If I had a £ for every time I heard, Facebook can only be used for B2C marketing, I'd be thousands of pounds richer! Facebook is a great platform but when it comes to corporate businesses, it can be entirely misunderstood.
The most common misconception is Friends V Fans. Quite often executives have said to me "I don't want to be friends with my customers on Facebook". There seems to be confusion that you need to be friends with your customers to use Facebook effectively.
Related Post Facebook Strategy for Small Businesses
Facebook Fanpage
That's where the Fan page comes onto its own, your customer likes your Company page on Facebook, then in turn they will receive updates in their personal feed and comment and like where they feel is appropriate. No one needs to be friends with anyone, unless of course you want to. So, now what? Your customers are fans of your company page what happens now?
This is where the social media fun can happen, you can post fun interactive posts, invite comment on blog posts, add events and update your customers on issues and topics related to your business.
Facebook Landing Pages
And this is also where you can take advantage of Landing pages, which if you want to get really fancy, you can integrate directly into your CRM (salesforce.com web to lead code being a great example) - customers simply fill in their details to download the content, enter a competition, answer a quiz or questionnaire - using a bit of code, the customer details are added directly into your CRM.
I know from experience using Salesforce.com you can add a Lead Source, such as 'Facebook Campaign' against every new lead and create really effective reports and dashboards to show how social media has influenced your marketing strategy. Pretty cool! Marketo have embraced landing pages on Facebook and use them really well. Check out one of their landing pages:
Don't be afraid of Facebook, it can be a very effective B2B (as well as B2C) social
media platform!
