Facebook for Business

Its a fact, today's high-speed ease and exchange of information over the internet is revolutionizing the way business is done.  The day's of the self-proclaimed Mom and Dad's type stores will, if not already, diminish into a thing of the past. 

 The quick and efficient online marketing opportunities have opened up doors to cheap, efficient, and target advertising with facebook at its core.

The benefits of using facebook to enhance your business or increase clientele are larger today than ever before.

According to Bells and Whistles, a full Social Media service in Australia, the top five business benefits of Facebook are:

Benefit 1: BRANDING: Facebook is great for creating your bran and instilling it into people’s ideas about you. Creating a brand allows you to be more recognisable in the heavily occupied business world so it is important to be able to stand out.

Benefit 2: CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT: Entice, engage and invite customers to your business with a variety of marketing initiatives—promotions, contests, events, sales, special offers—which can all be advertised on your Facebook page.

Benefit 3: DRIVE WEB TRAFFIC: By including a link to your website on your Facebook page you are encouraging fans, friends or interested parties to visit your website, therefore increasing your web traffic—remember the more people to your website the better.

Benefit 4: REPUTATION MANAGEMENT: Having a Facebook account not only allows you to “speak directly” to your customers but it also allows you to see what they think of you, your business and may offer suggestions for improvement.

Benefit 5: ACQUISITION OF NEW CUSTOMERS: Find consumers who you may never have had contact with previously. Facebook has the ability to open up a new world of customers to you.

(The remainder of the list 6-15 can be found HERE.)

Besides what's listed above, the greatest benefit of all is the fact that Facebook is FREE!  Yes, it costs you as a business owner/entrepreneur absolutely no costs to create a Facebook page for your company.  There are not limits to the number of times you reach out to your fans on facebook informing them of upcoming sales, specials, etc.  There is also no limit to how many people you are able to reach through facebook.  You can gather as many fans as you'd like (if they'll accept), and your not charged for anything!

If you like what you've read, and would like to take advantage of this new and excpetional marketing tool, it's not hard to get started. 

Hubspot.com has a great tutorial that can easily get you started on your own business fan page.  Just click the following link: Getting Started

 

To the left is another video explaining the benefits, and will also walk you through the process of how to enter the correct information for your business.

I encourage any small business owner to give this a try!  After all, what is there to lose? 

Privacy Settings

There are certain things that should not be shared over social networks.  Whether its personal information such as phone numbers, home mailing adresses, or your social security number.  Although most people are aware of this, some are slightly ignorant of the fact that there are people in today's society who will feed off your personal information and make your life a living hell. The majority of social networking sites today have an extensive list of privacy settings that can assist with this. The video below explains the importance of keeping YOUR information to YOURSELF!

Although social networks can increase your "circle of friends" in can also invite people with less than friendly intentions.  OnGuard Online is a website that also describes the negative aspects of social media and the people that are looking to do more than be your "Friend".

As i've stated in my previous blog's, there are many reasons that we shouldn't share personal information with people.  We should also beware of who we add as friends on these networks.  Employers and college professors should be on the DON'T ADD list, for several reasons.  Becoming friends with professors could have a negative affect on your college career.  They may see pictures of you participating in extracurriculars such as drinking, which will give them a negative perception.  Same goes for employers, it's no secret that employers will look at your profile to find out what kind of person you are.

Social Networking as a School Distraction

The modern technology available to college students today can be either greatly helpful and beneficial, or it can be a detrimental distraction.  For the sake of this argument we are going to elaborate on the later of the two.  The portability that a laptop computer offers gives it potential to be a great tool for students.  At the same time however, it gives the students easy access to other sources that are not exactly dealing with the “curriculum”.  Whether it’s Social Networks, YouTube, Email, etc., students have a tendency to get off track during college lectures.  Here is a great link to an article that elaborates more on this issue.

In many college campuses , Professor's encourage students to use their laptop’s to take notes and turn in assignments.  This is not only because of today’s environmentally safe practices, but also because of how much more quickly and efficiently work can be done this way.  What these universities are not accounting for is the ease of a student to be checking his/her Facebook profile instead of typing notes on the lecture.  This creates a mentality amongst students that they don’t need to listen in class.  They know that they can get the class notes later from a friend or off of a campus oriented website such as Blackboard like we have here at NDSU.  This leads to another problem; Cramming for exams.  With all the course materials online, students don’t necessarily have to retain any information prior to the exams.  Students will study for a couple nights before the exam, and once the exam is over, the information is forgotten.  This is one of the primary reasons that college students have proven the inability to retain and learn and significant amount of information.  To the right is a great graph showing the increase in use of Social Networks from college students

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we change back to pre-laptop college campuses. That being said, there are a few things that can be done to improve the statistics for college students.  The first is that Professors should not put there notes online (with the exception of online classes).  Instead, it should be the student’s responsibility to get the notes from a classmate if they don’t attend class.  Second, an increase in the amount of “pop-quiz’s” would make the student cover the material more diligently than just studying when they know they have a quiz. Overall, I believe there needs to be a better use of computers in the classroom, which will in turn increase class participation. 

Social Networking and the Workplace

Social networking has exploded within the last decade.  Many can relate on feeling the need to constantly be up to date on whats happening with family and the friends we surround ourselves with.  I will be the first to admit that I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to this.  However, when it comes to job searching and relationships with others in a workplace, we need to watch what we say!!

The use of social networks in the workplace has been a controversial issue.  By now we as students have all heard the horror stories of how future potential employers will use fake names to either add you as a friend on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. in order to see what kind of a person you are.  On that same note, we have all been warned to be cautious about what we allow people to see on our own such social networking sites.  As college students, it is crucial that we think about what we are saying before we post a comment for hundreds, if not thousands of people will have the ability to see it.

When the opportunity presents itself and we are established within a career, the importance of keeping our negative thoughts to ourselves about our Superiors in the workplace in detrimental.  "Trashing" your boss is sure to have a negative affect on your career path.

Another major issue with social networking in the workplace pertains to relationships with other employees.  Intimate relationships within the company are often frowned upon, and rightfully so.  There are many negative examples of how such relationships complicate your job. 

If things go wrong withing these relationships, one of the worst things a person can do is make it a public affair.  By this I'm talking once again about using social networks to talk badly about the other person in the relationship.  A PRIME EXAMPLE of this can be found on CNN's website where a man has relationships with several employees within his office.  After things went wrong he felt the need to go public with them and chaos followed.  We would think that by now it's common sense to keep such issues to ourselves, or in the very least not on the internet for everyone to see.