Facebook Launches Guide for Businesses

Facebook has just launched an in-depth guide for businesses, providing guidance and directions for marketing on the social network.  The guide is very much a beginners guide but does provide some valuable information and reminders for even the most seasoned of social media marketing guru’s.

The Facebook for Businesses guide delves into everything you need to get started when promoting your business on Facebook, looking at Facebook fan pages, Facebook ads, sponsored stories and custom apps and plug ins to further your efforts.  Some of my favourite advice in the guide focuses on creating a strategy and plan for your fan page, it is all very easy to get sucked into the social media whirlpool without considering the pitfalls of trying to run a campaign without first planning in advance.  A ‘conversation calendar’ for your whole social media campaign (not just facebook) is a very effective method of sharing important events in your industry and business and sharing them on time, this will ensure that you can always plan content in advance and set resources aside to create the content required, whether that’s blog posts, promotional images, videos etc.  The guide recommends the following advice when creating a fan page strategy:

” Having a plan will help you create an authentic, consistent “voice” for your page, so your fans know what to expect.

Set some goals: Use your goals to shape the content on your Page to ensure it is useful and relevant

Share exclusive content: Post photos, videos, menus or other “sneak peaks” about new products and events

Check your page daily: Set aside 5-10 minutes each day to post updates and respond to comments

Create a Conversation Calendar: This will help you remember when, where and what to post”

This is perfect timing for Facebook especially with Google+ currently considering how businesses can best use the network to promote themselves.