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Maybe you use Facebook just to poke your friends, compare who is the ‘hottest’ or just to play Scrabble, but there is a whole other side of it you may be missing in terms of business reach.

I have seen company ‘group’s start to appear - which is interesting, although I think a lot of people creating these in the context of their business, me included, haven’t worked out how to make the most of them.

So what if you could understand who likes you and why?
We had a ‘group’ for The Escape, but I changed it to a ‘page’ a few weeks ago using the new Facebook tools. Along the way, we lost about 70% of our members and, to be honest, I haven’t ramped up the recruitment drive again just yet because we are playing with creating Facebook Applications (all ideas welcome). We need to add value to the page and make it worth joining. Why not visit The Escape Faceboook page here, and become a ‘fan’ in anticipation?

Anyway, Pages are meant for businesses and organisations looking for a little bit more and to get a little bit more you’ve got to give a little bit more. I do think it’s worth cracking though - sooner rather than later.

Why bother?

Imagine you could see demographics of your “fans”…

And then, what about if you took that information, and created specific adverts targeted at specific groups?

I did it for the Beauty Salon - Facebook Social Advertising case study - and I also did it for The Escape Villa.

Take a look at the results below between a month in Adwords vs. 7 days in Facebook. (Adwords results are the top ones).

Objective points of note

• The Adwords campaign targets very specific keyphrases (individual keywords are too expensive). Despite this, the average position of the Adword Ad is still only 5.6 with a high cost per click. Google Adwords is getting saturated with lazy advertisers.
• In terms of searches, this relates to 905 searches (displays of the Google Advert) against 343,352 for the Facebook advert, which was targeted more generically to UK couples.
• Click through rates (CTR) are much higher with Adwords - 6840% - although they cost more. 72 pence versus 12 pence.

Summary

I can get more click-throughs with Facebook with less money - although the visitors may be less inclined to take action. Despite the fact that they have clicked on the advert, the person in Adwords sees my advert at a time when they are looking for what I have to offer - as long as my advert and keywords are specific.

In terms of early adoption to the Facebook pages and advertising platform, it’s worth getting in now - if your product / service works with the model. The advertising is more suited to consumer products but the cost now is low enough to test.

In terms of Page, you need to investment time and energy into creating a worthy page. You may build a page for people, but you need to constantly add value - they’re a fickle bunch. Don’t be fooled into thinking people care about YOU. It’s all about them. If you can offer them something, the perhaps the term ‘fan’ may not be far off.

If you can achieve that, you can begin to realise that one person who likes your service (let’s say Web Design), may know someone else who does, who joins you page. They may know someone else… rinse and repeat.