Can I market my business from home using the power of Facebook? Home business owners want to know

It is the question that everyone asks. Can I market my business from home using the power of Facebook? Facebook is one of the best and most affordable places to market your home business. Once you’ve signed up for free and set up your Facebook presence, you can earn the rewards of engagement for just a few minutes a day spent networking and updating your site.

Facebook is an online meeting place where individual members communicate and collaborate with each other using Web 2.0 tools such as chat rooms, instant messaging, online video, and other methods. With this social networking tool, you can quickly establish an online presence and start attracting new affiliates for your business.

Facebook users develop profile pages that their “friends” can view and respond to. When those profile pages are part of a network, everyone within that network can see those pages. The profile itself usually includes some or all of the following:

• Information
• State
• Friends
• Friends in other networks
• Photos
• Ratings
• groups

The Wall (where users post their latest information, photos, etc.).

To set up your home business on Facebook, go to the “Pages” feature of the site, which allows businesses to collect “fans” (through marketing messages like “find us on Facebook at (your link here) included on the site company website and materials Once set up, your new page will join the more than 1.4 million Facebook pages that gather more than 10 million fans daily Home and small business owners, such as you, manage many of those pages.

The more you update your Facebook presence with useful and interesting information, photos and multimedia, the more “fans” will come to your door. Here are some good strategies to use when engaging with potential affiliates on Facebook:

Make them your friends: Facebook is all about building close ties with your fans, all of whom should think of you as a “friend.” You may never meet any of them in person, but in the online world, this type of connection qualifies as a friendship.

Jumpstart your business: Once you have a personal profile, create a page for your business. Fill that page with company information, photos, videos, upcoming events, discussion forums, and links to your home-based business website.

Make it interesting: Upload photos, videos, logos, and other marketing materials that help people get to know you more than just words. You want them to think of you as a person, not just a brand.

Tell them what you do: Offer a full range of information about your business. The more complete your profile is, the easier it will be for you to connect with other people.

Stay professional: Keep overly personal information and photos off your Facebook Pages business site, and always maintain an air of professionalism when updating and posting information online.

success strategies

There are many ways to build a Facebook following and market my home business. You can upload your contact database to see which of your contacts are already on Facebook and request to “friend” any of them you want. This gives you a good starting point on Facebook, instead of starting from scratch.

Add apps to increase the functionality of your page, like an RSS feed from your blog or embedded YouTube videos. Doing this will help improve your Facebook page’s ranking in search engines like Google.

Be sure to promote your Facebook page as much as possible. Advertise your business page via email, your blog and through the Facebook network to generate more traffic and grow your fan base. Entice users to click through to your company’s website by giving them a reason to click: a special offer, a short report, an ezine article, or something that catches their eye.

Join and create groups that are visible to Facebook members, and you can finally say that you use Facebook to market my home business. You can join as many as you want and get in touch with all the members of the groups. Groups form around any type of interest, from “green” living to industry-specific topics, hobbies, and crafts.

Use these tips to start building a Facebook following that is receptive to your suggestions when you recommend products or services (the ultimate goal of any affiliate marketer). Once these friends and followers know you have something of value to offer, they’ll click through to your business website to learn more.