Getting More People to Your Facebook Business Page

Social media usage for businesses is an aspect of SNS that was introduced to me during my internship with the strategic communication firm, Cookson Stephens Corporation (CSC). The firm aims to meet the communication goals for their clients' companies.

While interning, I was assigned the task of researching ways to increase "traffic" to the New Hampshire High Technology Council (NHHTC) Facebook page- by traffic my mentor meant activity; such as: number of likes, posts, shares, etc. I was just beginning to learn about PR and social media at the time I was asked to do this, therefore I implemented my own strategy. For my lack of knowledge on the subject and minimal practice, I decided to review the Facebook pages of High Tech Councils from other states. I figured this would allow me to observe the various methods used to increase the number of people visiting the NHHTC business page. Researching SNS techniques through other business pages was in some ways helpful, but for the most part tedious- which is why I'm glad you included a link to the Facebook Help Center (which I didn't know existed!). I personally believe this is an excellent resource that every business should utilize.

The guide to "Growing Your Audience" provides video tutorials that explain certatin functionalities of Facebook- some of which I hadn't known before.

1. Invite friends: Users are able to send mass invites to their friends asking to "like" a business page.
   - I think this is a great feature because people are recieving the invite from someone they know, which gives them reason to view/like the page.
2. E-mail customers: Send a personal email to inform them know about your page.
   - According to the SNS stats that we explored last week, people are engaging in social media more than ever before. From a business standpoint this is crucial because in order to gain the attention of your audience, you need to be where they are. Sending an email with a direct link to your business page makes it easier and faster for them to visit the page. Plus if you encourage them to like the page, they will receive updates about your business in their news feeds- which keeps the process of communication open for the future.
3. Customize your page address: Very helpful- people don't have to log into Facebook to view your page. The address can be added on business cards, reciepts, ads and promos making it easy for people to connect to your business.
4. Use Facebook ads: This feature essentially gives your business a "face" to other people that don't already know your company. Facebook allows you to create an advertisement driectly on the site and is presented to people that may have an interest in your business.

The instructions that are provided with each step of building-up Facebook Business Pages are very helpful because they provide visual demonstrations of where to find these certain Facebook features.

This is a personal photo I took at a recent NHHTC event and shared on their Social Networking Sites.