Need of a Facebook account for your Business

The social networking site Facebook continues to increase in popularity, attracting thousands of new subscribers every day. As such, the potential for online marketers is tremendous and ever-growing. Presently, Facebook has over 500 million million users active in July 2010 and is forecasted to be over 600 million by 2011.

Facebook – Know how

For those who have never been on Facebook or have not fully realized its potential, there are many misconceptions about the site. Before delving into those misconceptions, it must be understood that the primary objective of Facebook is to allow individuals to build relationships with others and, in relation to a business standpoint, increase online visibility and brand recognition in your industry or marketplace.

Here are some facts related to Facebook. Read about them and see if you want to reconsider your reluctance to creating an account.
 

• Facebook has over 500 million active members. The forecast is that by 2011 there will be over 600 million active members.
• Facebook is the 2nd most visited website on the Internet.
• Facebook is the largest photo-sharing platform in the world with approximately 2.5B photos uploaded every month.
• The present limit is 5000 friends in your network with the possibility of this limit being removed in the near future.
• The over 620 million groups, at present, is the fastest growing group on Facebook. This means that businesses can capitalize on the marketing potential of Facebook to easily reach a more mature, more educated market that on average has more money to spend.
• you can join and create up to 200 groups.
• More than 3.5 million events created each month.
• More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.

Despite all of these facts, Facebook remains one of the most blocked sites from within an office, while most companies have established a Facebook page to expand their web presence. Developing a Facebook page allows companies to quickly post information, links and videos about the company that will further increase brand recognition as well as alerting followers of new events.

Unfortunately, after the initial creation of the Facebook page, it often becomes neglected and absent of any new updates. Many companies fail to see the benefits of utilizing Facebook to increase a customer base as well as interact with customers. Additionally, the stigma of Facebook being an office distraction has made many companies wary of having anything to do with the social media site.

What we are attempting to establish and answer is that the development of a Facebook account is a necessity not only for an individual, but from a business standpoint as well. In fact, as the above statistics reveal, many companies have already taken the initiative and created a Facebook page in order to expand their web presence.

A Facebook account also allows users to control the messages they receive. The challenge for any business will be ensuring that the right message about their products and services is delivered, but the message needs to be delivered in an engaging and interesting manner. Simply blasting your message repeatedly without reaching a target audience will cause you to lose followers, as opposed to gaining new ones. Effort must be taken to build relationships and develop a level of trust within a social media space. This will go a long way towards establishing your business and creating a trusted network amongst your current and potential customers.

Businesses should learn to embrace social media, take advantage of its marketing potential and utilize it. Failure to do this will hamper their efforts to remain competitive in a world that is quickly shifting to online and social networking resources for all of their daily information, shopping, and marketing needs.