these success tips:

Work on it and create it before you publish it.
Rather than inviting all of your friends to "like" your page, only suggest it to those in your target market.
Build your page and content with SEO in mind - make your page keyword rich.
Interact and engage; start discussions, ask questions, get to know your fans.
Give fans something special-an incentive to become a fan. Maybe this is a coupon code, special discount, free gift, etc.
Connect your Page with your other social media accounts like your blog, Twitter, and YouTube (consider using an application like Involver).
Always be sharing interesting, relevant content, even if it's not your own.
Don't forget to build your list! Add an opt-in box for a free gift directly to your Facebook Page with an application like Static FBML, which lets you add custom HTML to any of your pages.

Creating an Official Facebook Page is just one way to utilize Facebook for your business. Want more ideas and training on how to monetize Facebook? In a free 76-minute webinar on Facebook Monetization you'll discover 8 specific action steps and marketing strategies you can implement immediately to begin monetizing Facebook in as little as 15-20 minutes a day. This was a MAXED-OUT webinar and now it is part of a training archive in a paid membership site, but Ashley Acker, Ph.D. is giving you instant access for free! Click here to access the webinar and create your Facebook Monetization Blueprint.

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