Taking your Company Social

Have you finally reached the point where you realize that taking your company social, is a must to succeed in the new Paradigm of business?

Where do you start, and how much time ought you devote every day? The answer is to look where you will find the largest group of your clients, on the Internet. Facebook is a wise first choice with a Facebook Business Page. Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide, and business pages are easily found in the search engines, by perspective clients looking for products, services or travel destinations like yours.

A Facebook Business Page creates a captive audience for your company, by enthralling all those who are interested in your products, services, events, and what is going on within your company. A business page allows you to post video's of your resort, product or service in action. You can create "How To" videos to establish client comfort in using your product. If you are in the travel or adventure business, your clients can get a first hand taste of what is in store for them, upon arrival.

Be Social With Facebook, And Allow Your Fans To Be Too

Locking down your page to limit management time is going to make your page less fun, and less interactive for users. Allow users to post on your wall, add photos, tag, add videos and comment on your posts and posts made by other fans. Enabling interactive options may result in a spam post here or there, but you can monitor all activity and delete what you deem inappropriate.

Optimize Your Status Updates With Keywords

It's significant to note that Facebook pages are indexed by search engines, meaning public updates from your Business Page (unlike your Personal Profile) often show up in Google's real-time search results. When posting a new update on your page, keep your most important keywords in mind. Also, try to add a picture when possible - Facebook updates with images posted on business pages are clicked on 57 percent more than text-only updates, and 24 percent more than posts with a video update.

Add The "Like" Button Plug-In To Your Website

To encourage your website visitors and blog followers to follow you on Facebook, add the Facebook "Like" plug-in to your site. This button is a single line of generated code that allows people to share your content with their network of friends. By clicking on the Like button, a story appears in the user's friend's news feed, with a link back to your site. In addition, users have the ability to add a comment, giving more prominence to the published story on Facebook.

Add Interactive Applications.

Facebook offers over 550,000 active applications, many of which help promote your own website and content via your Facebook Business Page. In addition to providing a user-friendly interface, most of the applications are very easy to install and customize. Also, integration and usage of these applications will promote links to your website, blog, or online retail space. Here are my top five must-haves: Networked Blogs, Static FBML (Facebook's HTML), Promotions, Slideshare, and Reviews.

Facebook Business Pages are becoming a second web page for most mid-size to small businesses. Employing these basic optimization tactics within your Business Page can significantly enhance your visibility and outreach not only through Facebook, but the entire World Wide Web.

Tom Ski is a master of the great outdoors. You can find Tom fly fishing in Montana, photographing elk and bison, watching birds from a hide or in the long grass, talking about life on his radio show and writing about his adventures at NewsBlaze.