Love it or hate it, if you have a business, or provide a service, you should be doing the “social” thing: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Facebook Business Pages (not the personal pages) represent an excellent opportunity for you to build and engage a responsive – and ultimately viral – network of friends, clients new and old, colleagues, and valued connections. Social Networking provides a viral element that can make a difference in terms of brand awareness, search engine results, and organic growth. Aside from that, Facebook can rank well in Google, and it happens to be hosted on a platform that boasts millions of active users. Granted, some of your Facebook pages will be behind password-protected closed doors, however, Google will rank others.
A year ago Facebook had 150 million users, and more than 200 million people visited the site monthly. Since then, Facebook has more than doubled in size to 350 million registered users in the last year. By this summer well over half of all Internet users will likely visit Facebook each month. That should answer your question as to whether or not you should engage in a love/hate relationship with Facebook.
A Word About Facebook Applications
While many of the available applications may be cute, or slightly entertaining, they can also make your Business Page look amateur-esque (i.e. sending out Virtual cocktails, playing games, cyber hugs, etc.). In addition, a lot of the developers for these applications ask too many personal questions before you can download and use the app; Or they make you get all of your friends or fans to use it. Answers to questions you may feel are essentially harmless such as “Where did you attend college?”… “How many children do you have?”… are being viewed by hundreds of developers who are obviously not your “Fans,” and shared with other program developers and/or marketing companies.
Make Your Social Networking Pages Stand Out
If you already have a FB Business Page, and a Twitter account, make your SN sites stand out from the millions of others: Customize it! Make your FB and Twitter page match the look and feel of your Website. Then watch your brand go viral!
