Tesar-Reynes

The social media director at my internship e-mailed these two e-books to the office last week.

• About Face by The Advanced Guard
• How to Use Facebook for Business by Hubspot

I have to say, they are two of the best basic, yet comprehensive, guides on Facebook for businesses I’ve seen. You can link to Jason Baer’s post for a detailed analysis, but if you have an hour, give them a read.

Here are some numbers on Facebook you can’t ignore.

• Over 275 million users worldwide (60 million in the U.S.)
• 1.2 billion monthly visits
• 3.5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook a day
• 4 million people become fans of pages a day

The most impressive stat on that list is the last one. Now that Facebook lets you create pages for your brand, you have an additional, FREE resource with which you can interact with your customer.

About Face walks you through each step of creating a Facebook fan page, from what you should be posting on your wall, to photos, videos, and events. All this functionally allows you to socialize with your target consumer, rather than pay for a broadcasted messaging campaign.

Hubspot’s e-book is a little more basic, but I found the section on Facebook advertising to be especially helpful. Facebook ads are easier to setup than you might think.

For example, if you’re looking at a budget under $35,000, your best bet is probably the pay per click option. Since click-throughs on Facebook ads tend to be low, Facebook gives you some insurance that you’re only paying for your ad if it actually generates some interaction from a user.

You’re goal might be to drive users to your fan page, or to your Web site, or maybe a call to action like registering to be an organ donor (which is the project I was working on). Whatever your goal may be, Facebook will only charge you for your ads if it generates a result.

If you’re budget is over $35,000, Facebook’s sales team will work with you on an impressions generated campaign. It might sound more like traditional media, but I got the feeling from their midwest director of sales that their team would put you in the best possible situation through use of their extensive demographic and psychographic data. Facebook is, after all, the largest marketing database in the world.

Leveraging Facebook for businesses is intimidating, I know. If you’re not used to the medium, you’ll probably log on to the site, stare at it with a blank face, and then lose interest and move on.

Remember, there are 275 million other people out there who don’t feel that way! They’re on Facebook everyday. Find creative ways to become part of their life, something every brand touts as it’s #1 goal, and you’ll be on your way to being the brand people mention casually in their daily conversations.

Thankfully, marketers like Advance Guard and Hubspot offer their resources to you for free. Take advantage!