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11 Replies Last post: Nov 18, 2008 10:29 AM by Santa Fe CPA

Facebook for small business?

Nov 16, 2007 12:45 PM

Click to view batchblue's profile Professional batchblue 9 posts since
Oct 15, 2007
Hello everyone-

Facebook, the social networking site that has been a bit of a media darling as of late, has just begun to allow businesses to post pages within Facebook. In a nutshell, this means you can create an online site for your business, get people to sign up as "fans" of your business, and generate free publicity and even target ads to folks using Facebook's platform.

I'm thinking about writing a blog post about how small businesses can use Facebook and how to set up a page using the application (it's not all that intuitive), but wanted to get a sense of if small business owners would find this useful? Is anyone using Facebook now? Does it seem like it could be an effective part of a low-cost marketing strategy or is it still too new to tell...?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments!

~BatchBlue

Tags: business_start_up, new_business, corporation, corporate_acquisition, ein Report as inappropriate
Click to view LUCKIEST's profile SCORE LUCKIEST 7,935 posts since
Aug 6, 2007
1. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 12:54 PM
in response to: batchblue
Batchblue, Sounds like a great idea. GO FOR IT. How useful to the small business owners would depend
on how it created. Can't wait to see the blog.
Good luck, LUCKIEST
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Click to view agcilantro's profile Start-up agcilantro 1 posts since
Nov 16, 2007
2. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 12:59 PM
in response to: batchblue
I would be interested in your post or blog. I am looking into ways to build brand awareness through online social networking and other avenues, and would definately like to benefit from your expertise in Facebook.
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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
3. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 1:08 PM
in response to: batchblue
I had signed up for a page when it first started allowing business pages. I haven't found it to be very beneficial, but I am curious to see what you find out.
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Click to view Lighthouse24's profile Mogul Lighthouse24 2,396 posts since
Oct 10, 2007
4. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 1:28 PM
in response to: batchblue
I'm purely business-to-business, so not much interest here -- but it sounds like an intriguing alternative for firms with products or services targeted to a Facebook-type demographic. Worth looking into, I think.
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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
5. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 1:33 PM
in response to: Lighthouse24
That might be why it is not worth wild for consultants. Not many business owners in the facebook demographics. Good point Lighthouse, appreciate the comment.
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Click to view Dwaz39's profile Authority Dwaz39 23 posts since
Oct 10, 2007
6. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 2:02 PM
in response to: batchblue

I think there is a market for that, since most Facebookers are college students. I am sure many of them have ideas for businesses but are either to fearful spending alot on development and then failing, or just lacking the funds to develop the business. If they are able to get their idea out through facebook to potential customers for little or no cost, it could be a great market research for them and help them build confidence in their product/idea. I agree with some other posts that the demographic is small, but there is a definite potential there I think. I haven't followed this a ton, but isn't MySpace going to be doing something like this soon?

I am actually on Facebook and a recent college grad with an idea or two for web based business sites and would be interested in hearing how all of this facebook stuff works. I really only have facebook because someone else set it up for me and haven't been on it in probably six months. You can e-mail me at mailto:d_waszak_39@yahoo.com if you want to talk about this.

Dan
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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
7. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 2:06 PM
in response to: Dwaz39
Hi Dan,

I recently just initiated a promotional with the "fans" of my company on Facebook. In order to help college graduates or current students with ideas, we are providing several free services to help them identify the potential in their ideas and see the path they would have to follow to make it a success. We have had a few hits, not many yet, but I will follow up with everyone to let them know how it works out. I feel that there are a lot of good ideas out there that never take off because nobody takes the time to help them to see the potential.

Regards,
CorpCons08
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Click to view Buffalo's profile Mogul Buffalo 171 posts since
Oct 17, 2007
8. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 16, 2007 3:00 PM
in response to: batchblue
My wife has a Facebook page for our business. You can type in "Buffalo Graphix" to see it. She belongs to a couple of networking groups and wants to use Facebook as a means of staying in touch with members of the groups. Each member would have a page and when there was something new going on with them all the other members would find out about it...sales, new services or new equipment...whatever. So it's more of a way of communicating with a select group rather than trying to reach all Facebook users.
I think it's a great way to network with other business people and ya can't beat the price either!
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Click to view GBIntel's profile Mogul GBIntel 37 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
9. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 21, 2007 12:31 PM
in response to: batchblue

Dear batchblue:


Facebook appears more for personal networking than for business networking.


GBIntel

Global Business Intelligence

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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
10. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 21, 2007 12:58 PM
in response to: GBIntel
MySpace seems to be great for networking...
I have received some hits from it.
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Click to view BarryHurd's profile Professional BarryHurd 15 posts since
Nov 22, 2007
11. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 22, 2007 12:59 AM
in response to: batchblue
I run a company ~ SocialMediaSystems which focuses on leveraging social media sites like Facebook.

It is an extremely high-impact area and cost effective depending on the demographic you are shooting for. For almost any demographic there is a growing community or niche- for instance Intuit has a JumpUp.com community, Real Estate has RealTownBlogs.com and ActiveRain.com. Myspace has a few decent groups and active communities in it.

Each community is controlled by different user standards, as is this one here. Some allow quick and easy access in advertising and some require a more social approach. Depending on the way the site is setup, there is even value in search engine marketing based on the profiles and the articles in them.

Rather than focus on Facebook, you may want to look into having a developer assist you with the new opensocial movement launched by Google a few weeks ago that ties into several dozen social networking sites.
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Click to view GBIntel's profile Mogul GBIntel 37 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
12. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 22, 2007 9:46 AM
in response to: BarryHurd
Hello, BarryHurd ..

THANK YOU for your very informative response. Your response will greatly enhance my new marketing program to build brand awareness. I will try each of your suggestions, and report back shorty. On the web developer suggestion, I am definitely going to make investment, because I like motion, sight, sound ... I like engaging websites that live and breathe.

GBIntel
GLOBAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
http://pages.google.com/preview/GlobalBusinessIntelligence/home?authtoken=7bb6cf1d37c3a1227baa026636b166a014810676&no-cache=12302339594522049
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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
13. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 22, 2007 10:46 AM
in response to: BarryHurd
I too would like to thank you for your response Barry. I will review Google to see exactly what they are offering.
Thanks again and Happy Thanksgiving.
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Click to view BarryHurd's profile Professional BarryHurd 15 posts since
Nov 22, 2007
14. Re: Facebook for small business? Nov 22, 2007 12:47 PM
in response to: CorpCons08
You are welcome. The Google page for opensocial is http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/

One of our own developers did a video on it a few weeks ago
http://socialmediasystems.com/11/02/googles-new-open-social-api-will-transform-the-web-sooner-then-you-think/
It is a very hot and debated project right now in the social media realm, every high profile blogger and company looking at working with social media is trying to figure out how to leverage that huge network of sites: including- Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves,
imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.
Unlike Facebook, some of the sites involved in opensocial are very professional oriented destinations.

I also wouldn't recommend that anyone assume Facebook's or Myspace's audience are just young college kids, sure there may be a large percentage of users on those sites that are, but even a 1% user group on Facebook equals 500,000 users. According to Facebook stats "Over 55,000 regional, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks
" are also represented.
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