Facebook page marketing tips

by Joel Turner on November 30, 2009 / 8 responses

Facebook really is first among equals when it comes to social networks. Worldwide around 500,000 new people sign-up every day and the average UK user spends three solid days a year on the site.

The network is a strange mix of public and private, and besides advertising those with pages for their business or organisation need to think creatively about how to attract fans.

Here are a few ideas you can put into practice very quickly and form a good basis for Facebook marketing campaigns.

Think SEO – pages are indexed on search engines so think in terms of SEO for a normal web page. Your page should have the right title and also the right URL. When you have over 25 fans you can claim a vanity URL. Chose wisely as you are stuck with this URL and can’t change it. The profile box on the left-hand side of your page is a good place to post keyword rich copy which is relevant to your title. Also use the Info tab to do the same in the fields allocated for ‘company description’ and ‘company mission’.

Custom landing tab – a great way of capturing non-fans and asking them to invite others, this will appear to all non-fans when they click onto your page. Here is a good guide on how to put one together using the FBML editor. The best landing tabs have a composite image (744×477 is the best size in terms of formatting) that tells first-time visitors where to click to become a fan and also includes brand imagery. This sits above an invite friends box.

Images – upload as many relevant images as you can. Pictures are great content for Facebook pages. Watermark all images before uploading to the page with your company logo or website address (if you don’t have photo editing software use Picmarkr), then make sure each picture has a caption which includes your keywords and website address. Tag people in images, especially non-fans, as this will ensure your picture ends up in their stream with a watermark of your company logo or URL.

Fanbox – you can create a Fanbox by following a link in the Edit Page section of your Facebook page. You can then generate Javascript code which you should embed anywhere you possibly can – including your blog and website. Also include your Facebook page address on email footers, business cards and on your Twitter profile to keep the traffic flowing.

These basic steps are a good start and should start to yield results fairly quickly. You can now move on to more targeted promotional activity like Facebook only offers and competitions for fans, polls and RSS feeds from your news page or blog. Facebook advertising is also coming of age after long being the preserve of spammers and it offers an unparalled opportunity to target users based on demographic data, geographical location and personal interests.

Share your tips in the comments.

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I'm a PR consultant and former journalist with a love of all things internet and social media related, particularly the space within which SEO, digital maketing, social media and online PR meet. I've worked on a range of consumer and corporate accounts, with everyone from SMEs to charities and social enterprises to multinational corporations. Find me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/joelturner