Use your personal Facebook profile to promote your business

by on November 21, 2010

How to promote your small business on Facebook

Give a shout (and link) out to your small business on your Facebook profile

If you’re cringing or thinking uh-uh, no way, I’m not spamming my friends with business crap they’re not interested in – awesome! You get what Facebook is all about and what you shouldn’t do when self-promoting.

What I’m talking about here is having your information available to those that want it. Everyone else will be none the wiser. As Wong Ching Ya puts it, it’s about promotion without pissing people off.

Maximizing your profile

When you’re on your personal Facebook page, there are a couple of different areas where you can slip in some business information.

Welcome area

Right underneath your photo, you have an area where you can write whatever you want. Use it as a little window into who you are. Start off with whatever you like, a quote, a short description, but make it personal. Then, insert one or two lines about your business. And remember, don’t make it boring. Go back to the “What do you do for a living?” questions, and take your description beyond your job title. Share the greater purpose.

And for a small business owner, this shouldn’t feel unnatural. Your business is a huge part of who you are, is it not? Of course you want to share it with the world!

Information

In this box right under the welcome area, you have the ability to add websites. So go for it! I have my homepage, my Twitter, my LinkedIn, and my Facebook page. You can add these in under the “Contact Information” area of this section. And it will show up right on your main profile page, nicely hyperlinked.

You can also add in a longer description of what your small business is and what gets you out of bed in the morning in the “Education and Work” section. This will show up in your information tab if anyone chooses to have a browse.

Why bother???

You’re right that your current friends probably won’t take notice of this. Maybe some of your new future friends will check out your profile when you get connected.

But the main reason I think this is important is because of how Facebook works. When you’re out there in the Facebook world, checking out, liking, sharing and commenting on other Facebook business pages, it’s you as a person doing this. Doing this is an important part of Facebook strategy. Connecting with and supporting other businesses and entrepreneurs, and getting that love right back. It’s you being a brand ambassador for others as Justice Marshall said. Ahhh, the karma. And did I mention it’s fun?

But as you’re doing this, other businesses see you the person. And, there is a chance that they will click on your wonderful face to check out the profile of their awesome supporter (yay!). So it makes sense to welcome them with your websites and your social media pages, so they can easily learn a little more about you professionally. And hey look, there’s your Facebook page right there – in just 2 clicks, they can respond in kind and “like” your page right back. Do you see the potency of this?

I’m a big fan of giving back to those that like me, but if I can’t find your business information on your personal profile, it certainly makes it a lot harder for me to reciprocate. Why not take the 5 minutes to change that scenario? Then come on over, give my Facebook page a like, and I’ll be happy to do the same for you since you’ve just made it so gosh darn easy for me 🙂

UPDATE: February 11, 2011

Since Facebook changed the look of personal profiles, alot of the information above no longer applies. This video shows the changes and the effect they have on how you can promote your business.

How the Facebook profile change affects your business’ information

You no longer have the little description area right under your picture. So you can’t list your websites or describe your small business there anymore.

What you can do is have your business information right at the top of the page. What shows up there is your job title and, if you set it up properly, a direct link to your business Facebook page. Here’s how to do it:

  • Login to Facebook and go to “Edit Profile”
  • Under “Education and Work” start typing in your business’ Facebook page name. You should see a drop down of options with your Facebook page eventually showing up. Click on it.
  • Be sure to also include your “position” as this will show up at the top of your profile. Try to come up with something as descriptive as possible. You can say “owner” but you could also be a little more clever with it, especially if the name of your company does not make it clear what you do. If you own a health food store, you could say something like, natural health goddess, for example.

And there you have it!

How the new Facebook business page design affects your interactions

Prior to the change in the Facebook business page design, whenever you interacted on other Facebook business pages, you did so as yourself the person. Which was why I stressed the importance of having your business information public. Now, you can choose to interact with other businesses as your page, which is huge! But it’s still a good idea to have your business information set up properly on your personal profile so that friends have easy access to it.

Related Posts with Thumbnails

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Ching Ya November 21, 2010 at 10:46 pm

Pleasure meeting you Martina, and thank you so much for the link love. Appreciate it. A very nicely done post and so true, we never know when our friends will be interested in the info we shared. 🙂 Give everyone a chance to help one another, a harmless exposure won’t hurt as long it’s not overly done.

@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker

Reply

Martina November 22, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Thanks so much Ching Ya! I have really enjoyed all the useful social media info and tips you share on your blog. You inspired me to write this post. Great to have you here 🙂

Reply

Cancel reply

Leave a Comment

CommentLuv badge

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

Previous post:

Next post: