We just recently got our Facebook going. We have around 61 fans. My wife is a Social Media Expert and Facebook seems to be her life. She set up our page and got me started but now I am on my own. Looking for ideas on what has been successful in relation to our business for you guys our there. My wife will continue to help me and monitor our fans as far as what they like and don't. The bottom line is our customers have to be involved in our page. My wife started a facebook last year for her company and she has almost 3,000 fans. One of the things she does is network with the local News channel and they help advertise her Facebook page. She is giving something away every quarter. They are constantly doing really cool give-aways and it seems to work well for her.

How has Facebook Helped your Business? Do your customers come to your page?
Please respond and leave a link to your facebook. I would like to look at everyones and see if I can get some ideas from them. I have visited some of your pages already. Thanks for in advance

Can she give you a wild-ass guess as to how many dollars of profit, or even gross sales, she has gotten from each hour she's put into Facebook? That's a hard question, but there's a worse one -- will it continue to take as many hours to gain proportionally similar profits, or will profits per hour somehow increase?

The answer to proven ROI could potentially be zero. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have it. Its about exposure, brand control, immediate response, informing existing clients of new products, company focus, etc. Not to mention one of the best job/sample galleries you can have since it is easy to link to your site, easy to upload new images, and minimal competitive sponsors. None of this would be impossible without it and none of it is easily tracked but it is something companies should be using today to stay competitive. Its free, except for your time.

Use if for my bar pretty extensively.

Sound nailed it.

We use it and its actually led to a good size job that was completely unexpected.

It doesn't hurt to have a facebook (or any social network) site but its definitely not free.

First expense is the time involved. Would your time be better spent meeting with builders and interior designers? Whats it costing you to operate the facebook site? Are you or your wife handling it? An employee? Would any of your time be spent better somewhere else?

Second expense is the fact that you give up ownership once you upload it. Your content will be used for ads and you will not receive compensation. IMO this is fine because they trade you for access to a built platform that reaches millions before you even sign up.

Another thing to think about is that if you invest a ton of time into facebook... and it joins myspace in the loser circle because of Google+ or whatever new social network pops up... you cant get that time back and you cant easily transfer it to the next platform.

Different companies have different needs. Fiascos bar NEEDS a facebook account because its great at reaching circles of friends who want to meet up some place and drink/eat/be merry. People make instant decisions about where they end up for food and drink and facebook is how many people communicate with each other today.

I use facebook to spam template sales. Without fail i make sale every single time i post something at facebook. It puts the product in front of new people. Should you have one? Yes i think so. Should you invest a lot of time in it? Depends. I think your dot com... yourwebsite.com is and always will be your most important asset. This is something you can customize and tailor and you own it forever.

I think social networking should be used to drive traffic to your main website. I dont think it should be used as a website replacement. Your facebook gallery should never have more/better photos than your website gallery. Your facebook posts should be used to direct traffic back to your site for special offers.

Invest the bulk of your time optimizing your website. Im not just talking about making it search engine friendly. Refine the "message" by eliminating confusion like multiple navigation bars at the top and bottom and on the sides. Put long winded speeches about products in a blog not on your websites home page. Replace old photos with new higher quality photos of current products. Have friends family and clients offer feedback about it. Make your dot com easy to browse and make sure it has just enough of the information so that clients can...

Find out who you are .
See what you do.
See examples of work you have done.
Find all contact information that will allow them to get in touch with you.

I have 2 facebook pages and both have under 100 followers. These are all real people... most are part of our industry. I don't think there are 3000 people in the whole world interested in following either page. If i ever have that many fans i think most will be useless contacts.

[Link: facebook.com]
[Link: facebook.com]

I have had clients that are not followers comment to me in person that they wanted their install to look like pic x or pic y on my facebook page. Its not just for followers.

I started using a fan page just recently... I will monitor it and see what my ROI is. It will be interesting to see with my industry.

When I am reading CNet, Gizmodo, Residential Sys, CE-pro, etc and come across a good article, I share it to my companies facebook, twitter and google+ page. I have closed two jobs using Facebook for over 10k. Whenever we upload new photos to our website, I also upload them to facebook. I haven't put that much extra time into, but have seen some rewards.

Well you are right on one thing. There is no way we see every dollar we spend on working on our business but is it worth the risk? I don't spend very much time on our facebook at all right now. My wife, Business Partner, and myself are the administrators. We also have a tech we are thinking about adding as well because he can be taking pictures of jobs and upload them quickly.

Here is what My wife says, people are spending their time everyday on facebook not on websites. Why not spend time with them with your product in there face everyday. Don't just put tech stuff. Give stuff away like tickets to the next game in your area, make it personal and share the picture of the trophy of the world series your child just won. Don't be political. Don't be religious. Just be a real person. The trick is to somehow make your business page as fun to follow as a personal facebook. This is the challenge. Think about this, When you post on your personal facebook that your daughter just won the state chapionship in gymnastics, you will have 30 comments. you post a picture on your business page of the best install you have ever done, you get 1 comment from your mother in law.

I ask all of our clients to give us a referal on facebook. It is more likely people will see that than on our website. I do agree that the Facebook should be directing people to your website as the priority.

As far as Facebook turning into Myspace, this is where i Think my wife has it down. She has them all. Google +, Facebook, twitter, and who knows what else. None of us have the time to do this. I would be curious to see if there is a CI company out there that has a Social Media person on staff. My wife has shown that there business has improved by 16%. She has also shown that the 25,000 a quarter they spend on Newspaper advertisement has little return compared to the return of facebook customers. Here is a link to her facebook.

[Link: facebook.com]

Keep in mind this is what she gets paid to do everyday. I am considering Paying her part time to do ours. The most interesting stat is that they are number one in service to Women for all dealerships in the region. check this link out: Don't drool over how hot she is in the picture

[Link: arkansas-trucks.com]

According to my spouse, genuine likes on your page is $6.00/like(ROI)

That has to be industry specific.