If you’re not taking advantage of all the amazing features that Facebook offers for promoting your business, reaching your target audience and helping to build a following for your brand, you need to consider the multitude of perks that a Facebook business page can offer you. Here’s a Superhero guide!

From fast and easy setup to simple content creation and sharing, highly targeted advertising and the ability to sell your products directly from your Facebook page, when used properly you can harness all the power of the largest and most active social network in the world and put it to work to help you build your venture.

Why Use Facebook?

As the biggest and arguably the most important social media platform online, Facebook is not only enormous, it’s growing; with over 1.28 billion monthly users, a number which increases by approximately 15% per year (Facebook), this platform is vital for businesses that want to get attention.

Facebook fan pages are a brilliant way for businesses of all sizes and across all industries to engage in quality conversation with their customer-base in an effort to increase brand loyalty, handle customer interaction and truly get a feel for what it is your customers really want.

When you start a Facebook business page and start marketing to your audience, you’re opening up a world of potential for your venture and reaching out in a direct and targeted way to consumers all over the world; at the time of writing the most substantial demographic on the platform is adults between the ages of 25 and 39, which make up 29.7% of the platform’s users; 53% are female while 47% are male.

We’ve put together a list of four incredible ways that a formidable Facebook presence can benefit your business:

Branding

When creating a Facebook page for your business, you’re given the opportunity to set up your page according to your own specific branding specifications, from logos to taglines and any other visible features that are directly unique to your brand.

Building your brand presence can be quick and easy as long as you’re sure to put in the effort; from engaging your audience through genuine and fun communication to running contests and giveaways based on page likes, there are a variety of great ways to encourage your fans to follow your brand, which means far more visibility for your venture.

Content Creation and Sharing

Developing and sharing great content with your Facebook fans is so easy; whether you’re linking directly to your business blog or sharing things through your page, Facebook makes it easy to reach out to your audience and share your thoughts and ideas.

As with any marketing platform where you can establish a firm and authentic relationship with your customers, valuable interaction is a wonderful way to establish yourself as a thought leader and set a trend toward the use of your brand; the network’s enormous volume of users also packs the added punch of making it possible to take your brand viral, and many a happy company have established a very firm online presence this way.

Facebook Advertising

Chances are, whatever your business offerings, the insane amount of traffic on Facebook means that if you’re managing your business page well and connecting with your audience, you’re bound to begin building a lucrative presence.

That being said, Facebook advertising is a wonderful tool for those businesses who find themselves needing a bit of a boost in traffic; from being highly cost-effective, capable of reaching the largest Internet audience in the world and extremely flexible as far as specific targeting options, Facebook advertising is one of the most amazing advertising options out there for businesses today and those businesses that aren’t taking advantage of it are missing out.

The Ultimate Shopping Cart
The integration of a shopping cart technology with the Facebook platform was a pretty happy thing for many businesses; fast and easy to set up and manage while keeping things lightweight and intuitive for customers, the shopping cart functionality allows businesses to sell their products directly from their business page.

With the sheer number of users on the network, the opportunity to set up a Facebook shop and manage your sales with little to no extra work is an incredibly valuable opportunity that no business should be missing out on.

Now that we’ve covered some of the best reasons to use Facebook to cover your business, what are some of the best practice guidelines you can use to make sure you garner lots of positive attention?

The following tips will help make sure your business is represented to your Facebook fans in the best possible way:

• Use Images:  It’s vital to use relevant and interesting images on your fan page in order to draw attention from your loyal fans; the timeline feature is very image-oriented as it helps give your customers a visual idea of who you are and what your business is about, helping them bond with you and your venture.
• Choose a Great Cover Photo:  Studies have shown that the Cover Photo spot is by far the most perused area on your page, so be very careful to choose an image that captures the essence of your brand and helps your customers feel as though they can identify with you; cover photos with faces are the ones that get the most loyalty and attention so be sure to post a great cover photo that shows off some of your wonderful staff!
• Pin your Best Posts:  With the wonderful new feature that makes it possible to pin your best posts to the top of the page, you can highlight any content you like; while social media is a wonderful thing, it does tend to present users with an enormous variety of images and information to sort though and by pinning your most valuable content you can help users sort out very quickly what they should be looking at first.
• Use Your Insights:  Facebook insights offer a valuable suite of relevant insights into your visibility and exposure and these tools can go a long way toward helping you figure out what you need to tweak next; from the total number of people who are talking about your page to the number of friends your fans have which translates to your potential visibility, using your insights is a brilliant way to keep up on how you’re doing.
• Add Milestones:  Adding milestones is another way to let your fans feel as though they’re truly connected with your brand; from your grand opening to the most important events in the progress of your venture, using milestones in your timeline, complete with images, will help fans feel connected to your success while humanizing your efforts.

There are myriad ways that using Facebook to promote your business will benefit your venture, from a uniquely personal way to interact with both existing and potential clients to the ability to specifically target your chosen demographic and the excellent support the Facebook team shows to businesses the world over.

By using these best practice tips to enhance the Facebook performance of your business, you’ll not only reap the full benefits of your Facebook page, you’ll help fans get a genuine feel for your brand, and that’s something that’s worthwhile for any venture!