Facebook: Not Good For Visiting Teaching, But Good For Your Business.

With the creation of the internet and the advancement in technology, the way we communicate with each other has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Instead of calling someone up and engaging in a long conversation, you can now send off a quick text message or put up a post on a Facebook wall. While losing that voice or face-to-face interaction may sometimes damage personal relationships, social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter provide businesses with the opportunity to reach large amounts of people with very small investments of time and money. Although there are many good social networking tools out there, this article will focus on Facebook and how you can advertise and create an interactive community for your business.

According to Facebook, they have over 500 million users and half of those users log on every day. That is a huge amount of prospective clients in one place. Most people who are somewhat computer savvy know what Facebook is, but not everyone may know that you can create a page for your business that will allow you to communicate directly to your customers and also get the word out about promotions and other business activities. And the best part: it is absolutely free (unless you create ads to promote your page). The following information will provide you with basic instructions for setting up your own business page on Facebook.

One misconception about Facebook pages is you are allowing strangers access to your personal profile. That isn’t true. Although you will create a page under your personal profile, the business page is completely separate. When someone “likes” your page, they will not automatically become a “friend” who has access to your family vacation pictures or your goofy status updates. If your privacy settings on your personal profile are set at “only friends”, none of your new fans will have access to personal information. The advantage of having the business page under a personal account is the ability to manage the page while signed in for other Facebook activities. The left column on your home page will have a link for page management.

To get started, go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. There are several options, including a business page, a community or a group. For business purposes, a page is the best choice. Choose a name for your page, most often the name of your company, and enter it in. Answer the questions provided and your page will be created. You are now ready to post on your page or edit its look and function.

When you are on your newly created page, go to the top of the left hand column and click on “edit page”. You are given the options of adjusting privacy settings and adding photos, videos and discussion boards. Think about how you want your page to be utilized by your clients and add the tools you need. You are able to customize your page by adding “widgets”. Google “facebook widgets” and you will find many cool, useful items. Be careful not to add too much. The message still needs to be clear and not cluttered with junk. If you are knowledgeable about html, on the bottom of the edit page, there is something called “static html” which will allow you to customize your page to look more like a website. If you want to invest a little money into advertising, you can purchase ad space to promote your page. Or if you want to go the free route, you can suggest your page to your friend network and let word of mouth find you fans. There is so much you can do with your page. A little research and some experimentation will get you the look and feel you want.

Facebook is a fabulous marketings tool and it isn’t hard to set up or maintain. Posting and responding is a little time consuming, but the payoffs can be huge! This was just a basic introduction to Facebook Pages, but hopefully, I have peaked your interest and inspired you to take the next step. Create a page and see what it can do for your business.

Inquiry Monday Posts...

will no longer be titled "Inquiry Monday". Some articles are not necessarily answering a question, so the term is now abolished! There will still be interesting posts to look out for on Mondays, so read frequently. I also will still answer questions in future posts, so keep those questions coming!

Inquiry Monday: Where Can I Find Help Writing A Business Plan?

A sound business plan is a necessity for any business, big or small. Often, as a business owner, you will be presenting this plan to banks and investors, in hope they will give you the money you need to operate or expand. Unless you are completely inept at copying your company info into a template or writing a few paragraphs, writing your own business plan is a managable task. The following are links which provide additional resources and terrific examples of business plans you can customize to fit your company's profile:

1) SBA Business Template - Review and complete each section of the template. At the end of the program you will be able to generate and save a formatted business plan which can later be further modified or presented as a final product.

2) Score - There are several templates for different stages in business development.

3) Business.gov - Many great resources for writing your plan.

4) LDS Employment Resource Services - An outline for constructing a business plan.

If you require additional information, just Google "business plans" and more websites will be provided to you. Creating a business plan is one of the first major steps when forming a business and with the assistance of these resources, you can build a solid foundation for your company.