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A lot of what we experienced in  high school can be applied to small business.

Remember when your classmates would run for school president or there was a petition making the rounds about a topic that was important to students (the sudden firing of a teacher in my high school comes to mind) – remember those days?  It wasn’t necessarily the candidate, the campaign or even the cause that mattered to you – it was who told you about the candidate, campaign or cause that did. Who endorsed it, and who told you that it was important.

The same thing applies to how people hear about your business. If people are going to hear about your business, don’t you want that information to come right from you, the most trusted source?

According to a recent survey conducted by small business e-marketing firm, Constant Contact, of the top three proven tools for promoting new business in 2010, Facebook took the #3 spot:

Yes, Facebook.

More and more businesses are reaching out to their customers via social media, and while there are multiple platforms of communication these days (blogging, Twitter, etc) Facebook continues to lead the pack for reach.

But why?

Consider Facebook the invisible friend who is always ready and willing to talk about your business, in any way you see fit. Your company’s Facebook page is a controlled space where customers and potential customers can communicate with you immediately and openly.

Customers can ask questions or get more in-depth information about how you interact with other customers. More importantly, however, with over 500,000,000 registered users on Facebook today, there is no shortage of people to connect with and tell about your business at any one given time. And it’s free. Just like good old “word-of-mouth”.

But there is a drawback….

Facebook (and social media platforms in general) lack the opportunity for the public to truly review or grade a business. In other words, the only people who will know how great your company is are those who already “Like” your business on Facebook. In short, you’re preaching to the converted. No new leads.

Sure, there are websites populated with pages upon pages of user-generated reviews (otherwise known as “crowd sourcing”) to help spread the word (good or bad) about your company, but the problem, however, is that review sites are just one more contact point for you to manage – ugh – and as a small-business owner, don’t you already have a long list of things to do?

But (and there is always a “but”) a well-managed Facebook page (that is updated daily, for instance) can help build customer loyalty, promote offers and discounts and, more importantly, offer customers access to you, which is the pinnacle of outstanding customer service.

With all this in mind, there are two things you should take away from this post (and no, 411.ca is not endorsed by Facebook…we’re just “friends”):

1. If you haven’t already, create a Facebook account for your company. It’s free. Populate it with great facts about your company and photos, too. People always love to see any “behind the scenes” footage you can share.

2. Understand how Facebook can add value to your marketing campaigns (we use it to promote our customers, for instance, with a feature we call,“Business of the Day”) and then build on that. Don’t let your Facebook page lie dormant. It’s just as bad as not returning an email, so respond to all your messages and queries.

We’d love for you to  “Like” 411.ca via our own Facebook page, so you can see how we’re engaging with our customers. (And don’t worry, we don’t mind if you stalk our page.)

-sandy

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