You have a business telephone number, an e-mail address, a Web site and even a blog. So should you also have a Facebook profile? Probably YES.
The essential principles of business haven't changed much in a couple of thousand years: develop a great product or service and find people to buy it.
Assuming you've got the goods, the next big challenge is traffic. The more people who pass by your stall, Main St. storefront or megamall spot, the more business you'll do.
It's the same online. Eyeballs mean money. Just ask Google. Or better yet, ask Facebook. With more than 80 million active users, it's the sixth most-trafficked Web site in the world and the number two social media site globally, behind MySpace's 100 million-plus users.
So when Ean Jackson looks at the Facebook phenomenon, his first question is "how can I make money from this?" Jackson, an angel investor and faculty member at Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia and the University of Phoenix, is also president of Analytics Marketing, a consultancy catering to start-ups and other growing ventures.
Most of the activity thus far, Jackson said, has been around a younger demographic where status is accorded by the number of friends users have and where most of the chatter consists of mindless but mostly harmless details like parties, break-ups, make-ups and other social flotsam and jetsam.
But the Facebook profile is changing as an older demographic logs on, if only to see what their kids are doing. Businesses, too, are being drawn into the conversation, some simply dipping their toes in the pool to see what it feels like, while others are actively exploring strategies to generate revenue.
Currently more than half of Facebook users are outside of college and its fastest growing demographic is people 25 and older.
That's quite a crowd, and deep in there somewhere, Jackson said, is the pot of business gold, though he admits it's early days yet in nailing down a winning formula. He has, however, started to assemble a guidebook on the business use of Facebook. The real money, he said, is not "just selling the picks and shovels to the miners but in creating real value. This is a green-field opportunity."
Just as businesses quickly gravitated to the telephone, fax, Web, e-mail and, in some cases, blogs, Facebook is an opportunity to communicate with a target audience, to meet them on their own terms. The obvious way is to simply create a Facebook page, but it still takes work to keep it fresh and relevant. The more tried and tested path for businesses seeking to get in on the action is a series of tools offered by Facebook in the form of advertising banners, applications and quizzes.
According to Chris Breikss, director and co-founder of marketing company 6S, the starting gun sounded last November when the site formally encouraged small businesses to start a Facebook presence. By creating a corporate Facebook page, customers can add themselves as "fans" (rather than as "friends" on personal pages), write on the virtual wall, upload photos and form discussion groups with other fans. Companies can also send their fans news updates or special news and add applications to trick out the page.
Advertise yourself
And then there are Social Ads, which can be attached to news feeds or on the site's Ad Space. "You can get good results with a campaign spending as little as $1,500, even as low as $50 in some cases, since the advertising is on a pay-per-click basis," Breikss said.
Since the ads can be targeted by geographic, demographic and other factors like hobbies or interests, it's a powerful tool to carve out a specific audience and something Citizens Bank of Canada experimented with last RSP season. "We don't have a huge brand profile in Canada and we don't have the resources of the big banks," said Maureen McCartney, the bank's Web marketing manager. She tried three different ads and found a quirky video explaining RSPs in very un-bank like tones to be the most successful in targeting Canadians 28 to 50 years old. It was good value for money, she said, because the data on who clicked on the ads is also rich and detailed and is about a third of the cost of Google ads.
The bank is going to advertise on Facebook again for their next project, hockeystars.com, which is aimed at youngsters playing the game and will let them post stats and create personalized hockey cards.
When launching a Facebook page, McCartney cautioned that ongoing effort is required. "You need the resources" to support a page, she said, something Breikss endorses strongly, noting many businesses and brands are probably already being discussed by Facebook users so they might as well put up a page as well.
"It takes about 30 hours a month," he said. He also suggests taking a personal approach: Facebook isn't a Web page, so get a little edgy and have some fun.
One of 6S's clients in this space is Earl's Restaurants, a chain of eateries based in western Canada and Colorado, which recently opened up in Mississauga, west of Toronto.
"There were already about 100 Earl's-related groups on Facebook," he said. "And one of the things [restaurants] used their Facebook pages for was recruiting staff, and it was very successful."
Promote yourself
Facebook pages are also extremely effective at promoting events, Breikss said, and in many ways Facebook has already usurped Evite as the medium of choice to announce parties. As such, it's a great tool for new product launches, special promotions and any other news announcements.
The key to understanding Facebook is to look beyond what it appears to be, said Michael Fergusson, chief product officer at Kinzin.com, a Vancouver subsidiary of telecom company Uniserve Communications. While it started as a straightforward social networking site, it has since grown into a platform with more than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs who have created 24,000 Facebook applications and who add new apps at a rate of 140 a day. Approximately 95 per cent of Facebook users employ at least one of these add-on apps.
For users, the apps are mini-programs customized for Facebook which allow people to share values, ideas, events, videos—just about every aspect of their virtual lives. Since Facebook is an open platform, developers are constantly writing new code and, with more businesses coming in, the Facebook off-the-shelf solutions are valuable. Restaurants, for example, can simply add an online order or reservation function to their page, something which would be more problematic with a standard Web site.
Mine that data
Kinzin, Fergusson said, is focused on two functions: tying Facebook and the social media concept of sharing to other media such as e-mail and snail mail, and secondly, writing apps that mine the rich demographics of the user base to uncover valuable nuggets of information.
While the initial demographic of Facebook users skews young, there are many others in the users' family and friends group—their etribe—who aren't on Facebook for a variety of reasons.
Kinzin seeks a subscriber base which amplifies any posting of a picture or news on a Facebook page into a broadcast via other media, such as e-mail, IM or even snail mail, the latter designed for grandma who doesn't have a computer but still wants the latest pictures of her grandkids.
The other revenue stream is in the creation of apps like Are You Normal?, a simple five-question survey which can be programmed with questions around morality, sexual behaviour and ethics, and spreads virally so respondents can determine, anonymously, how their own responses rate with the majority.
But as Fergusson said, the questions are the sharp end of a data mining drill that can extract much more than the obvious. With some 900,000 users who have taken these polls, Fergusson and his team built a database of values reflected by Facebook users who, while anonymous, still have unique demographic tags. "I can tell you we have 100,000 people under 20 who are religious conservatives, believe in God, vote Democrat but think recreational drugs are okay," he said.
Kinzin creates revenue by having companies interested in the data sponsor the polls, a market research tool which he claims is more insightful than the traditional process of screening panellists and assembling them in a room.
First, he said, it's a wider base; second, it takes less time than even telephone polling.
What Facebook has done is tap into the genetically wired human need to socialize and share while at the same time giving users a set of tools customized to their needs. But Jackson pointed out that buying ads, launching a page and maintaining it are the simple steps. Creating a community, a viable etribe of "fans" who act as viral agents to support and promote your business, is a tough step forward and, as of yet, there's no magic solution.
That doesn't mean he's given up looking. He is preparing another International Internet Marketing Association (IIMA) seminar on all this in Vancouver, since the initial event in May was such as success with participants like McCartney and Fergusson. And you can point to Facebook itself for the response. When he first announced the seminar, the response was lukewarm. Then he posted it on his Facebook page and it took off.
"We sold out and got in trouble with the fire department because we had too many people in the room," Jackson said. "We got so much response we're holding a second one this October."
SIDEBAR
Facebook's own resources
The site wants businesses on board and has created a number of how-to resources.
If you want to... Visit
Create a business page www.facebook.com/business/?pages
Build a Facebook app http://developers.facebook.com/
Advertise on Facebook www.facebook.com/business/?socialads
Monitor your Facebook traffic www.facebook.com/business/?insights
Conduct consumer research www.facebook.com/business/?polls
Face time: businesses on Facebook
Ean Jackson doesn't claim to have completely cracked the business code for Facebook, but he has lots of good ideas. The International Internet Marketing Association (IIMA) event on Facebook for Business last May and the second version planned for this October have already instigated the development of a guide called "61 Hints and Tips You Can Use to Facebook Your Business... Now!"
Here's a quick look at some of these tips. The full list is at: www.backbonemag.com/facebook.
If you're a Facebook member, check out Backbone's new Facebook group.
1. Facebook is a soft sell through engagement. Point fans to your company blog or contest.
2. Offer something of value, expect nothing in return. Use Facebook as a brand awareness tool.
3. Ask for referrals: referrals from friends or fans are still the most trusted.
4. Provide interactivity with applications or polls; it'll drive word of mouth.
5. Build a Facebook page with a widget and Facebook ad. Build the relationship. Keep it edgy with the audience in mind.
6. Use status updates to disseminate information about self/business. "Sarah is in Vancouver for a business meeting. Call me if in town" or "Jim is congratulating Jane on her recent promotion."
7. Incorporate the tools you're already using into your profile. Do you blog, Twitter, Pownce or Jaiku? Do you read feeds? There are Facebook apps available for all these services. If you have already used these tools professionally, why not add them to your Facebook profile?
8. Make it personal: focus on the human element of your business and products, and your employees. When consumers can relate personally to a business or product, they are more likely to promote it and feel a stronger connection.
9. Update your business page frequently. The more often you add content, the more customers will return.
10. Choose the right Facebook applications. There are thousands of free applications on Facebook, but that doesn't mean every one of them should have a place on your business page.
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