A look at the different types of Facebook promotion

Facebook last year overtook Google as the most visited website in the world. It has huge potential for allowing you to target very specific groups of people through its Pay Per Click advertising system; in addition the use of Facebook pages is rapidly becoming an excellent way to market businesses, no matter how small or how large.

One of the most effective Facebook fanpages I have seen is that of the Andrex puppy, a well known UK brand which relies on a very cute golden Labrador puppy. This excellent Fanpage brought fans in initially through a Pay Per Click Facebook ads campaign, and now keeps its page regularly updated with details of the latest puppy exploits. Of course, each “like” of its page would have led to many other likes, as people suggested the page to friends, or if someone commented on the page and a friend noticed in their feed, so decided to also join the page. You can see in this way, a well managed page can actually go viral, attracting many thousands of followers, all keen to take part in the discussion. I have no doubt that these extremely well managed page has led to stronger brand awareness and faithfulness.

As well as being able to use a fanpage to advertise your business, it’s also possible to build a large personal following through Facebook, demonstrating your expertise by discussing relevant topics and advising of new client acquisitions. However this runs the risk of alienating some friends, who may regard your many updates as spam. In fact, this happened to me, with my own brother unadding me as he was fed up with work related updates in his news feed! It’s best to let close friends know that it is actually possible to hide your feed to prevent seeing these many updates.

It’s important to note that there is actually a cumulative effect to using Facebook personally, as you may not initially appear in the feeds of those who have a large number of friends. There is a popularity effect on Facebook which leads to those who have a large number of friends, with a large amount of discussion and comments on their posts, appearing more often in the news feeds of others (even with new friends)!

About the author:

Claire Jarrett runs Marketing By Web, a Google AdWords Management company. Do connect with me personally on Facebook!