Social Marketing for Business SEO

The word is out and social marketing is the big thing in e-commerce. Sites for a while now have been rewiring their sites to be better compatible with social networking sites like Facebook, Digg, Myspace etc. with many online stores starting to put their inventory on their Facebook pages.

Many are aiming to make Facebook their virtual marketplace and the clincher is how to make the pages engaging. There are some good concrete reasons why companies are choosing Facebook to sell and share their products. The primary reason being that Facebook is the largest of all the social networking sites in terms of membership (with over 500 million hits per month) and can be a great market for almost any consumer product.

The key to make your site engaging and gain followers is designing a unique Facebook page. While there are hundreds of ideas floating around the net on how to design an exotic page in Facebook, focus on uncanny ways how you might give users more value for their visit. So let’s get an idea of how we might do this.

First of all visitors will land by default at your wall (there are options to customize this). You can let users land on specifically tailored sections or boxes in your profile. Rewarding new users with content or information is a good tactic to increase followers. In essence, make an exchange (get people to become followers in exchange for exclusive content). Also, allow fans to upload relevant photos and tag themselves. Whenever people are tagged on Facebook they are notified and this will further encourage new visitors to your page.

Cool contests every few weeks can also be a great way to inspire involvement in your Facebook page. There are also tools and apps in Facebook to incorporate other social networks like Twitter or Myspace. Use them to your advantage. Like suggest earlier, give away free stuff like ebooks to your fans as soon as they join your page. A simple ‘thank you’ message can go a long way towards building goodwill. The fastest growing demographic is over 55 years in Facebook so design your messages in a fashion that does not appeal only to kids and teens but to older people as well.

The most important thing to consider when launching a business Facebook page is the amount of time required. Realize that it’s a marketing investment upfront and make scheduled time to the upkeep of your marketing efforts.