RealtyTechBytes.com

28 March 2010

Facebook for your business

Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Sales Tips; Social Media .

Are you looking for a way to reach new clients that won’t cost you an arm and a leg and is also effective?  If so, I may have the answer for you.

By now you have either become a member of Facebook, or are considering it.  After all, there is so much buzz about it that over 250 million people have joined since January of 2009. Take a look a few of the stats that are posted on Facebook’s info page:

Facebook Company Figures
More than 400 million active users
50% of the active users log on to Facebook in any given day

Average User Figures
Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook

You can see the stats for yourself at: http://www.facebook.com/facebook?ref=pf#!/press/info.php?statistics.  You will also see that 70% of the users are outside of the US, which is fine, but more importantly, that means that 120 Million are US users.  I was also able to determine that there are over 8 million California users, and nearly 2 million San Francisco Bay Area users (Includes all users within 50 miles of San Francisco) over the age of 25.  More on how I determined that later.

But, just being a member is not enough.  You can use the tremendous reach of Facebook to advertise your services.  Facebook ad campaigns can give you the ability to target the people who see your ads in numerous ways:

Location down to the city level
Age
Sex
Interested in Men or Women or Both
In a relationship
Language Spoken
Likes and Interests (Very powerful ability to target with this one)
Education
Workplace

Facebook lets you pay for these in one of two ways, either per impression or per click.

To my way of thinking, Pay Per Click is the way to go,  Even if someone doesn’t click on your ad, they can still see it and that goes a very long way towards brand recognition.  Think about it, your very expensive newspaper ads works the same way…people still see the ads even if they don’t take action, and over time your brand recognition builds.  It is the same with Facebook ads.

So, how did I determine how many Bay Area users there are?  Simple, I created an ad.  As you start to target your ad, Facebook shows you how many potential people will see the ad.  The number declines as you focus in on your market.  That is a pretty sweet deal!

One drawback with running Facebook ads is that you will need to understand your target audience, craft an ad that they will respond to, and have a compelling offer to show them if they do click the ad.

This is no easy task, but it is one that I can help you with.  If not me, then there are others who can help get you started too.

The point that I am making is this, Facebook allows you to target your advertising in ways that were nearly impossible to do before  You can advertise to that target market for pennies (Or for free if they don’t click. You will build brand recognition if nothing else).

Try doing that free thing with your newspaper ads!

Feel free to contact me on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/jerrykidd or on my blog at http://RealtyTechBytes.com or on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/jerrykidd if you’d like some help getting started.

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