Facebook Business Tips

Last week, I talked about about LinkReferral to help promote my Etsy shop. This week, I thought I'd talk about Facebook. Facebook is a popular social networking website that has more than 750 million active users. It's a good idea to have a Facebook fan page if you have a business. Even though Facebook isn't my top referrer to my site, it helps bring some traffic and allows me to connect with other businesses. Here are some tips I've found helpful.

Creating a Page
- To start a page, click here. You can choose what type of page you want from six different categories. I have my Etsy under "Local Business or Place", but you can also choose your category as "Brand or Product" or "Company, Organization, or Institution" if you think it fits your shop better.
- If you want to edit the information in your page, go to your page and click "Edit Info" at the top. Fill in information about your Etsy such as your website address, email address and profile photo.
- To get a custom URL/username, click here.

Keeping it Active
- Update frequently enough so your Facebook page stays active, but don't update too much. I'd say posting something once a day or a couple times of week is the best. I wouldn't recommend doing more than three updates a day because it could push fans away.
- I post about big events like giveaways and sales on my Facebook. I don't like to post about smaller things, like new items I've listed or updates to my blog, on my Facebook because I do that on my Twitter instead.
- To get your fans active, uses the features on Facebook fan pages such as photo albums and polls. I try to update my photo album with images of my items about once a week. You can use Facebook applications such as My Etsy where you can directly connect your Etsy page to your Facebook fan page.
- I like to add other craft pages to my "Favorites" on my profile. You can do this by going to a page and clicking "Add to My Page's Favorites" in the bottom left hand corner. I like to add Etsy teams, other Etsy shops and craft related companies.
- It's helpful to communicate with other people instead of just advertising yourself. Encourage people to post on your wall (such as by asking questions). You can also post on other fan pages or respond to comments you get on your wall.

Promoting
- To try to get more fans, you can invite your Facebook friends (click on the "Invite Friends" button on the right side of your fan page).
- It also helps to go on the Etsy forums and teams and search for "Facebook" threads where people post links to their Facebook fan pages.
- Put your Facebook link in your Etsy profile so people who go to your shop can add you.

I've also used Facebook to advertise my shop. I stopped doing it because it was out of my budget, but I think it can be helpful if you're willing to a little more money to advertise. Do you use Facebook? Are you a fan of any Etsy shops? If you have a Facebook page, do you find it helpful in promoting your business?