Before Twitter, establishing a Facebook presence was considered to be the way forward for businesses. As with the Twitter phenomenon, many companies are keen to jump on the latest fad or bandwagon without ascertaining whether it’s suitable for their target audience.

Whilst many college students have moved onto Twitter, Facebook users have become older and more mature. It is not uncommon for those in their mid-forties to hold Facebook pages. Facebook users are also considered to be more affluent than their Bebo counterparts and are typically better educated and employed in the white collar industry.

If this sounds like your target audience then you may want to consider giving your business a Facebook presence. There are many significant reasons for being on Facebook from finding business contacts to raising the visibility of your business. You can even create a PPC campaign around Facebook users, as our PPC expert, Vicky Scott, discussed in a previous blog post.

If you have a personal Facebook account then you will almost certainly have what is known as a profile page. Once your friends have requested to add you as a friend, they will have access to this page which essentially is all about you. The page describes both your likes and dislikes and after you have accepted their friend request viewers are able to access this information as well as photographs and wall messages from your other friends. As this concept is largely reliant on people requesting you to become their friend and for them then to wait until you confirm their friend request it is not really suitable for businesses, which require a more instantaneous method of attracting friends.

Musicians or celebrities that want to create a presence on Facebook have fan pages, and businesses that want to create a similar following create the same page, except it is sometimes referred to as a business page. The Facebook fan page allows visitors to instantly become your fans without having to wait around for you to confirm their friend request. When users become your fans, your business’s updates will appear on their news feed, so they will be instantly informed when you have a new product out and/or have won an industry award. Your fan page works in exactly the same way that a profile page works for an individual and fans are not only able to access your wall feeds but also view your photographs, videos and any links that you want to share with your fans. The fan page also includes a discussion forum, where you can invite your fans to discuss improvements that they would like to see in your business or new product ideas. This is a great way to allow your customers to have a say in your business decisions and an excellent way of testing the water before making any rash decisions.

When deciding on how to create a successful Facebook presence for your business, the rather brusque key is to forget your friends and remember your fans. Following this rule is the first start to creating a successful social media presence and ensuring that you don’t suffer from social networking overwhelm as many businesses have done in the past.