Facebook: The Small Business Marketing Tool

Five years ago, Facebook was nothing but a thought. Today, it is not only the most popular website on the internet, but it is also where 400 million users visit to exchange messages, posts photos and play games. Facebook is a marketing opportunity that you cannot pass up as a small business. Many large businesses use Facebook as a way to market themselves, and as a small business you should be thinking of marketing yourself on Facebook. How do you go about this? Well, it is surprisingly easy.

1. First of all, you want to add as many friends as you can to begin this form of small business marketing. Facebook as a limit of 5,000 friends but that offers you a great networking opportunity. Add your friends, their friends, family and more and you will see your friend list greatly increase.

2. Create a fan page for your business. This fan page is where you will put up pictures of your business, information about it, and how people can reach you.

3. Invite all your friends on Facebook to your fan page. This will give you hundreds or even a couple thousand fans on your fan page.

So, now what do you do?

Now you use the fan page to its full advantage for your small business marketing. The first thing you do is begin to put up notices on the fan page to get people interested. These can include things like "Today only, 50 percent off!" and that will help notify people about your sale on your website. Every time you post something on your fan page, your customers will see it on their own Facebook pages. It is like giving them an advertisement without them even realizing it.

Another way you can make sure that you help get customers coming to your website to buy products is by offering special deals for your customers. So, you put something on your fan page that says "Come to the website and use this Code: K838LJ and get one free product with anything you buy! So, now you are giving a special offer only to your fans that they will be able to take advantage of. If your fan page has 10,000 fans, you are reaching as many as you would with a newspaper or television advertisement without ever having to pay a dime, except for the cost of your internet.

That is what makes Facebook such a great way to go about small business marketing.

Kate Wilber also known as "The Marketing Momma" is a full time online business owner specializing in teaching small business owners how to create a website marketing plan. Visit her marketing blog http://www.themarketingmomma.com for more great tips on marketing your small business.