Statistics show that you are far more likely to take a local idea global faster with Facebook than with any other social network platform. YouTube and Twitter are great ways to boost your business presence, but the data is in: Facebook is currently the leader in successfully marrying social networking with business. And, unlike with YouTube, you don’t need to make it to viral video status to start reaping the rewards of social networking.

No longer an option, social networking is a must-have in your marketing arsenal to beat your competition: more than a third of businesses on the Internet are already using Facebook, consumers are now starting to use social networking to find out more about businesses — and even more important — people use social networks to talk about businesses (i.e., social networkers will market for you as a natural extension of what they normally talk about).

Another consideration: Search engines are starting to factor in social networking brands into their algorithms.

Facebook has the ability to send more visitors to your business website than any other website without having to pay for sponsored ads or links; and you can also interact with clients and customers directly through Facebook if you don’t have a website.

How Facebook Can Help Your Business

If I told you where you could market to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people gathered in one place tomorrow, would you?

More than half of the 750 million people using Facebook log in every day and spend 700 billion minutes on Facebook each month. 250 million mobile device users log in even more frequently than lap and desktop users. That is a lot of potential customers; customers that you know where they will be congregating — on Facebook. But before we explore how to use Facebook for your business, you need to understand what Facebook is and how it works.

Facebook is a social networking platform that can be used to create a variety of types of pages including a personal profile page (all accounts start with a profile page), fan pages, community, and business pages. Users can share information, links, pictures, videos, etc. on their own page or on pages of people they are connected with.

The type of page you should create for your business depends on what you do and what you want from your page. In most cases, for-profit business owners will create a personal profile page and a subsequent business page.

There are two basic ways all people who use Facebook explore the application:

Socially: To get and keep in touch with others. Users set up accounts to invite people to become “friends,” including personal acquaintances, family members, co-workers, or to “like” celebrities, famous people, charities, businesses, or anyone else they want to connect with either through direct interaction or by receiving status updates.

Curiosity: Many people use Facebook to find out more about other people, businesses, organizations, or even products and services. Although Facebook users have some control over what the “outside” world can see about them, it is not that hard to find someone on Facebook if they have a personal profile page. Facebook also tries to match you with people you might know and suggest them to you. One of the first places people turn to in order to find a long lost buddy is Facebook — even before high school reunion websites like Classmates.com.

She Tells Two Friends, and They Tell Two Friends…

So how can you start using Facebook user habits to market your business? Simple. Start with the people you know. If you have a personal profile page you are already connected to potential marketers. Create a business page and ask people on your personal page to visit the business page and “like it.”

People you are not connected to, but who are connected to people you know, may they “liked” you and visit your business page. If they show your business status updates on their pages others will also see them. Think of “…and she tells two friends and they tell two friends” as a marketing strategy. This is just one of the many ways Facebook can help you grow your business.

Second-Chance Marketing and Upselling by Connecting Facebook With Your Website

People who visit your website enjoy your site and want to share it with others. Or, they may not be entirely convinced just yet. If you have a link to your Facebook page, website visitors may click through to your Facebook page and “like” it or share your site with others.. Even if they only came to find more information about you, having a Facebook page gives you a second chance to convince someone to try your business or another shot to upsell additional products or services.

Offer Facebook Incentives

Because social networking works on a “word of mouth” premise, it is important you get others to pass along your information. One way to do that is to offer discounts, coupons, or incentives such as “like my page and I will like yours” or “become our fan and get 20% off your next order.”

Facebook offers several free apps and tools to make offering coupons and incentives easy to manage and track.

Exploit Interactive Marketing Tools

Facebook has become so in-demand by businesses that there are now multiple ways to feed information from your website, blog, or Twitter directly to your Facebook page. Rather than spending all your time updating your website, why not have it automatically update Facebook as well? Or, if you prefer, have your Facebook page update your website using apps. Better, have them update each other.

For example, download free widgets to use with WordPress, a popular content management system used by businesses worldwide, so that anytime you update your Facebook page, it posts to your website or blog.

Open Up Communications

Smart businesses allow people to post on their wall and answer customer concerns, complaints, and to interact with their visitors. To be successful in business you need to engage with your market; do not make the mistake of posting information without allowing others to comment or participate in some way. Facebook is designed to be a “social” network — not a “lecture” network.

About the author: Rebecca Carter is one of the dissertation writers at the essay writing service UK-Essays.com. Besides, she is fond of travelling. In this case, she has visited a lot of countries all around the world. It should be noted that photography is her other passion. Some years ago she was providing some bloggers with wonderful pictures.