It is an added advantage if you own a business where your employees can become active members on Facebook. They can help to develop your presence on Facebook. Precautions must be taken to ensure that this process doesn’t turn into a fiasco.

It is important for all your employees to use the same name of your company on their profile/fan pages. When you start to create the page for your company, classify it and choose to go public; it provides more visibility to your page.

Once you create a (fan) page under a particular name, you van delete the page, but you can’t change the name. The only way to get a new name is to create another page. So be sure to have the name right, the page in place, your logo uploaded. The logo represents your company and helps in furher branding. When that is in place asj your employees to add the name of the company to their profile pages.

Establish your brand, brand is the way consumers perceive your company.

To a parent, the brand ‘fisher price’ is related to quality and safety. For a sports person, Nike relates to comfort and performance. So, what exactly do you want your customers to associate your brand with?

If you are a realtor, you might want your brand to be associated with trustworthiness or if you are an orthodontist, you might want to associate your brand with ‘smile’.

Whatever the case, you have to use a consistent design. A brand design can include logos, colours, catch phrases, name etc. You can’t undo your brand features once it is established. So, it is important to think about what you want to convey through your logos, name, colour etc.

McDonald’s logo is a classic example of a simple logo that conveys a strong corporate image. Your aim must be to create a logo that by itself evokes perception about your product and services in the minds of your customers. However, do not try to copy logos from other organizations since they are copyright protected.

Ensure your products align with your brand image. Do you remember the failure of Colgate’s Kitchen Entrees that never took off? Or that of Pond’s toothpaste, which failed miserably? These are classic examples of products that are not in line of the brand image. Colgate has always been associated with dental and personal hygiene; for consumers to relate ready to eat meals with Colgate was not palatable. Consumers always associated Pond’s with fragrance and freshness. So, when Pond’s launched toothpaste, people couldn’t relate dental hygiene with fragrance.

Do your homework before you venture into launching new products. You must understand your customers thoroughly to know their likes and dislikes. Once you have established your brand on Facebook, remember that you can’t undo the writings on your wall. You will be attracting thousands of fans for your page. Therefore, use discretion before launching a new product. For example if you are a flower shop owner, extending flower arrangement offer for special occasion falls in line with your brand but not selling sweets and confectionaries.

Are you one of those marketers who is focusing on online branding their business or company? If your answer is “yes”, you may want to link your advertisements to your Facebook Page.

What’s that? Don’t have a Facebook Page? Well. Let’s have a look at Facebook Pages… and then you can tell me why not. Okay?

A Facebook Page provides “a customizable presence for an organization, product, or public personality to join the conversation with Facebook users”, according to Facebook. Its main focus is the “stream of content” provided by page administrators.

In other words, create a page for your company or yourself, providing real-time feedback, updates, screen shots and photos. Then give it a strong voice (yours), endowing the page with a definite, deliberate personality – one which you want aligned to your company mission and values. Chances are you will find you’ve created a powerful connection with your visitors. The content on your page and the feedback from real readers may help convince them to then click on your sales page link or the link to your main site, once your ad appears and people see that yours is a lively, positive page.

Another thing a page can do is charm potential customers into regular visits – particularly if they know you are going to:

- Provide them with an “insider” peek into your company’s heart
- Give them inside information
- Provide them with the latest news about your product or company
- Give them a “reward”; perhaps a special discount link, a game against other fans, or the chance to enter a contest or draw (run the latter two events by Facebook first!)

Regular users are your biggest asset – and a sure sign that you’re doing things right.

Beware of “Selling”

One thing that is key to creating a successful, strong Facebook Page: Be honest and up-front with your readers. Avoid anything that even faintly resembles hype or a sales pitch.

This should be the place they go that makes them feel as if you’ve let them slip into your private lunchroom, chatting with them like a friend and sharing things you wouldn’t share with outsiders. (Your posts will also appear in their News Feed, adding to the feeling of immediacy).

On top of this, Facebook has provided some great features to enhance your readers’ experience on your page: Options such as…

- Multi-media functional Wall (you can control what content you allow your fans to post)
- The ability to publish or not publish your posts to your fans’ News Feed
- Easy-to-navigate topside horizontal tabs containing Facebook “core” tabs such as Events and Discussion (Which you can enable… or not)
- Status update option

Check Your Stats

But perhaps its most exciting option is allowing you the ability to check your stats on viewer engagement. You’ll be able to see stats on comments and news feed use. (This is provided through their Facebook Insights platform.)

The only real drawback? Once you’ve created your page name, it can’t be changed or edited. (Everything else on the page can be adjusted). So make sure you take your time, picking exactly the right name, and putting it in the best category for your ad campaign. (The category also is permanent.)

Go visit your competitors’ Facebook Pages (and especially the professionally-produced pages of Big Guns like Nike and Coca-Cola) and see what features and elements you like… and what you don’t like.

Facebook Pages allow you a flexible range of applications you can choose to add… or not. These include:

- Videos
- Photos
- Events
- Reviews

And if these don’t meet your needs, check out the Facebook Applications Directory to uncover further apps that can help enhance your new Facebook Page.

For more details on how to take advantage of a Facebook Page visit: Facebook Marketing Products