Social Media Marketing Using Facebook

It would be difficult not to notice the magnificent growth of Facebook over the last few months. It has more than 500 million active users, across the globe. Using Facebook as marketing tool properly, can help you establish a relationship and credibility with a large number of people who in turn may visit your website and purchase your products and services.
If you want to focus on one thing on Facebook, I would highly recommend to create a Facebook page, instead of a group. The advantage of Facebook fan pages (in terms of SEO) is the fact that they are indexed by Google.


Here are few simple steps to take for Social Media Marketing:
1. Create a Fan Page: The first step is to Create a Fan Page. Choose proper category for your business and a relevant title and add a brief but detailed description of what your website/product is all about.
2. Invite People: Next, initially you will have to invite people to your page. Here, either you can select your existing Facebook friends. It is highly recommended that you choose to add a “Personal Message” to your invite and not just with a standard invite notice; it raises the chances of people accepting your invite. Another option is to invite via email, where you can import your contacts and send the invite to everyone in your email address book.
3. Regular Status Update: It is very important to update your status regularly to increase fan base, with interesting and relevant posts, add catchy images, if possible. Ask questions, create quizzes, discussions etc. The main advantage is that if a fan likes or comments on the post, it is posted on their friend’s wall as well, who in turn, may also join your page. And this is the way it goes viral. But remember, do not spam your fans with status updates because it may annoy them and may stop being a fan(which is definitely not good!)
4. Discussion Boards: The other great thing about Fan Pages is the Discussion boards. Create a discussion topic (even if it doesn’t match your page’s content), which people would like to respond to and give them incentive to discuss the topic. Every time anyone talks on a discussion topic on your Facebook Fan Page, it will send a notice to their profile “wall” saying they have participated in a discussion on *topic title* at *Fan Page name*. This also attracts people to your page!
5. Promotional offers and Giveaway: You could also promote your page by providing some sort of giveaway, in case you are not a major brand. Once you get fans, you can send updates about your product.