If you are using Facebook personally or are still one of those rare people who aren’t part of what compares in size as being the 3rd largest country in the world, you might want to consider “playing” with some fun techniques here to market your business.

Of course to start with you will need to create a Page for your Business if you haven’t already. Go here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to get started. It only takes a couple of minutes.

Collect “Likes” for Charity – A “Like” on Facebook equates to a soft referral and has taken the place of “becoming a fan”. Businesses know that if someone in your network “likes” something then it will get more of your attention. American Express Open used this technique to promote their Small Business Saturday promotion. Set a figure you would like to donate (say it’s $100) to your favorite charity. Friends can basically help to donate by liking your page over a specific period of time. You will then donate $1 for every like to this charity up to a certain number (100 in this case) of “likes”.

Run a Contest – Make sure you read Facebook’s Promotional Guidelines (http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php) before you do this. But if done correctly, it can draw a lot of exposure. I saw this used very effectively and correctly by a client of mine The Chamberlain Group (http://chamberlaingroup.ca/). They had just had a baby, and decided to run a cutest baby or (for their friends who didn’t have kids) cutest pet contest. Prizes were $1000 for the baby’s RESP or dog food for a year, donated by a local pet store. You could post the picture of your baby or pet on their website and of course contestants promoted their baby or pet through their networks. The exposure for these savvy realtors was enormous, but it also allowed them to connect and give back in a fun way to their network.

Run a Fun Ad – If you have never clicked on the little advertising button on the bottom of your Facebook page, you should. Setting up an ad on Facebook only takes a minute and you can set some very low dollar amounts to keep the cost down. Besides being a great place to test your ads or a headline, Facebook ads work! Instead of just trying to sell your business though, try using them creatively.

Taylor Pratt was promoting his popular Ravenhunt game on Facebook and wanted to increase the click through rates of his ads (read full article here: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/fun-ways-to-improve-facebook-ad-ctrs/18779/). His first ads were pretty good. But when he had a bit more fun with the pictures his click through rates doubled and when he beckoned to his target audience his click through rates tripled.

Have fun with your Fan Page – Often businesses will leave their Wall as the default entry point to their page, but you can add new tabs to your page like the Welcome tab below and customize your settings so the people land on this page first. Examples like the one below are way more enticing and give people multiple ways to engage with you. You can use a Graphic Designer to help you design a page like this or fan page software.

Find ways for people to interact – Target ran a very successful campaign on Facebook asking users to help them select which charities they should allocate their charitable funds to. Called the “Bullseye Gives” campaign, Target used a Facebook voting application and integrated it onto their business page. Each time someone voted (they could vote daily), they could publish their vote back to their Facebook feed, meaning more people could see Target’s branding and becoming followers of the company’s page.

As you can see Facebook, just like every other marketing tool out there is just that a vehicle. It won’t go anywhere or do anything, without your input, expertise and experience. Have fun!

Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success.

Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success (http://www.strategiesforsuccess.ca/) – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success.

Author Bio: Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success.

Category: Business
Keywords: facebook, social media, small business, marketing