Whether you like it or not, Facebook has come to stay! If you’re a smart web entrepreneur, you need to start using Facebook to reach out to millions of Nigerian and African Facebook users who are actively involved with the most popular site for the year 2008.
In case you don’t know, Facebook is a social utility that connects people from all over the world (about 150 million). When the site was created, most people didn’t recognise Facebook’s business potentials. But today, most popular and successful sites such as CNN are using the Facebook’s utilities such as applications, etc to build their brands.
So what are ways business start-ups can tap into Facebook’s utilities?
Group
Like other social networking sites, Facebook allows users to create a group page for free. This group could be within several categories such as Internet & Technology, Advertising & Marketing, Media & Entertainment, Music, Politics, Sports, and so on.
When you start a group on Facebook, you can invite members to join the group and share their thoughts, opinions and discussions about your product, idea or start-up. Invitation to join a Facebook group can be via your Facebook friends, your Yahoo contacts, etc.
By participating in the discussions of the group, you can promote your business start-up and create more awareness, while establishing contacts and potential partners. You can also connect with potential customers and redirect them to your start-up website.
Application
A Facebook application can take on many forms, but in order to fully utilize the suite of integration points and deliver a full user experience, it is recommended that you integrate your application into certain areas of the Facebook profile. This application connects you to your potential users, customers and partners.
Note: In order to create a Facebook application, you should be well versed in PHP or some other coding language — such as Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, or Python — especially one that has a client library for Facebook’s API. You need to have a basic understanding of the Internet, SSH, MySQL, and Unix. You also need to be familiar with Web hosting fundamentals and have a place to host your application. Read more
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Your business start-up can use some Facebook advertisement too to build your brand. With as little as $30 (about N5000 naira), you can have your business ad banner placed across several Facebook pages. This allows millions of people to see your business everywhere on Facebook and attract potential customers, who would naturally visit your start-up website.
Personally, I’ve found Facebook useful for connecting with business contacts and potential partners. Although, Startups Nigeria has not created an application or used some advertisement, Facebook has been a great tool for promoting the website.
Are you a Facebook fan? Do you use Facebook for business? What Facebook tools and technologies have you used to build your business? How have these Facebook utilities helped you to promote your business?
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