Fan Pages are the best way to use Facebook to bring attention to your business and generate more clients, customers and sales.  However, there seems to be a lot of confusion among small business owners about how to use Pages effectively.

I’ve decided to hold a free call to share all about how to make them work for you—and anyone who has been on my calls before knows I always give a ton of actionable content.

So, whether you have a Fan Page up already and have no idea what to do with it, or you have wanted to set one up but don’t know where to start, you’ll want to be on this call.

The call is Wednesday, October 21st at 8pm Eastern—and if you can’t make it live, sign up anyway and you will be sent the recording.  However, those that are on the call with me will get to take part in Q & A at the end, as well as be eligible for the special offer I’ll be introducing.

Register here: Free Facebook Fan Pages Call

I hope to hear you on the teleseminar! Feel free to leave a comment if you have anything specific you’d like to make sure I cover.

One of the biggest complaints I hear related to marketing on Facebook is that “it takes WAY too much time.” This is probably the most frequent concern and fear I hear from small business owners.  It’s true that it can be a major time-suck IF you let it be—but you should know that it doesn’t HAVE to be.

Taming the Monster

You need to be a little bit ruthless with yourself, especially if you are using Facebook for both business and keeping up with friends and family.  People aren’t kidding when they say it can be addictive.  But if you’re avoiding Facebook because of these fears about it taking too much time, you’re really missing out on important networking opportunities and conversations.

This post will give you some tips and suggestions for how to really leverage your time and the strategies you can implement and focus on.  (As opposed to going in and sort of aimlessly poking around trying to figure out how anyone’s ever going to find out about your business and how you might be able to help them.)

It sounds obvious, but the biggest thing to understand is WHY you are there.  What is your strategy?  What are your goals or purpose?  Again, if you don’t know WHY you are there, it becomes a lot easier to waste time kind of aimlessly floating around.

What can you do instead?  First and foremost, alter your notification settings under “Account Settings” and “Notifications.”  Turn most of the notifications off.  You want to come to Facebook for a set amount of time and if you are getting notifications in your email about every time someone interacts with your profile you will get way too distracted because it’s tempting to log on and look.  (By the way, you also want to ignore or block frivolous applications that people want you to add—and it’s perfectly acceptable to do this.)

Facebook in Under 15 Minutes

What specifically can you do to achieve maximum visibility in minimum time?  Definitely update your status regularly.  Skim through the News Feed on the Home page which is composed of all of your friends’ updates.  If something interesting catches your eye, comment on it or hit the “like” button.

Check your Wall and if anyone has commented to you, quickly respond.  On the right hand side of the Home page, see who is having a birthday and wish them a happy one.  On the top right of your Home page, handle any requests you have waiting.  If you are a member of any groups, check in with them to see if there is any activity you can comment on or questions you can answer or ask.

If you have an event going on, such as a workshop or a teleseminar then post that using the Events application.  If you have a blog, I recommend using the “NetworkedBlogs” application to import it.  Every time you publish a new post, it gets published to your profile and this activity gets posted in the News Feed, which means all of your friends see it as well.  You can also use the Notes application to import your blog posts, which then get posted to your Wall.

Content is King

Using social media effectively is all about content.  How do you keep a steady stream of fresh content filling up your profile? One way is to post links to interesting sites or articles you come across by adding the Share on Facebook bookmarklet to your browser.  Say you’re on CNN.com and you want to post a link to a story on Facebook, you can use that bookmarklet to post it automatically—without even needing to sign into your account.

If you use Twitter, install the application on Facebook called “Selective Twitter Status.” The way this works is that anytime you tweet something that you would also like posted to your Facebook status, you simply add a hashtag (which is the pound sign) and the letters “fb” to your tweets.  I like this app better than the regular Twitter one because I don’t always want all of my tweets cluttering up my Facebook profile—plus not everyone on Facebook understands Twitter lingo.

Two other great tools that can really leverage your time are Ping.fm and Hootsuite. These update the status of multiple social networking profiles simultaneously including Facebook so that you don’t even need to go to the actual sites to do so.

I need to emphasize that the News Feed is probably THE most powerful aspect of all of Facebook.  I have heard people refer to it as contributing to “viral visibility” or “ambient awareness” and I love that, because that is exactly what it is.

A Piece of Your Marketing Plan

So, block out time to use Facebook in your schedule.  People laugh, but set a timer if you need to. Think of it as part of your marketing strategy, just as other marketing activities are.  If you are brand new to Facebook, yes, you may need to spend and hour a day getting acclimated and developing your profile in the beginning, but you can really make an impact in much shorter amounts of time once you have gotten used to how it all works.

These are some of the strategies I use in my regular Facebook routine—do you have any to add?  Let me know in the comments.

A recent post of mine lamented the fact that Facebook didn’t seem to make it easy for people to find your Fan Page. Today they finally introduced “Fan Boxes” which allow Page admins to embed the most recent activity from their Page right in their blog or website:

I was happy to see this as it allows my blog readers to not only see I have a Fan Page of my own, but become a Fan right from the box without even having to visit Facebook itself.

You can also choose whether include the up-to-date stream (what you’ve posted on your Page) and/or your fans (displays the number of fans you have as well as their profile pictures).

There are two ways to add the box from under the profile picture on your Page: click “Add Fan Box to your site” or “Edit Page” then “Add Fan Box to your site” under “Promote your Page.”

The wizard will generate the code which you can then copy and paste where you want the box to display on your site.  I placed mine on the right under by “socialize” buttons and I chose to just show the fans and not the stream.  I also tweaked the code a bit to decrease the width to fit my sidebar.

Hooray for Facebook for making it easier than ever to encourage others to become fans of your Page!  And if you need a refresher on why you should care about Fan Pages, that would be here.

A few weeks back Facebook started allowing users to claim a unique username for their profiles.  For example, I grabbed http://facebook.com/christinegallagher for my personal profile.

At the time they were letting those with 1,000 fans or more as of May 31st get one for their own Fan Pages, and many people who didn’t qualify were a bit annoyed at this limit.  A few days later, Facebook announced that at the end of the month they would be lifting the limit to allow anyone with less than 1000 fans to claim their Fan Page username.

It was then explained that those users with 25 or more Fans would be eligible.  But suddenly today it was announced that you would need 100 Fans, not 25.  The announcement came out of nowhere, with no explanation.

Hmmmm.  More annoyed people.  I myself only started my Fan Page about a month ago so I only have about half that amount.  I think the worst part about it is the way Facebook seems to change their eligibility guidelines willy nilly.

I noticed today that I was getting a lot more people requesting me to fan their page–must be that race-to-100-fans panic.

While I am not exactly panicking, I did expect that I would be able to get my URL up until today, and that kind of stinks.

Do you have any thoughts on this?  Will you have enough fans to grab your URL?  Let me know in the comments.

A common complaint I hear from those using Facebook Fan Pages is how little Facebook does to allow you to connect your personal profile to your Fan Page.

You want your Facebook friends to know that you also have a Page, so how can you encourage them to go there and hopefully become a fan?

Here are a few simple ways:

1) Use “Suggest to Friends” underneath the photo on your Page.

2) Use the “Share” button on the bottom left under where it says “Create a Page for My Business” to either post your Page info to your personal profile or send a message about your Page to others.

3) Add a new page to your website or blog and re-direct it to your Fan Page.  You can then list the URL under “websites” in the information section of your personal profile.  For example, I did this with http://christinesgallagher.com/fanpage.  I re-directed it by using the Page Links To plugin for WordPress.

4) Use the Custom Profile Box application (or others similar to it) to add a section to your personal profile that directs others to your Page.  I used this application to link an image (a Facebook icon) to my Page.  Above the image I added the message “Visit my fan page!”

5) Use the text box provided under your profile picture to add a blurb letting others know that you also have a Fan Page and include a link.

If you have used other methods for driving people to your Fan Page please share in the comments.  These are just a few that I have personally used.

Oh, and if you wanted to show me some love and become a fan of mine, that would be great too.

Update:  In July, Facebook introduced “Fan Boxes” which allow Page admins to embed the most recent activity from their Page right in their blog or website.  This is another great way to draw attention to your Fan Page.  You can see a post I wrote about it here.

Last week I had a call about the biggest myths of marketing on Facebook.  One myth I mentioned I see discouraging small business owners is that “Facebook alone will get you clients and customers.” This would be wonderful if it was true of course.

Do people get clients and customers as a result of being on Facebook?  Absolutely.  But throwing up a profile and expecting the money to roll in is not going to happen.  You’d be surprised how many people end up discouraged because they’ve been on Facebook a good while and they are not getting results.  It’s because they don’t understand how Facebook fits into their overall marketing picture.

It’s about consumers CONSUMING what it is you are putting out there—which essentially, is content.  You are steadily and gradually building momentum from relationships, the know like and trust factor and word of mouth–which leads to traffic, to subscribers and eventually to sales.

Facebook is excellent for establishing credibility and expertise, for exposing your brand, boosting your visibility in front of your target market and even for market research—finding out what people want and need so that you can then go create and package those solutions and give it them.

Honestly, there is NO faster way to create credibility and brand recognition and quickly connect to hundreds of thousands of people who are looking for what it is you offer.

So what is the ultimate goal?  Traffic.  Before you even get on Facebook, you MUST have a website or blog to drive people to FIRST.  You need to be able to continue to build those relationships OUTSIDE of Facebook.  And the best way to do that is to have a way to get people on your list.

People don’t buy from you right off of Facebook.  They also don’t buy from you the first time they visit your site, right?  You have to build up that know, like and trust.  But Facebook is amazing for building that familiarity and credibility and for driving people to your site so they can get to know even more about what it is that you do.

What has been your experience on Facebook?  Does it drive a lot traffic back to your site? Do you see it increasing your blog or newsletter subscribers?  Let me know your thoughts.

Photo Credit: benstein

If you’re overwhelmed and confused about how to use Facebook to market your business then be sure to sign up for the free call I am doing this Tuesday night.

In the past year I’ve built a business I love, made valuable contacts, grew my subscriber list, boosted my website traffic, secured speaking engagements and created much more visibility for myself with the help of social media—largely with Facebook.

While this experience has been great, I still see a lot of misconceptions and frustrations floating around among small biz owners. There are a few myths in particular I decided I wanted to address—so that others can start seeing real results and opportunities.

It’s time to clear up the myths!

This FREE 60 min. call will be held on June 16th at 8pm EST

If you can’t make the live call you will be sent the recording–however, only those on with me LIVE will benefit from the Q & A at the end of the call—as well as be eligible for the special offer I will be introducing!

REGISTER HERE: Facebook Marketing Myths

Two common questions from small business owners when it comes to Facebook are: 1) is there a way I can separate my personal information from my professional and 2) what is the best way bring attention to my business and engage others?

You can cover both by having a Facebook “Fan Page.”

A Fan Page is just a public profile that allows you to share information about your services or products with other Facebook users.

What are the biggest benefits of having a Fan Page?

Driving Traffic. Most of the information on Facebook requires a login for you to access it. However, Pages are public and therefore visible to the search engines. This means people are able to find your business listed, and it is likely to be ranked highly because Facebook itself is. Because of this, you should use relevant keywords in your Page title as well. For example, the title of Facebook expert Mari Smith’s Page is Mari Smith – Relationship and Buzz Marketing Specialist.

Of course, once people visit your Page, they will also have a way to click through to your main website which you will have listed.

Promoting Discussion. Pages are excellent for communicating with potential clients and customers. You now have an opportunity to watch, listen and provide answers and solutions when needed. People will notice when you take time to help others and add to the discussions. Send updates periodically and focus on building relationships and being a part of the conversation.

Spreading Awareness. By using the wall for discussions, adding pictures, importing your blog posts,  providing links and more, you are making it very convenient to connect with you. This will help turn people into fans as well as encourage others to come visit your Page and interact with you. When others become fans it will show in their mini-feed as well as on their profile. When your fans interact with your Page, this activity is visible to their friends via the News Feed. This is great for word-of-mouth and for exposing your business to an ever-increasing circle of Facebook users.

Some Tips:

*To access your Page from your personal profile, click on “Applications” at the bottom left and click “Ads and Pages.”

*You will need to click on the link that says “publish this page” in order for your page to become public. This is nice–you can have your Page set up and complete before you start to promote it.

*By clicking  “Edit Page” you can add applications such as reviews, events, discussion boards and more.

*People can become “fans” of your Page.  Click the link that says “suggest to friends” under your picture to encourage this. Also, if you click on “Share” on the left side under “create a page” then you can post a message about your Page to your personal profile or send a message to your friends.

If you have a business, have you created a Page yet?  What questions do you have about them?

(Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my free social media e-course.)