Facebook: A Powerful Marketing Tool

On Christmas Day Facebook became the most visited site in the US on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, according to Hitwise. This is the 1st time a site has surpassed Google as being the most visited site in a day. Such is the power of Facebook.  A quick look at the statistics tells me that Facebook now has over 350 million active users and 50% log into Facebook on any given day.

With those sort of numbers, Facebook has become a powerful tool for marketers to harness. It provides one of the best low cost options for marketers. It excels at connecting friends and people with common interests together.   The trouble is that many companies still don’t understand the power of Facebook and are reluctant to become involved.  Why? There are are number of reasons but two of the biggest are:

1. Companies are fearful that they will lose control of their marketing. Marketing is now in the hands of your potential or actual customer.
2. There is a business cost to hire staff to monitor and respond to comments on Facebook.

The fears and concerns are valid.  However, by not playing in this space companies are missing out on a powerful opportunity to connect and engage with consumers. This fear and the reluctance to join in a social conversation creates a wonderful opportunity for smaller and start up businesses to start up a conversation and build trust providing they play by the new rules of engagement. Some stunning upsets will occur in this new world of social media networking. Brands better be prepared and should start to consider how they join in and be part of the community.

Some powerful tools within Facebook that are relevant to marketers include:

1. Profile – Setting up a profile with strong keywords in the interests section of your profile
2. Groups – you can join or create groups
3. Pages – you can create pages and users can become fans, you can also become fans of other pages. Pages can also be used as a powerful viral marketing tool as they appear more prominently on peoples profiles
4. Events – this feature can be used to push marketing events, product launches, sponsored gathering
5. Advertising – there are a number of ways to advertise on Facebook.  There are 2 main ways – via the news feed and via using ads.
   • The New Feed
     • Posting items from external sites
     • Posting items with the Share on Facebook button
     • Posting items from Partner Websites
   • Using Ads
     • Click through ad
     • Social Ads

The main benefit of using Ads on Facebook is that you can target demographics with unparalleled precision. No other advertising medium I know of comes as close to Facebook in terms of demographic precision.  The benefits of this are enormous if you have an in depth understanding of your target audience.

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