Why you need a professional face on Facebook

Social media is cutting edge marketing, and if your business doesn't have an online identity in this channel, you're tuned out. Organizations and businesses that have a social media presence have the advantage to reach a much broader audience and different demographics with their products and services. Also, the online capabilities now are much greater than even two to three years ago. Plus, shoppers are considerably savvier now with comparison purchasing than ever before, and there is an insatiable desire for information.

There are a number of social sites, such as Twitter, Yahoo, YouTube, and more. According to eBizMBA.com, here are the 15 most popular social networking sites as of this month derived from their eBizMBA Rank which is a constantly updated average of each website's Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast: 1.) Facebook, 2.) Twitter, 3.) LinkedIn, 4.) MySpace, 5.) Google Plus+, 6.) DeviantArt, 7.) LiveJournal, 8.) Tagged, 9.) Orkut, 10.) Pinterest, 11.) CafeMom, 12.) Ning, 13.) Meetup, 14.) myLife, and 15.) Badoo.

Now, you may want to set up a profile on all of them if you have the time to manage fifteen website listings and the traffic from each one of them. However, you should position your business on the most applicable for your product or service, and the clear winner by far is Facebook with close to a billion unique visitors per month. If you don't have yourself posted there with a "Like" fan page, run, don't walk to your nearest smart phone, iPad, lap top, or ugh…tower, and get yourself a virtual life.

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According to online magazine TechCrunch, in October Facebook officially hit the 1 billion active monthly user mark. Facebook has also shared a number of key metrics with users along with the announcement, including 1.13 trillion "likes" since its 2009 launch (note that this is actually probably higher, since the official press document contained a note accidentally left in from an editor about rolling back the number because of info shared previously with Businessweek), 140.3 billion friend connections, 219 billion photos uploaded, 17 billion location-tagged posts and 62.6 million songs played some 22 billion times. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the median user age is around 22 for new users who joined in the week leading up to this milestone, and the top five countries supporting that growth in the same week were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States.

Depending on whatever guru or consultant you follow, you are going to get lots of advice both pro and con why you shouldn't be on Facebook to sell your goods. Fortunately, the good reasons outweigh the bad ones. According to internet specialist Kathy Dobson, here are a few reasons why you have to get that Facebook fan page up and running as soon as possible, from a sales perspective:

1.) Online marketing era. The popularity of the internet brings about a lot of changes in the advertising industry. Social media, for one, is something every business should tap into. Facebook has almost a billion users and is increasing by the day. These users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on the site. Now, that is one global audience you wouldn't want to miss with your advertising.

2.) Instant opt-ins. As soon as a person likes your Fan Page, he is immediately opting in to the daily updates you provide via your fan page. This is an excellent way for you to be in constant contact with future buyers.

3.) Customizable. A Facebook fan page is also highly customizable so you have the freedom to personalize it according to your business design and requirements. You can hire someone to create a welcome page, a contact form, or embed additional apps that will make the user experience on your Facebook fan page more pleasant. You can think of your fan page as a second website complementing your money site.

4.) Promotes interaction. Because you can directly communicate with everyone who has liked your page, it is now easier for you to interact with them through discussions, polls, etc. A highly interactive community allows you to build trust with your followers.

5.) Easy to manage. Unlike managing a website, you don't need to have extremely technical skills to get started with a Fan Page. If you already have a Facebook account, you can surely take care of setting up and maintaining your own fan page. Design wise, you may need a designer to help you set things up, but other than that, you are good to go.

6.) Fast indexing. One of the best reasons why you should have a Facebook fan page is the fact that these pages get indexed pretty fast by search engines. Unlike private profiles, these pages can open up a new avenue for you to get new customers.

7.) Availability of statistics. Similar to a website, you can monitor the visitors who have interacted with your fan page. These statistics will be able to help you determine if you need to tweak or get more involved with your fan page or not.

8.) Builds a following. If you manage your Facebook fan page right, you will definitely build a following from people beyond those who have liked your page in the first place. Why? Because every post, video, or link you share on your fan page can be re-shared by them to their friends. In the process, you will be earning new fans from the curious friends who sees their friend liking your posts.

Everybody knows Facebook is huge. Of these hundreds of millions of active users, about half of them daily log onto Facebook. In case you are hard at math, that's between 400 to 500 million people logging onto Facebook every day. You are virtually guaranteed that you will find your customer base inside Facebook increasing the likelihood of prospects trying to engage with your brand. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is now merging closer and closer with social media/Facebook. Here is why you need a Facebook presence from a technical perspective, according to Xavier Media:

Facebook pages are constantly crawled and indexed by all major search engines. This results with Facebook pages, fan pages, and profile pages coming up in the search engine rankings.
In early November 2011, Google announced they now crawl and index Facebook comments. Who would have thought?
As Facebook grows stronger and more a powerhouse in the search world, people are now starting their searches from the Facebook search box.
Every heard of WPO? Web Presence Optimization, and now you have. It's the new evolution in SEO which is about optimizing content across your organization's entire web presence. This is to include but not limited to social media, websites, blogs, press releases, etc. Also known to the hard core SEO veterans as "building a solid linking profile".
This is so important it should be repeated twice. Your target audience is on FaceBook, so why aren't you?
A "like" is now referred to as a link. Want a backlink? Get a "like"!
Guess what, the "liker" is the new "lead" or "contact" for your business. Start profiting from your web presence 100 percent by following up with those "likers" or "leads"!
Bottom line: having a Facebook presence adds backlinks to your website for your optimization.
Easy, easy, EASY! With mobile apps and updated mobile web browsers, Facebook is extremely easily accessible on tablets, mobile phones, and virtually any device that has an internet connection (PS3, Xbox, Wii).
Your competition is on Facebook, why aren't you? Think about it.

Admit it, you may be a Facebook junkie yourself. And the noun has now become a verb. Have your discussions included the question, "I Facebooked the customer, my business partner, a vendor, a contact, etc"?

Having a business presence on Facebook has the potential to increase awareness of your organization to such a broad, diverse audience that you cannot afford to be without an online presence in this phenomenal social media event. Although it is a virtual world, the dollars are real, and so is your presence in the market. Don't listen to the naysayers. Get your virtual life in gear, and get to Facebooking.

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