Facebook Marketing and Your Website
Tips from Website Hosting Provider
As entrepreneurs and business owners, we are constantly on the search for new and cost efficient ways to market our business. The company website and its visitor base has a direct link to the bottom line. There is no doubt that increasing the number of visitors to your site and its content can be beneficial to building a company brand and increasing awareness about your product or service.
The reach of Facebook is growing exponentially and shows no sign of slowing.
Mark Zuckerberg, 23, founded Facebook as an educational network while studying psychology at Harvard University. As of September 2006, the network was extended beyond educational institutions to anyone with a registered email address. Today, the Facebook community has extended to the point that anyone, at any age, is interested in becoming a member. A recent trend shows that elderly people have become enthusiastic about the social networking system. The reach of Facebook is exponential and shows no sign of slowing.
Why should I invest the time to market my site's content on Facebook?
Masses of businesses and entrepreneurs are boarding the Facebook marketing train. If you are still undecided about it, you need only to speak to someone that uses Facebook. Most Internet users spend at least 80% of their Internet time on social media web sites. And this statistic shows no sign of slowing. But before you buy your ticket and invest your time into the Facebook phenomenon, let's take a look at the facts.
Does Facebook marketing work?
Social networking; we've read the articles, maybe watched a few videos, but at the end of the day, is there traceable proof that Facebook can increase your bottom line?
- Over 85% of American women have a social network profile, with 95% of them on Facebook.
- More than half of everyone who shops online has a Facebook profile.
- Facebook currently enjoys over 500 million active members. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated country on the planet.
- Facebook has been translated into over 100 languages, spanning nearly one third of the entire population.
- Facebook's most recent quarterly growth rates has shown that active user numbers have increased by over 25% in 47 countries. There is no sign of this growth slowing.
Facebook marketing works if you market your website content to the Facebook community.
A leading analyst at ForeSee Results, Kevin Ertell, gave Facebook marketing high reviews," Facebook is, by far, the best place to reach shoppers." He goes on to advise business owners and entrepreneurs, "Get a Facebook page and the big bucks will start rolling in."
Does Facebook marketing work? Just like any other golden opportunity, it works if you work it.
Market your existing website content to the Facebook community.
Many website owners know the value of quality content. Blogging has become so common place that almost 70% of every website on the Internet now contains some type of Blog. So how do we further capitalize on the content that we have invested so much time and effort into? Facebook. By adding a Facebook "comments" form to the bottom of every page of your site, you encourage people to leave a comment that can be viewed by all of their friends. The effect is viral. The information on your website can spread rapidly, causing your product or service to be more popular and reach more "eyes".
Facebook for Websites
The Facebook Platform enables you to make your website more personalized and social. The Facebook for website section provides a list of helpful marketing tools that you can use on your pages. You can mix and match Facebook's APIs to best meet your goals. One of our favorite Facebook marketing tools include the Facebook social plugins.
Facebook Social Plugins
Facebook provides a list of Social plugins that developers can use on their website(s). Social plugins let you see what your friends have liked, commented on or shared on sites across the web. Benefits include:
1. Increase the number of connected users.
2. Increase the publish rate per user.
3. Increase the click-through-rate on Facebook stories.
How to install a Facebook Comments form onto your web site.
In the Facebook Developers section, there are a number of Facebook Social Plugins that are free, and easy to install on your website. The Facebook Comments form is one that I particularly like because it encourages people to "like" your page and add comments about your site's content.
This is what the comments form looks like on a web page. (See image, below).
How to install the comments form on your web page:
- The first step is to visit the Facebook Comments plugin page and register your website. Click the "Get Code" button then click the "registering your site" text link. A new page will open and on that page you can enter your website's URL. This link will take you to the page to "create an application" or "register your site".
- After you have created an application (which is a strange title for this process because Facebook should call it "registering a site"), you will be presented with a page that displays your site's App Id. Copy it and return to the Facebook Comments page.
- Paste your App Id into the "Unique ID" field.
- Click "Get Code".
- That's it! You now have the code that you can paste into your website to display a Facebook comments form.
How do I install the code on my Joomla website?
- Login to your Joomla administrator backend application.
- Download and install the Sourcerer module. It allows you to paste code into your content.
- To install a new module, click "Extensions" -> "Install/Uninstall". Install the Sourcerer module so that you will have the ability to paste your Facebook comments code into a new module that we will create.
- Create a new module by clicking "Extensions" -> "Module Manager" -> "New" -> "Custom HTML" -> "Next"
- Name your new module something that is easy to remember, like "Facebook Comments".
- Click the "Insert Code" button that you should now have after installing the "Sourcerer" module.
- Paste the code that you copied earlier for your Facebook comments form. Next, save your new module.
- Now configure your new module further by clicking "Extensions" -> "Module Manager" -> "Facebook Comments". Enable the module and choose on which pages you wish the comments form to display.
That's it! You should now have a Facebook comments form installed on your web pages. Notify friends and relatives about your new form and ask them to "Like" it and comment on your web content. You will see that the number of visits to your website will most likely increase with this viral marketing tool.
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