Happy 2nd B-Day Tilt Marketing facebook Page

I launched my business facebook page two years ago when I realized my professional contacts were seeing a little too much personal information on my regular page. (Now, there are more facebook settings to control who sees what, but that wasn’t an option back then.) I was skeptical about using facebook for business-to-business marketing, so I decided to use my own business as the “guinea pig” before encouraging my clients to set up pages.

It was easy to set up the page. I found a “how to” article by doing a Google search, and I simply followed the steps. It is important to set up the page as a business (not as a person) to make it more visible and help with SEO.

In two years, I’ve attracted 200+ fans to my Tilt Marketing facebook page. I have simply used the “invite friends” link on the business page itself that allows me to send an invitation to all my personal facebook friends. Occasionally, I cross-promote the business page on my regular page and/or LinkedIn profile and ask people to like it. I also list it in the email signature on all my email messages.

For content, I try to keep it fun and interesting, but ALWAYS with a focus on marketing. My posts are designed to be educational, but I try to keep it as “light” as possible because we are dealing with SOCIAL media!

So, after my personal experiment, do I recommend business facebook pages for b-2-b marketing?

Yes,  but with caveats.

If you do the page in-house, make sure the person who manages it doesn’t abuse facebook time. You don’t want to pay an employee for “playing” on facebok, but they will need some time to set up the page, plan the posts and reply appropriately.

You want to have a “plan” for the page. What do you hope to accomplish? What type of posts are you going to make? How frequently do you want to post? How do you plan to attract people and get them to like your page?

Return on investment (ROI) is tough to really measure when you have a COMPREHENSIVE marketing plan with facebook (and other social media) playing a supporting PART. I hear about all the metrics and I see my own charts showing what my page has done (blah, blah, blah), but I can’t directly point to facebook and say I got a project or client from using it.

However, I DO believe it helps me connect with my clients and prospects in a unique way. Creating interesting posts FORCES me to stay on top of industry trends and be able to share that information, which ultimately makes me a BETTER consultant. I feel there is strong value, but it is hard to measure the exact ROI.

In my opinion, a business facebook page can be a helpful part of a comprehensive marketing strategy if you develop a plan and set reasonable expections for the ROI.

So, I’m happy to celebrate my page’s 2nd Birthday, and I look forward to doing it for many years to come!