Facebook is the second most visited site on the Internet and has over 350 million members. The opportunity to connect with your customers and potential clients is enormous, but many businesses and organizations still don’t have a Facebook fan page. Fan pages were created for businesses, institutions, organizations and people (public figures, writers, musicians, artists). Let’s take at look at some of the benefits of having a Facebook fan page.
- It’s free! That’s right, no startup costs or monthly fees. How many other opportunities can you think of to connect and communicate with your customers that are free? (Note: While fan pages are free to create, you should consider that it will take someone’s time and attention in your organization to properly manage the fan page)
- Fan pages are publicly visible. This is good because it allows people that aren’t even members of Facebook to view your page. Google can index the page and include it in search results.
- Fan pages offer stats. You can track metrics such as how many fans you have, age and gender, what country your fans are from, and how many likes, comments and wall posts your fans are contributing. This will help you determine what works and what doesn’t work with the page.
- Gain access to your fan’s stream. Status updates posted to your fan page will show up your fan’s stream. You may be concerned that you are spamming your fans. Don’t worry, they expect it! They want to see your updates – that’s why they signed up.
- Give them the opportunity to interact. Having a fan page provides a place for your fans to engage you and each other, building community. This could backfire if you don’t have a plan for dealing with complaints and negative comments, so be sure to think about that ahead of time.
- You can advertise your fan page. You can spend a little money to have your fan page appear in Facebook ads that are targeted to your selected demographic.
These are a few of the benefits of having a Facebook fan page for your business or organization. What are some other reasons you can think of for having a fan page?
