As mentioned in a previous post, Facebook is the current king of traffic on the internet. The sheer numbers of visitors they receive every day is staggering, and is the reason why all businesses should add a Facebook fan page.

The easiest way to describe a Fan page is that it’s a website or blog for your business within Facebook. One of the most important aspects of a Fan page is that it separates your personal account from your professional persona. For example, your clients won’t see all the pictures of your children that you upload in the news stream. Instead they can see links to new blog posts on your primary website as the links are posted in your Fan pages’ stream.

Unfortunately when you start your business’s Fan page, it comes with a long address that’s impossible to remember. The address for BaileyHill Media’s fan page is: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Austin-TX/BaileyHill-Media/133309610030953. Thanks Facebook, could you have made it any harder to share my fan page? Why not add a few more digits to the number at the end, 15 is kind of short don’t you think?

Luckily Facebook added “Vanity Usernames” in mid 2009. This process will let you change your FB page address to something easy to remember and share. Your page must have 25 fans before you can register the vanity name, so ask all your friends & acquaintances in the direction of your fan page. Even better, ask your clients to “Like” your page. I asked my networking group to “Like” BaileyHill Media’s page, and sent them a link via email.

Once you’ve got 25 fans, go to http://www.facebook.com/usernames and follow the link to set a username for your page beneath the main form. On the next page you’ll be able to submit your desired name, Facebook will tell you if it’s available or not.

Facebook makes choosing a username a serious activity since it can’t be changed once it’s set. Make sure that you’re happy with your choice and that it represents your business or organization well.  They even remind you one last time before you pull the trigger.

And.. that’s it. It’s a fairly painless process but like much of Facebook, it’s not easy to find the right page to process the request.

If you like this post, why not become a fan of ours on Facebook? http://facebook.com/baileyhillmedia.web.design - If you send me a link, I’ll happily return the favor.

Image credit: Facebook by Franco Bouly

The true secret sauce behind Facebook advertising is the “Like” ecosystem that Facebook has developed.

It gives the user a perception of personal endorsement which is the most powerful form of advertising in any medium. Think about it, if a friend of yours told you how much they enjoyed a new restaurant wouldn’t you be more open to dining there? The examples are endless.

Facebook has started to carry this over into their advertising model in a subtle but effective manner. If a user’s Facebook friends “Like” a fan page, then their approval of the advertiser will show up at the bottom of the ad. The image below was a screen shot that was taken yesterday. It’s a political ad for a candidate who’s running for Governor of Texas. At the bottom of the ad it shows how two Facebook friends of the user like the candidate. There’s the secret sauce, the personal recommendation.

The amount of traffic alone is a good reason to consider advertising on Facebook. Put your ads where the eyeballs are. A national or global campaign can easily amass a ridiculous number of impressions in a very short period of time. This isn’t the secret sauce, but definitely a reason to explore advertising on the site.

Another feature of the Facebook advertising platform is the demographic targeting. Facebook users enter a lot of information about themselves that can lend a hand when trying to spend valuable advertising dollars wisely. Similar to Google AdWords, an advertiser can target specific keywords. Often these are keywords based on what the user has entered in their profile (i.e. their interests) or what they’ve posted within their status updates. Advertisers can filter for a large number of data points such as sex, age, location, relationship status, political views, religious views, all in addition to keywords. While the filtering capabilities alone are pretty powerful, this is not Facebook’s secret sauce.

Facebook’s secret sauce is the perception of personal endorsement that your Facebook Fans give by “Liking” your ad or FB Fan Page. In addition to personal endorsement, the sheer amount of traffic and the demographic targeting make Facebook a powerful advertising platform.