The New York Times has just published an excellent article called: “How to Market Your Business With Facebook.” Some small business owners have eagerly jumped on the social media trend, while others like to keep it old school with traditional email marketing. But in this economy, entrepreneurs need to be as creative as possible about reaching new audiences while stretching marketing dollars, if you are lucky to have any. Getting to know Facebook is a great way to hop on social media’s runaway train, which shows no signs of slowing.
Of Facebook’s growing cache as a marketing vehicle, The Times states:
A growing number of businesses are making Facebook an indispensable part of hanging out their shingles. Small businesses are using it to find new customers, build online communities of fans and dig into gold mines of demographic information.
“You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are,” said Clara Shih, author of ‘The Facebook Era’ (Pearson Education, 2009). “And with 300 million people on Facebook, and still growing, that’s increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services.”
This two-page primer on Facebook marketing is a must for small business owners, even if you are already a regular visitor to Facebook.com. As social media sites make it possible for the average person to reach thousands of customers through a little online elbow grease, the time to utilize Facebook.com to the full is now.
Do you use Facebook to market your small business? Share your success stories or cautionary tales below.
