Don’t Have a Facebook Business Page? This is Why You Need One.

Are you using a Facebook business page to promote your e-commerce site? If you aren’t, you should be. You might have created a beautiful WordPress website design and spent a lot of time on the technology and copy writing. You probably even have a great product for sale, but if you aren’t properly utilising social media, no one will be able to find you. Social media accounts are like business cards in the world of digital marketing. You should create an account for every major platform even if you don’t actively use all of them. That way your business at least shows up when potential customers go looking.

You should, however, actively use your Facebook account. Research shows that it is the most important social media platform for small to medium sized businesses. In fact, a recent analysis of more than 18,000 e-commerce sites found that Facebook is four times as valuable as Twitter. Why? Because 99.9 percent of your clients, both current and potential, are using it.

Many people ask if they can simply use their personal Facebook page to promote their business. The answer is a definitive no. Facebook business pages have great features that personal pages don’t. For one, it allows you to pay to boost your entire profile or a specific post. You choose your target audience based on a few simple demographics and for a $1 a day, your ad will show up in news feeds. It also gives you statistics on how well your posts are doing at reaching and engaging your target demographic. It can be very exciting to watch your “likes” increase throughout the day when you are running an ad. The idea is that those digital marketing “likes” translate to link clicks where customers finally see your elegant website design and artfully wordsmithed copy writing, ultimately leading to purchases.

With the ability to engage your audience with video and photography on Facebook, business marketing can be genuinely fun. Furthermore, in addition to business marketing you have the opportunity to add valuable content that improves your customer’s lives and then watch as conversations unfold.

I encourage you to start your Facebook business page today. The sooner it’s up, the sooner you can start to build your community and make sales.