Here are ten reasons to be active on Facebook:
Meet your peers
Facebook is not just for college kids anymore. Members are typically older and more mature than on other sites, and there are more white collar users.
Find business contacts
With over 150 million active users, and predicted to be 500 million by 2011, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, your strategic alliances… and, of course, your competitors. You need to be on too.
Instant gate opener
Because so many Facebook members enjoy using the platform and tend to log in on a regular basis, you can easily begin a dialog with highly successful–even famous–people who were previously otherwise unreachable.
Build relationships
Facebook members are open to connecting. By engaging in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.
Raise visibility
By posting relevant information regularly, you can consistently appear in the News Feed of your strategically chosen friends and, as a result, significantly increase your visibility and credibility as an expert in your area.
Develop your personal brand
The lines between business and personal have become blurred. You can reveal as much or as little about yourself as you wish, allowing you to personalise your brand. You don’t have to live in a glass house though; it’s important that you protect your private life.
Target your niche
Users volunteer vast amounts of information about themselves on Facebook that you can readily access. These kinds of demographics, psychographics, and technographics would previously have cost fortunes to access. Author, John Battelle, calls Facebook a “database of intentions.”
Get rapid top Google placement
Facebook has a special free feature specifically for businesses called “Pages,” which are different from your personal Profile. (Click on the link at the very foot of Facebook.com for “Advertising.”) Pages get indexed, providing optimal search engine positioning as Facebook is currently the fifth most trafficked website in the world, according to Alexa.com.
Place targeted ads
With Facebook Social Ads, you can run a series of extremely targeted advertising for minimal cost and increase your visibility. Facebook Social Ads may have a slightly lower click-through rate than likes of Google Adwords, however, these ads are great for directing users to your Facebook Business Page, for example.
Free marketing
Aside from paid ads, Facebook is totally free to use and with regular activity you’ll end up with more traffic, more subscribers, more paying clients – and possibly coveted media attention too.
