Does Your Business Need a Facebook Fan Page?

I am active on a big (actually, the biggest, but who's counting LOL) Internet Marketing forum. Tonight I received a Private Message from an old acquaintance.

He asked:

But,,,my question…and maybe I'm just not seeing the answer

The Big deal on Fan pages…

Do these get indexed by google??

Is that why the all the clamor to get them set up for local businesses?

This is a question that a lot of folks have been asking, and, rightly so.

I for one have been encouraging, arm twisting, and, yes, threatening, my clients about starting Facebook Fan Pages for their businesses.

Here is my answer:

Yes they get indexed by Google. My first one, that I added a custom Fan Page to in the last 2-3 weeks, shows up when I look on Google with quotes (I was in a hurry and just wanted to see IF it was indexed, not WHERE

"the Armchair Handyman"

I am seeing it at number 5 and its related FB App is #6

Interestingly enough, they are at the same place in Scroogle, with quotes also

I used this page for a test of  one of the new WordPress for Fan Pages solutions that have recently come on the market…

And actually, no, that isn't the point for Offline businesses, as I see it.

FB is now as big or bigger than Google

Facebook provides this information about its users:

• More than 500 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

As an illustration, I just sent out an email to one of my lists. This is the first email I have sent since Nov 2011

I set Aweber to post it to my Fan Page and 2 hours later, I had a comment from one person about it on FB.

I may or may not get more interaction  but the way I see it, it is a start and it took me no effort. The post was done automatically by my autoresponder company, using settings I had added earlier.

Most offline businesses are Brick and Mortar, and using the power of WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter, it is relatively easy to set things up so that every action you take,  every post you make, can really magnify your online presence or build relationships

I have been telling my clients that they won't necessarily see a positive growth for a year or more, but I can pretty much guarantee that if they wait that long to implement, they'll get lost in the dust

I push most of my clients to WordPress these days because it is so flexible AND because it is so easy to integrate with FB, Twitter, and some autoresponders.

The problem with Fan Pages out of the box is that there is very little to work with from a marketing stand point. You really have just the Wall for the most part. Certainly is it better than nothing but you can't use it to build an email list, for example.

Using one of the myriad of new solutions available now, such as the one I have been testing, allows you to harness the ease of WordPress and add desperately needed marketing functionality to FB Fan Pages, such as the email sign ups that I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

As things progress, Facebook looks like it will become more and more important from a marketing stand point, at least in the near future.

In fact, if you have no web presence at all, a Facebook Fan page is certainly better than nothing. With the new solutions for adding functionality to fan pages using WordPress, it could be surprisingly effective.

No matter what, however, if you are an offline business you need a web site and a Facebook Fan Page, as quickly as possible!

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