Facebook Woos Small Biz, Merchants Reluctant


Facebook reaches out to small businesses as customers for its advertising services, but a recent study suggests this target group may remain reluctant to pay for advertising or any other promotional services from the social networking site. Here’s a look at where things stand with Facebook’s efforts to woo more small business advertising dollars and what other ways you can use the social media site to benefit your small business.

Facing Advertising Realities

Laying it on thick. This post looks at how Facebook has been “laying it one thick” in an effort to convince small businesses to advertise to its members. Note the site’s development of an interface created to nudge Facebook page owners to upgrade from regular to promoted posts. Facebook also upgraded its mobile page app to sell ads to business customers. Wired

Setting things in motion. One Facebook intern gives us a tour of the mobile advertising interface he helped create, the very first mobile advertising interface ever implemented on Facebook, he proudly reminds us. The effort was motivated in part by a desire to create advertising services to reach 600 million users now active on the social network’s mobile app every month. Facebook Engineering

Keeping it real. The trouble with all this is that, while businesses like using Facebook’s free features to promote their brands, they aren’t too keen on paying for anything extra. A recent e-mail survey of 3,434 member merchants of MerhantCircle.com suggested that while 68.7 percent favored using Facebook’s free platform to promote their businesses, only 6.6 percent said they used Facebook’s pay options. AllFacebook

How Do You “Like” It?

Building your fan base. Getting “likes” on your Facebook page as a way to promote your business isn’t a matter of luck or popularity alone. In fact, blogger Samuel Pustea insists there are a number of simple steps any online business owner can take to increase the number of “likes” their page receives. Here’s one approach for growing your fan base. Internet Dreams

Staying on schedule. But there may be an even simpler approach to improving your marketing results with Facebook. Just as with your business blog, establishing a posting schedule for Facebook will work wonders, says online marketing consultant Allison Semancik. Here are some benefits of establishing a Facebook posting schedule and some advice on how to create one. Idea Sprouts

Getting on the ball. If you haven’t got one yet, it’s time to start a Facebook page for your business today. Guest blogger Jennifer Koebele gives some examples of how to create content for your small business or brand, and looks at some of the obvious benefits too. Though maintaining a Facebook page for your business will take some time, the benefits outweigh the investment. Small Biz Diamonds

Setting up shop. You may have heard that Facebook and other social media are for marketing and building your brand, not for selling products. But guest blogger Debbie Dragon has these suggestions for setting up shop on the social networking giant using the Facebook Store App. Then follow these simple steps to start selling your products to Facebook users following you. Denise O’Berry

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