Why is having a Facebook page for your business important?

In a time where social media marketing is the buzzword (no Google Buzz pun intended) it's natural for businesses to ask questions before jumping on board the social media train. Typical questions are: What value does social media provide to MY business? What type of return will I get on my investment? Is it worth my time to learn about social media strategies?

While these are VERY difficult questions to answer, let me illustrate three of the many advantages to social media that may help you understand the value behind having a Facebook fan page for your business. There are advantages to every social network, but having a Facebook fan page provides significant benefits.

Connecting With Your Clients

How does your business communicate with its clients and potential customers? Quarterly newsletter? Maybe you send out an email blast every month telling them what's going on in the office and what's new in the company. Perhaps you don't have any way to communicate with your clients but just hope they will come back to the office because they will eventually need your services.

While newsletters are a good idea and email campaigns can be very effective, you have to be careful not to over do it by sending your clients too much information. If they receive too much information from you too frequently you'll be viewed as spam and you'll loose the purpose of the newsletters or email campaigns, staying in front of your clients.

Enter the Facebook fan page. There are over 400 million people on Facebook and it's consistently growing. Interestingly enough the older demographic (45+) is the fastest growing demographic on Facebook. Chances are your clients are on Facebook, and if they are not, your business can give them a reason to be there. A post on a Facebook page will go to the News Feed of every fan. The news feed is constantly changing so it is not considered as spam. Posting once or twice a day will allow you to put yourself in front of your clients. Not only can you put messages (tips, tricks, deals, calls to action) in front of your clients, you can interact with them on the page wall. Interaction between clients while they are not in the office will surely increase loyalty and probably increase the frequency of visits to the office.

Make Your Business Look More Legit

Marketing is tricky for many businesses. Most know and understand it is important but don't have a HUGE budget like larger companies or corporations. The great thing about Facebook fan pages is that it doesn't require a lot of capital to get started and keep it running. With a small investment you can have a business page up and running that looks just like a company that spends thousands if not millions of dollars on a Facebook campaign. By having a presence on Facebook you provide your business with legitimacy. You are placing your business where people are spending time online and you will look just like a large company.

Search Engine Optimization Results

Lastly, Google just recently announced that all Facebook fan page posts will be available in their real time search results. This means that just staying active on your Facebook page can increase the chance of people searching for you to find you online. Companies pay big money to improve their search engine rankings (you may be one of them) and having a presence on Facebook can improve your chances at being found at a marginal cost. If for no other reason (which would blow my mind because I feel the other two reasons above are more valuable) than to increase your SEO you should start a Facebook fan page and post to it at least once a day. If you already have a blog, your posts on your blog can be automatically posted to your Facebook page, which saves you lots of time.