The 50 Best Tips for Small Businesses on Facebook

As a small business, you may have heard what a great tool social media, and Facebook in particular, is for a business like yours. Of course, you can't just plunge headfirst and expect incredible outcomes. Learn from these seasoned pros to find out how you can master your small business presence on Facebook.

General

Here you'll find great tips for all areas of Facebook.

1. Show personality: People want to interact with a real person, not a robot.
2. Commit to the idea: Know that connecting with customers can sometimes be hard work and take time, but it will pay off.
3. Manage your expectations: Set realistic goals for your social media work.
4. Be persistent: You won't see a great reward from Facebook right away, but by sticking with it, you'll be able to build an active customer base.
5. Import contacts: Import contacts from your email accounts to collect friends and fans.
6. Choose your target: Plan who you want to reach with your Facebook presence.
7. Create a vanity URL: Make your Facebook Page easy to find with a vanity URL.
8. Promote your Facebook identity off of Facebook: Put a "Like" button on Facebook, share it on your website, blog, and Twitter.
9. Get feedback: Ask fans for feedback on Facebook.
10. Give people a reason to engage with you: Post information that calls for interaction.
11. Make time: Set aside 30 minutes to an hour a day that you'll use to work on your business page.
12. Be careful not to violate Facebook terms: Learn about the Facebook platform and avoid violating terms by not running contests or tagging people without permission.
13. Don't get moody: Keep a cool head when posting and responding on Facebook.
14. Designate a social media updater: Find a specific person in your organization that will be responsible for updating Facebook.
15. Connect with existing customers: Instead of trying to use Facebook to find leads, build better relationships with your existing customers.
16. Don't just broadcast: Remember that you need to interact and follow up with fans who comment on your posts.
17. Don't sell: Be careful not to push sales on Facebook-use it as more of an interactive tool.
18. Don't overdo it: Don't spend hours upon hours a day maintaining and interacting on Facebook, just stop in once a day at most.

Pages

Use these tips to better develop your Page on Facebook.

19. Create a Page, not a profile: Separate your business page from your personal page and make a more interactive storefront with Pages.
20. Fully develop your page: Add images, your website, company info, and other items to make sure you've filled in all the blanks.
21. Post photos of customers and tag them: Make sure your business shows up on the pages of the best customers by sharing photos of them with personal tags.
22. Don't just post during business hours: Post to Facebook outside of business hours to get more feedback and impressions.
23. Do cross promotions: Ask clients to post tagged photos of themselves with your product and share them on your page.
24. Subscribe to other Pages first: Check out other pages to see how businesses add content and interact with fans.
25. Appeal to core clients: Identify the people that interact on your page the most, and work to share information and content with them directly.
26. Use participatory promotions: Target Facebook fans with participatory promotions.
27. Offer a forum: Turn your fan page into a place where customers can express themselves.
28. Share success stories: Ask your customers to discuss how you've helped them on your page.
29. Share exclusive content on Facebook: Give Facebook fans something they might not find on your blog or website.
30. End with questions: Generate engagement by ending your posts with questions.
31. Don't be boring: Mix up what you're sharing so it's not all status updates, or all photos, or all videos.
32. Build a Facebook landing page: Create your own mini website within Facebook by using FBML.
33. Send suggestions to friends: Facebook pages allow you to send suggestions to friends, so remind them periodically and when you connect with new friends.
34. Offer loyalty rewards: Reward customers for checking in, adding a "Like" to your page, or mentioning Facebook.
35. Add content before you broadcast: Before you add friends or advertise your page, be sure to add photos, videos, events, and other content to get new fans interested.

Apps

These apps and app ideas will help you make better use of Facebook's capabilities.

36. List events: With the Events app, you can invite clients and gather awareness for your event.
37. Integrate your Twitter feed: Install applications that will let you push your Twitter feed onto your Facebook Page.
38. Use Facebook Connect: Add social networking features to your website using Facebook Connect.
39. Add a store: Use Facebook's Marketplace capability to sell your product on Facebook.
40. Claim your business on Facebook: Make sure to claim (or create) a Place check in for your business.
41. Use the Questions feature: With Questions, you can engage your fans and get answers on your page.
42. Join Groups: Join network, industry, and alumni groups related to your business.
43. Encourage check-ins: Offer a special to customers who check in to your Place on Facebook, and you'll be in your fans' news feeds.
44. Syndicate your blog: Use apps that will allow you to auto-post to your Page any time you write on your blog.

Ads

With these tips, you can get the most out of Facebook's ad platform.

45. Tell people what's in it for them: Explain what you have to offer when people click your links.
46. Pay attention to targeting: Run campaigns with a very specific audience for a better price and relevance.
47. Check out the graphs: Facebook does a pretty good job of reporting impressions, so pay attention to how well your campaigns are doing.
48. Do lots of testing: Run tests and find out what really works for you with Facebook ads.
49. Time it carefully: Plan your campaign for a specific period of time, and one that you know will be well targeted.
50. Make your ads pop: Be irreverent and avoid traditional copy-speak to connect better.

This reprint is copied from bschool.com.

Thank you, Rose King.