Facebook marketing: Why small businesses and organizations should have a presence in facebook

Currently, facebook has around 509,422,080 users worldwide. About 132,810,940 people in the U.S. are using facebook – that means facebook is being used by more than 43 percent of the U.S. population and about 58 percent of U.S. Internet users.
The rate of female and male facebook users in the U.S. is about 44 percent male to 56 percent female facebook users.
24 percent of facebook users in the U.S. are between 25 and 34 years old, another 24 percent are between 18 and 24, 17 percent between 35 and 44, 13 percent between 45 and 54, only seven percent between 55 and 64 and about six percent between 16 and 17 years old.

The brand with the most users in the U.S. currently is Taco Bell, with more than 2.3 million fans. Followed by Playfish, with about 2.2 million fans, Walmart with 1.6 million fans, Best Buy with almost 1.2 milllion fans, JCPenney with 945.00 fans, Verizon Wireless (925.000 fans), Southwest Airlines (913.000 fans), Six Flags (618.000 fans), AT&T (586.000 fans), and Macy’s (almost 500.000 fans)

(sources: checkfacebook.com, facebakers.com)

But what does all that mean for you as a small business, freelancer or organization?

Through facebook you get the possibility, to distribute news of your organization or company fast and easy. New products can be presented and tested. You can also share interesting news, links or videos with your “fans”. Your fans can also get in contact easily with you. And all this you can get for free. You can also create a facebook page easily.

On facebook, you can also run ads (with costs), to promote your facebook page, website or your online shop.

Also check, what your competitors are doing on facebook. If your competitors have facebook pages already, this could be a reason for you to get such a page as well.

Update your facebook page is much easier and faster than keeping your company’s or organization’s website up-to-date. However, you should make sure to keep your facebook page as up-to-date and relevant as possible. Of course, this can be a lot of work, as you will have to think about contents to post and what to answer to your fans’ questions.

Facebook (and other social networks as well) offers a lot of possibilities for small businesses and organizations.
However, it is also possible for people to damage your name and reputation.

In future, facebook will probably continue to grow and also gain relevance in advertising and communication.
As business or organization with a small budget, you have the opportunity to reach out and connect to more (potential) customers or members world wide.
There will also be new possibilities every now and then, since facebook is developing over time.

Does it really make sense for you as a busy business man/woman or director of an organization to jump into facebook marketing?
I can’t give you an anwer to this question ... you will have to find your for yourself.



If you should decide to start a facebook page for your organization/business, here are a few tips to make your facebook presence succesful:

• Post relevant contents. Contents that do not have any benefit (information, additional knowledge, entertainment ...) for users or your fans are useless.
• Encourage interactivity – through involving your fans in decisions. You can also test new products with the help of your facebook fans.
• Take your fans’ feedback seriously and act appropriate.
• Keep your facebook page up-to-date.
• Add new content to your page on a regular basis.
• Look at what your competitors are doing. Knowing this can be very helpful – it might give you new ideas.

Your online reputation: How to monitor yourself or your company on the Internet

A reputation can be easily damaged - especially on the Internet. Therefore, you should always check what appears online about you or your company/organization on the Internet.

Simply google your name and see what you find on the online. Then google the name of your company/organization. Also google your website to find out if and where it is mentioned. Additionally, you should enter your name, your company’s/organization’s name on Twitter to find out whether someone twittered about you.

This way, you can find out what others are saying about you or your company/association. You can also find out if your work or your business name is used (without your permission).

You should set up a Google Alert, so you do not always have to google your own name. You will be sent an email as soon as Google finds something on your search term.

If you find that someone uses your information, data or work without your permission, spreads negative information about you, you can either ignore it and hope that the person fails to do so in the future. You can, of course, confront the person directly, and also ask why she/he did it. A third possibility is to get professional help. There are firms or lawyers, who specialize in such cases and know what to do.

Do not forget to check again, what is distributed through online about you and make sure that your image does not suffer.

Effective online marketing

Online or Internet marketing is becoming increasingly important - not just for online businesses, but also to any other companies.

To run effective online marketing, you should note the following:

• Spend a lot of time on the Internet and try to learn as much as you can about online marketing.
• Take part in debates in Internet forums and state your website. This will help you to get search engine traffic to your website.
• Try to find out how your customers find you - through acquaintances, Google search, by chance?
• Define your target audience and align your website, as well as your complete marketing.
• Your website should be different from their competitors' websites. Do not bore your clients with information, photos or products they have seen everywhere else.
• Your website should contain useful information for your customers - about your company, your products, your services. Offer tips or newsletters to your customers so that they will come back to your website from time to time.
• Your website should show clarity. The navigation should be clear - you should give up using different levels.
• If you sell products through your website you should have a secure order page.
• To ensure that your website is found by search engines, you should have so called "back links"- links from other websites to your website.
• Try to find out which new opportunities there are in online marketing and how to use them.
• Hold on. Do not give up too quickly. It takes time until you are able to see results of your online marketing.

Budget-friendly photos for your advertising

Many small businesses and associations often have no budget for images for advertising, such as flyers or websites. But photos do not always have to be expensive.

When downloading photos from the Internet, Google Images seems like a great chance to get free material. However, you must be aware that these photos are copyrighted and therefore should not be used on promotional materials. Moreover, these photos were mostly optimized for the Internet and therefore the quality is not sufficient to have them professionally printed.

Therefore, you should draw back on photo pages, which let you have artwork with user licenses. On the following pages you can download pictures with an inexpensive license: www.pixelio.de, www.freedigitalphotos.net, www.morguefile.com, www.imageafter.com, commons.wikimedia.org, www.photocase.com.

When using images other than your own, you should always ensure that you purchase a license and may use the photos on printed material.

Research yourself on the Internet

Often it is helpful to know where and how you stand on the Internet, that means what data can be found about you on the world wide web. Good websites that you can use to check your status are the following: www.google.de, www.yasni.de, www.stalkerati.de, www.spock.com, www.wink.com. Of course, you can also do research on other people.

Never put information of yourself online, that you would not give out to someone you do not know very well. Everything you put on the Internet can be found by anyone. The more you disclose about yourself, the more transparent you become.
Also, remember that the Internet does not forget anything. Even if you believe you deleted something, the data is further stored on a server somewhere in this world and people will continue to have access to this data.

Your digital image plays a large role on the Internet, as well as on the outside. For example, if you apply for a job, then you can be sure that the company you applied to did some research on you on the Internet. If something negative is among the information, this could mean that your application will not be pursued.

Of course you can also control what is available on the Internet about you. You can provide nspecific information about yourself online. If you are expert in a particular subject area, you can post in relevant forums on this topic or comment on the contributions of other users.

Viral marketing – word-of-mouth on the Internet

Viral marketing is a form of advertising where customers voluntarily speak about the product or the advertising measure. Consumers for example tell their neighbors or their colleagues about it. On the Internet the advertising message then spreads like a virus. However, this type of advertising is difficult to control, as the clips have to be well made in order for consumers to talk about them. Most of the clips are one thing above all: entertaining. The product or brand steps to the background.
Often companies camouflage their blogs and video clips so they are not directly identifiable as advertising. If, however, it turns out that it is disguised advertising of the manufacturer, companies often suffer brand damage.

The most popular video on YouTube with the topic of viral marketing (about 2.926.786 hits) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkTDDeuytM8




Example: Viral marketing campaign of a Swabian business (about 743.798 hits)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj5_pSwJ0Ao

Marketing and PR

"If a young man meets a girl and tells her what a great guy he is, then it’s advertisement. When he tells her, how beautiful she looks, it's promotion. If she decides to take him, because she has heard from others that he is a great guy, it’s public relations. "/ Alwin Münchmeyer

On the Internet nowadays marketing and public relations cannot be separated anymore. Beyond the Internet, however, many companies still have a marketing department and a separate PR department.
Through the Internet, especially blogs and Internet communities, boundaries between marketing and PR dissolve. Therefore, it is important for companies to recognize that marketing and PR go hand in hand now.