Facebook: A Helpful Tool for Small Businesses

Facebook has proven itself time and time again to be a powerful mode of connecting people to one another. The platform also allows for an unlimited number of people to interact with businesses who create pages on the network. Large corporations have actively taken advantage of the open network of people in order to advertise their product. Corporations have actually begun to create entire divisions specifically to work the social media platforms in order to attract customers to their products. However, The Social Media Workbook has tips for small business owners to also reap the benefits of the seemingly infinite pool of potential customers. The handbook provides a loose outline for the owners of a small business to create a page for their business in terms of how to make the business’ page easily found, that the page corresponds to the goals of the company and how to use other companies’ success to build your own successful page.

This first task that the book outlines for the creation of a page based on the goals of the company. This involves the categorization of the page for the company. The book provides five different types of pages that are common to the social media platform. The pages are categorized by the types of material that is often posted on these pages in order to grab the attention of the viewer. This material includes:

1.        Photos
2.        Friends, Family, and Fun
3.        Games, Social Contest, Groups
4.        Social Causes and Endorsements
5.        News and Commentary

The pages created for companies are encouraged to fall within more than one Category. For example, the Chrysler Automotive Company’s Facebook page is a combination of the photo, group and news categories of the ones outlined by the book. Chrysler uses their page to post pictures of their new product lineup in order to showcase their products, the company has created a niche following of people who have purchased a Chrysler product by posting submitted photos of vehicles in a competition to be in the “Chrysler Club” and also provides news on the development and testing of their new vehicles before they are released to the public for sale. The next step to making a successful business page on Facebook is to make it easy to find using the available search techniques on the platform. The first step is to search for a term that relates to your company in the search bar of the platform. This will help to name or tag the page that you are creating in order to make it easily findable. The second technique is to tailor your page to show up high on the list of a google search. This broadens the scope of people that you are able to reach as well as make it more reachable to your existing audience. The book also recommends that you look at existing pages in order to tailor yours to be more successful. This is important due to the fact that large companies have more resources to commit to their marketing campaigns. Use their breakthroughs and their mistakes to better your social media page better in order to draw more attention to your company. The book encourages that small businesses to actively create Facebook pages for themselves in order to attract more customers as well as encourage them to use proven techniques to make an effective company page.