The answer is YES!
Facebook Pages are public, indexed and seen by Search Engines - just as websites are. Facebook now has 600 million registered users around the world and next to YouTube, is the largest social media channel on the Internet. Facebook is where your audience is already AT so why not create a Facebook Page to reach them?
A recent Nielsen study reported that 75% of ALL Americans use social media occupying nearly 25% all their time spent online. Given that, what's the best way to reach them? In a community with which people are already engaged.
Facebook Pages Offer Dynamic Interactive Functionality
Facebook Pages offer all sorts of free (and inexpensive) Apps that enable your site for deep customer engagement. For example, I just added a Twitter App to my Facebook Page. Acting in a similar manner to the Twitter Plugin I have on my Arque Creative site, it acts like an RSS feed and publishes all my tweets to a designated Tab on my Facebook Page. Why is this a good thing? Because every time I tweet, it updates my Facebook Page with new content. Search Engines love dynamic sites so this is an excellent tool for boosting your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Facebook Offers Easy Content Sharing
Perhaps the most wonderful and useful feature that a Facebook environment offers is easy content sharing. Have new merchandise in your store? Take a picture with your Facebook mobile App and upload it to your Page. This lets your customers know instantly that you have new inventory and gives them a reason to shop at your store. Have a new seasonal entree at your restaurant? Take a short video of your head chef talking about the creation of this new dish and post it to your Facebook Page. This gives your customers a new reason to visit your restaurant. Or, do what Whole Foods does and post a tantalizing new recipe that folks can whip up at home.
Show Your Fans You Care
Forget about selling your fans ANYTHING! Instead adopt a social sharing strategy that lets your Fan base know you care about them. Take e-tail giant Zappos. They wrote the book on customer service - literally. Tony Hsei's new book Delivering Happiness takes the position that if you show your customer you really care about them and their customer experience, you will build loyalty and generate profits - big profits. "Profits - Passion - Purpose" is the mantra adopted by Hsei and one that has led Zappos to experience enormous profitability.
You DO Have the Time
So this is what trips up everyone - the time factor. There is a perception that social media is a big drain on productivity and not really worth the effort. FALSE! If you employ a disciplined approach, you will find that time spent managing your social channels can be really efficient. Yes, the start up time cost is steep, but once you get the channels going, and use the right management tools with which to do so, you'll find that that amount of time needed to manage your accounts should be no more than 30 minutes a day! Yes a half hour investment is enough time to manage your Facebook Page, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. I use HootSuite to manage 2 Facebook Pages, 2 Twitter feeds, 1 LinkedIn account and don't spend more than 30 minutes a day posting and sharing news...unless I want to.
Build Your Facebook Page Today!
What's stopping you? Setting up a Facebook Page is easy...and engagement can be really fun. Visualize this as an opportunity to really know your customers and build meaningful, lasting relationships. At the end of the day, this will serve your business well by rewarding you with a loyal customer base.