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Building An Effective Facebook Page

Having a Facebook page is a must for any enterprise looking to use social media to market what they have to offer. Nowadays, having one can increase your business' legitimacy online since it shows that your company actually exists.

While building a Facebook page can be done quickly, building an effective one is actually a work in progress. It will require careful planning and the proper use of Facebook's different features to make it work. To give you an idea how to create an effective Facebook page, here are some of the things you can consider:

Set Your Goals

The first thing you have to do before building an effective Facebook page is to determine what your objectives are. Do you want to sell products? Are you attempting to create a community where you can develop new relationships between customers?

Once you've decided on your goals, you can then fully utilize Facebook without wasting time on features that have no bearing on your marketing campaign. Setting up a Facebook page is easy, even for someone with basic knowledge in computers. Once the page has been created, you and your team can now focus on having the other aspects of your social media strategy align with the page you created to ensure that it generates the results you're looking to achieve.

Make Full Use of the Features

Facebook provides a number of features which you can use once you've created your page. Here are some things to consider doing on your Facebook page:

1. Facebook allows you to post videos in your timeline. Videos are very popular and your best bet to engage your fans. Whether it's a video about an event or a tutorial on how to use your products, if you have videos, post them.
2. Make sure that you enable - and even encourage - customer interaction by allowing people to post feedback on your Wall. This is a great platform for customers to tell you how they feel about your products or services. You can find this feature on your privacy settings.
3. Many companies already upload photos of their products. However, one way to add some excitement and customer interaction to the activity is giving customers the capability to tag photos of themselves using your products to your page.
4. Add a product tab to your page so that fans can view your products and purchase them without having to leave your Facebook page.
5. Get creative by installing custom page apps. Create quizzes, games and other interactive features to keep your customers engaged. Anything that lets your followers hang out and browse your page is a good thing.

With a variety of tools at your disposal, it would be a shame to focus on using only just one feature. Maximize the potential of your Facebook page by using most - if not all - of the features currently available.

Don't Be Blindsided by Likes - Strategize

Don't be misled by the number of “Likes” on a competitor's Facebook page. Your goal shouldn't be limiting yourself to just getting the most number of Likes. Ask yourself - which would you rather have, a small yet highly-targeted audience or a large group of unqualified audience who isn't even part of your market?

Developing a clear strategy will help you focus on the big picture. If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, then the design and features of your Facebook page should reflect this. If you have the budget, consider placing ads on Facebook to help generate more traffic.

When you develop your strategy, keep these elements in mind:

1. Design - Instead of using a traditional layout, you should create a customizable welcome tab or landing page to attract people to your page. There are Welcome apps you can install on your page which allow you to show one design for people who haven't "liked" your page and another for those who have.

2. Promotions - On your website and other advertising media, you should encourage customers to "Like" you on Facebook. You can encourage them by offering special coupons or other incentives which they can avail from your company if they participate.

3. Content - Sometimes too much content can be a bad thing. Flooding followers with numerous updates in a day can turn them off. Don't turn yourself into a TV commercial that people ignore or avoid. Your goal should not be spewing sales pitches to your customers; you should be engaging them in conversations. One or two updates a day is plenty. Instead, focus on addressing your customers' concerns and questions. This will show them that you're willing to be part of the conversation allowing you to build a better business relationship with your clients.

Having a Facebook page is an excellent way to engage your community. However, you need to build it right to make it an effective tool in dealing with your customers. Plus, you also need to interact with them as frequent as you can to build on enhancing customer experience. Once you've done all of that and your customers stay with you, that's the time you can say that your Facebook page is a resounding success.