Like it or not, business on Facebook use what’s called a fan page.

If you’re a performer you’re probably used to having fans but many service providers and shops don’t usually refer to their customers and prospects as fans.

None-the-less, if you haven’t claimed your business name as a Facebook fan page; STOP reading this right now, go to Facebook (you do have a personal profile, right?), and create a fan page with your business name.

Fan pages have a lot in common with profiles but they offer several advantages for doing business online. A#1 is the ability to send a message to all your fans. It’s the corollary to email marketing and if Facebook continues to rule the Web2.0 scene, you’ll be left in the dust by competitors if you don’t jump on board.

Once you have a fan page though, how to do get more fans and make the time and effort payoff?

For those that have a blog or website, including the Facebook fan box is the next step.

Here’s how you create one and add it to your page:

1. Log in to your Facebook fan page.
2. Use this link to open a FAN BOX WIDGET
3. You’re taken to the page for creating a Fan Box:
   1. Your fan page should already be selected, unless you have more than one (pick the one you want to create a box for)  There are three include options that you can choose for your fan box:
      • If you select the STREAM option, the box will include the stream of comments on your wall. (This will make the box bigger.)
      • If you choose the FANS option, your fans will be included in the box. (This option will also make the box bigger.)
      • The third option will include the  FACEBOOK LOGO (required IMO)
   2. The second option  is Choose where to add the widget.
      • To add the widget to your website, select OTHER.  The code that you need will appear in the field below and a preview of your fan box appears on the right.
      • To change any of your choices, select or deselect them and re-click the OTHER button and your code and preview will refresh.
4. Select the code and copy it (hit Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C or use the menu  functions).
5. Send the HTML to your website maintenance person via email or insert it yourself into your site or blog.

Now you’ve got to promote it. Make an offer to new fans, call attention to it with your design, write about your Facebook experiences,  send your email list a notice, maybe even run a PPC campaign.

It’s not a substitute for an email list but another way to keep in touch with your clients and prospects, now called fans!

From Marketing Sherpa:

Is _______ going to kill email?

.

It‘s a question we love to ask every few years when some new technology comes along.

RSS sparked the last wave of discussions, and of course, now it‘s social.

.

Will social media affect email? Definitely. Will it kill the medium?
Far from it.

.

After all, email is the original opt-in tactic, while social and mobile are newcomers, and email works in tandem with most other tactics to increase engagement, deliver relevant content and build contact databases.

.

My question is: do your Social Media efforts work with an established email program?

.

Aweber helps users integrate by auto posting notices of email blasts to a chosen Twitter, but it requires several clicks for the Tweet reader to get to the email content. And, there’s practically no way to add the FaceBook tag (#FB) to the Tweet.

.

I prefer to go the other way: FaceBook to Twitter, so that means a manual post to FB and a link directly to the content which, to get into the Tweet needs to be a shortened URL.

.

Whatever works for you, you need to implement a strategy. I see significant percentages of traffic coming forom the SM sites and reports from other top marketers that Twitter and FaceBook are their top lead generating sources.

.

Don’t think that just because you’re local and your customers/clients visit you physically that Social Media isn’t important to your long term business health. It’s only going to get more critical. Hire someone to help you or learn to do it yourself but it must be done!

.

I gotta confess – I’m not the most “social” marketer.

.

Yes, I’ve got a Facebook profile AND I’ve claimed pages for my businesses but I haven’t done much with it. I enjoy FB when I go check-in but it’s such a time suck.

.

And how do you “manage” a Twitter account?

.

But, when I see these kinds of reports:

According to Forrester’s “The Growth of Social Technology Adoption” report published in 2008, 3 out of 4 Americans are using social technology. Other reports now surfacing claim that 2/3rds of the global population has access and uses some form of social media.

.

And from the world’s most powerful publisher, Rupert Murdoch: “Technology is shifting the power away from the editors, publishers, the establishment and the social elite. Now it’s the people who are in control.”

.

If you are trying to grow your business without the help and support of your key customers and their social networks, you have not adapted to the new marketing world.

.

So, I’m going to start following social marketing guru MariSmith’s advice from a twitter post where she asks:

.

“Do you sign off every email & e-newsletter with your full Twitter URL & Facebook Fan Page URL? Highly recommended!!”

.

And add Facebook and Twitter links to all new emails.

And this blog (as soon as I find the time)!

.

What about you? Got any social media success stories? Do be social and tell in comments…