With over 500 million active users who spend more than 700 billion minutes per month
online, Facebook is a natural first stop for marketers looking to reach an online audience.
The biggest benefits of Facebook include:
• Reach (Nearly everyone is there!)
• Ease of use (If my dad can figure it out, anyone can)
• Ability to add numerous media, including audio, images, and video to your page
• Ability to email entire groups of fans at a time
If you decide to go the Facebook route, your first step is to create a “Like” page for
your business. This is basically a profile for your business. Until recently, these pages
used to be called “Fan” pages. Personal profiles limit the number of people you can be
friends with, while “Like” pages do not. Also, “Like” pages enable you to create an RSS
feed and build custom applications. There are a number of tutorials online with stepby-
step instructions for creating a “Like” page.
However, if that’s overwhelming, I recommend you outsource this. You should be able
to find someone affordable who can set this up for you. Be careful though, there are
lots of people jumping on the Facebook bandwagon who want to make a name for
themselves as social media experts.
Once you have created your Facebook “Like” page, your daily 15-minute to-do list
includes the following:
1. Update your status. Be sure to make it relevant to your audience. Skip the
“breakfast” posts unless you’re a chef! (1 minute)
2. Add new blog posts, videos, photos, etc. to your wall. Many other social media
sites like Twitter as well as your blog can be set up to add these updates
automatically to your wall. (2 minutes)
3. Review comments on your wall and respond to them. (4 minutes)
4. Review your news feed and spend a few minutes commenting on posts and
updates from your contacts. (4 minutes)
5. Respond to invitations and messages in your inbox. (2 minutes)
6. Locate new people to invite to your “Like” page by checking out the friends of
current page fans (2 minutes)
This timeframe may seem ambitious, and it is! You may also need a very fast internet
connection to pull it off. Depending on how many messages and posts you actually
get, and how quickly you want to add new friends, you might choose to be a bit more
flexible.
Still, the idea is to focus on the most important activities and stop when you’re done.
Sure, you could easily spend the whole day puttering around on Facebook, but your
goal is to set a time limit and use it to the max. If you have extra time, you can go back
and play Farmville or challenge a friend to a game of Text Twist. Or you could decide
to add more friends or get more involved in a conversation. In the meantime, though,
get in, get out, and get customers!