It's the latest buzzword. You've just got to keep your eyes on the prize: Paying customers. For a friendly, personable company I'd say it's a godsend.
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Need a company formation with registered office and mail forwarding? Tel: 0208 981 5976 | http://www.registeredaddress.co.uk

Facebook for small businesses has numerous advantages. It is a low cost and highly effective way to promote your business. There are many advantages of Facebook for small companies. Advertising here is free with the creation of a fan page or very economical should you decide to advertise on Facebook via CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per impression).
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http://petisto.com/

I think facebook serves as a tool to increase your brand and also get closer to your customers and engage and interact with them on a personal level. This will help to build a following for you and your business.

Over time when you have built up a lot of likes on your fan page you can use it sort of like and email list to send out an occasional offer and keep them updated.

Relationship building basically.

Just throwing ideas out there.

Derek
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http://www.alldaypa.com/telephone-answering-service

I think the question is can a small business actually make a success of Facebook as a marketing tool? Why do so many stall as soon as the page is created? What kind of businesses is Facebook suitable for? Are there any business who definitely shouldn't?

If I see a page with 10k likes it acts as a sort of social proof, but if a company only has one or two likes, is that a negative kind of social proof, and if Facebook is unsuitable for a business, can it actually do more harm.

Discuss :p
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Matthew Adams
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On Facebook, I see the main benefit is one of feedback, knowing what your customers think and why.

As an advertising tool I cant think it would be any more effective than those sorts of people who frequently post on internet forums with negligible content just to push the links in their signature. In fact those people are more likely to damage their business than promote it and they would do a lot better by helping out the genuine posters with their questions rather than making a thin attempt to post "discussions". Not only that but they run a high risk of a moderator just wiping all their posts from day one rather than picking through them one by one to see which are breaking the rules and which are not.

Just saying
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James Smith
Chartered Accountant
www.jamesesmith.co.uk

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Your indispensable guide to Small Business Bookkeeping, Self-Assessment & VAT

Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter is VITAL for any business.

Think there are better tool for small businesses than Facebook. LinkedIn and Twitter would come to mind but it is really how to you use the medium to engage your audience. You need to come up with what you think success will be on the platform you choose to use.

As for actually investing money in Facebook Ads and a like not heard of many small businesses that have received a great deal of success from it; just going off what we've seen on a number of other forums.
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(Accounting Help)
www.accounting-help.co.uk

I think that as long as you have good amount of like's, Followers and so on then it will do some good when it comes to Google ranking etc. Its something that will be taken into account more and more so engaging in these sites from that aspect is key. Facebook for my Business, fancy dress online, will be important. It allows me to be visual with images, share feedback publicly and increase awareness of my company. That in itself is converting into sales. Pinterest is also a great site for visual industries like mine. Anyone in fashion will find this a massive platform for example. Twitter we have found is great for competitions, Getting word out and creating a buzz if you can go viral. If you can get a celebrity to retweet will enhance awareness in minuets which will prove very useful. If used correctly it will only provide good things. Its not easy though
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Matt
Fancy Dress Forever
www.fancy-dress-forever.co.uk

I've seen Facebook be very successful for businesses selling unique or homemade items. Posting photos of new products, offering discounts, competitions and asking questions keeps them in the mind of customers and potiental customers.

But yes I do think its important to gain a number of likes that you feel makes your business look popular enough.

After that you should be connecting, commenting and offering some value to people more likely to actually become a customer/client instead of gaining more and more 'useless' likes.
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>>
Wild Purple Design
Bespoke Website Design
www.wildpurpledesign.co.uk

It really depends on what your business does. It seems that B2C companies do much better on Facebook than B2B, although there are exceptions. Another thing is your target market. An injury lawyer might not do as well as a hotel on Facebook for instance.

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http://smartbusinessguides.net - publisher of easy-to-read business books for beginners

WIth FB, and social networks, any tool you can use to acquire customers at little or no cost has to be a plus. This means you need to take advantage of them, within reason and resources off course.

I think you are exactly right and it goes back to the point I started with that some businesses it can work well for and others not so much.

Some kind of food or drink outlet where you get repeat custom and would benefit from being able to push promotions to interested people, Facebook is great.
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Matthew Adams
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The Facebook Places where people can do a "Check In" is a very good advantage for small businesses.
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Satellite Broadcast Services
and Teleport Services

http://www.singtelteleport.com

<<<< The Facebook Places where people can do a "Check In" is a very good advantage for small businesses.
>>>>

Why?
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Ian

Hi Ian, apart from it being a branding tool, you can build great awareness of your business. If a FB user (friend) visits on a certain location and do a "check in", FB will send a news feed to all the user’s friends. It brings about the aspect of viral marketing. A good way to bring people to your physical location.


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Satellite Broadcast Services
and Teleport Services

http://www.singtelteleport.com

Use of Facebook for businesses should be regarded as a two-way street, rather than conventional marketing where a businesses promotes their product/services to an anonymous and silent audience Facebook allows far greater interaction between consumers and businesses - it is one of the best ways to gain informal feedback which is otherwise fairly difficult to get. For example, posting a facebook survey is a great way for businesses to gain free feedback from their customer base.
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Enterprise Private Equity
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Specialists in Enterprise Investment Scheme, EIS Tax Advantages and EIS Investments

The survey feature can be a great help although again you need sufficient likes to make any results meaning full
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Matthew Adams
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Checkin is a key feature for small businesses as once a Fb user checks in to a site, this will appear on his personal facebook page and will then crop up on the newsfeed of his contacts - this type of brand awareness is more effective than self-promotion as people are more likely to want to sample your products if they are 'recommended' via a friend rather than being told to by the business itself!
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Enterprise Private Equity
www.enterprisepe.com
Specialists in Enterprise Investment Scheme, EIS Tax Advantages and EIS Investments

Agreed. I don't think Facebook fit for all kinds of businesses.

Rather than using Facebook as a selling platform, we use it as a customer service and communication place to maintain the relationship with our customers. And it's also to good marketing place to build our branding.
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Comm100 Email Marketing
http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/

I agree with KateSt on the checkin feature. I would think that Facebook users would be more inclined and more willing to give a business a try if it was 'recommended' via their friend's newsfeed and knowing someone they know actually tried out a business.
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LedgerDocs
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Online Document Management for Bookkeepers, Accountants, and Businesses

Social media is indeed very important for small businesses. If there are a lot of social bookmarks referring to your website, Google will crawl the site more often and this will result in higher position in search results. Whether you choose Facebook, Twitter or Google+ you should post fresh content regularly and try to make a community.

I dont think people really understand facebook and therefore see poor returns on whatever they are trying to achieve.

For the vast amount of users on facebook, they are their to talk and socialise with their friends, family and colleagues. Although facebook ads maybe sometimes can be effective on getting new customers, but thats not always the case.

Then you have the people who belive that a measure of success is by how many fans for facebook page has, but in reality you can have 1000's of fans but if you fail to convert any of them into sales, then how can that be deemed successful.

My point is, you need to do two things in order to make social media work. Have a strategy which clearly defines a measurement of success and think social. Engage with your current customers get them to fan your page during interactions with them. Once they are fans, talk to them as if they are standing in front of you. There are too many facebook pages with almost 'robotic' posts begging for comments and likes. The best way of getting fans is by turning your most engaged customers into promotoers just as you would in the real world.

Facebook is not for advertising it is and can be a highly effective word of mouth tool.

Matt,

I would have to agree with mike1557,

Facebook offers a great, cheap source of advertising to many start-up businesses. Might as well take advantage of a good thing.

Best of Luck,

David
------------------------
LedgerDocs
http://www.ledgerdocs.com

Online Document Management for Bookkeepers, Accountants, and Businesses

I see so many people violating the Facebook “rules” – using their personal page for business, running contests, etc. I finally had to go see Facebook’s policies to see what they say about using personal profiles.

what ever kind of business you are having FB provides you a direct platform for better CRM,
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What i have read recently -

"Utopian Retreats"

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http://goo.gl/gyaqh

As you guys have said, it really depends on the type of business.

Overall I would said that most businesses have the wrong expectations from Facebook, expecting get a lot of conversion out of it. I second the idea that FB is mainly for interacting with your audience and brand building rather than selling products to customers.

I think Facebook could be useful for any kind of business in different ways.

"We feel that Facebook, while a great tool for some business, can actually be bad for others as a Facebook page with few likes provides a kind of negative endorsement." - I think this is not a problem because the ads are not expensive and you could have enough fans without giving a lot of money.
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Tascheva & Partner

As a brand awareness tool it can be excellent. With a userbase of 800million globally there are currently no networks anywhere in the world that has the potential to offer anything near that!

However, as a business owner, if Facebook were to come to you and say Hey.. we are not sure we've got this right. What could we do, what could we offer to make your experience easier, more efficient, get you more sales. What features would you want.

Basically, if starting from scratch what would you want?



Thanks,


Mark.
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www.TheDownLow.com

Without enough likes on your page (in order for those people to see your posts) or with the help of some facebook targeted ads, a facebook page won't bring to much income if you are a startup. At least in our case didn't help too much. Maybe others managed better than us.

But I think it's like you said, a facebook page will do more good for products selling companies rather than services.

Facebook killed e-commere on their site since The TimeLine has come.No one can no longer make the Like before view stuff.
Plus The proliferation of Facebook combined with the continued integration of other ubiquitous social media platforms, including Flickr, Twitter, Youtube as well as common promotional platforms such as Wildfire, ShareThis and Shoutlet, are making brands virtually indistinguishable.
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Web Design
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kataskeyh istoselidon
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You can still do the like before view - you just cant set it to be the first page you see (unless its via an advert)

I have the scripts if you like?
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www.TheDownLow.com

Customers expect to be able to find you on social media these days, particularly Facebook and Twitter. But as you say it needs to be done well or it will detract customers.

This article is useful for Facebook tips: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/tips-tricks-for-your-business-facebook-fan-page/

At Gradwell we find Twitter is much more popular with our customers and potential customers, as you get what you need by just a glance - great for busy people. It's also a lot easier to network on a professional level than Facebook.

In case you're interested in seeing what we're doing:
@GradwellTweets
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gradwell/111074815649740?ref=ts

Twitter is certainly more consumable.

Matt (Happy Gradwell Client)
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Matthew Adams
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