Although Facebook’s initial intention was to connect and share on a personal level, B-to-B companies for the most part have a hard time using Facebook as part of their overall marketing program. Here are some facts to consider:
People on Facebook
- More than 500 million active users
- 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- Average user has 130 friends
- People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
So what does this mean to the B2B community? It means that many of the same people who are currently on Facebook could possibly be customers or potentials for your products. The question is, why aren’t you taking advantage of them? The best way is through the fan page, and I recently read a post by Dave Folkens from Top Rank on 5 Tips on Better Facebook Marketing for B2B Companies that I thought outlined some simple things to take advantage of the fan page. Here are some highlights:
- Create a two-way conversation – You need to engage people, so don’t always talk at them and push out news. Listen and give them content and insight that will help them.
- Connect community – Give your fans a place to come together and share.
- Build relationships – People buy from folks they know, like and trust. According to a survey from Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate, customers are more likely to buy from companies they follow on social media.
- Cross promote – You can’t have all the answers nor should you. Use Facebook to share interesting articles about your industry.
- Make things sharable – Make content interesting and fun. What we really want is to have people share.
So if you currently have a blog and want to repurpose your content, this is a good way to do that and build your Facebook fan base at the same time.
What are you doing to build your fan page?
