Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Facebook for business - I need an explanation 101

Seemingly every business website I visit is linked to facebook, but when I click I'm always directed to a FB log in page, and I do not have an account therefore I can't view anything. Hence my question here.

As a small business guy with a website, I'd like to know if it's worthwhile to link my site to facebook. Doing so obviousy creates exposure, but I'm unclear if exposure on a social networking site is worthwhile. Or is it?

I could open a facebook account, but I've no intentions of updating every hour like if I found a smoking deal on paper clips, or if it was cloudy today, or if the mailman was 10 minutes late, etc. Since my website is strictly targeted to hunters, I'm unclear about any negatives the anti hunter peta girls and pussymen may post of their emotional opinions toward my service and hunters, if any. Perhaps there's a block/ignore feature?

I'd like to hear all opinions, especially from those who run a small business and have their website linked to facebook.

I'm totaly in the dark on this.

I have a Facebook account - I never use it. Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I just can't seem to get fired up about the whole "social networking" phenomenon. Never got into the "My Space" thing either. My wife spends a fair bit of time on Facebook, mostly keeping up with our kids and her relatives and friends. Seems to me to be a great place to give somebody the wrong ideas about a whole lot of things. Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see the value of Facebook in regards to running a small business. But, I'm not you, so can't give you much direction in the decision making process. Just my $0.02.

I don't run a business but FB is free.
No cost.

Linkedin is another one with more of a business focus.

bump this up, as I have been curious too about putting our shop on Facebook. I am already on Linkedin

Facebook is for high school girls. If friends, relatives, etc. care enough they'll pick up a damn phone.

The answer is, it depends...

I'll share my $.02. I'm sure others here can elaborate to a much higher degree than I but here's my take. I'm late to the Facebook party but here is how I understand the medium and how it relates to business.

I'm a small business owner of a hunting/shooting/tactical gear website, deltaoutdoorsman.com. The business is a sponsor of this website & a few others. I don't have a "brick & mortar" storefront, only a website & a warehouse for inventory. My "advertising" budget consists of sponsoring several websites, sponsoring about a dozen long range/tactical events a year, and my website. I don't have the budget to spend big $$ on magazines, pro staff, etc., so a small business like me needs to be creative and hustle in order to get any face time in front of my prospective customers.

This is where Facebook comes in. First of all, it is FREE. A business of any financial means can tell customers what they're doing, what's for sale, etc., by placing commentary on their Facebook page. Understand, the only customers who are going to read/receive any Facebook page info are those who have already indicated that they would like to follow company and receive news of promos, sales, etc. So Facebook is a medium of talking to customers who already know you, like you, and want to follow you. The hope is that you provide insight, value and entertainment to those "followers" and that they will tell their friends about you, thus spreading the news & helping you grow your exposure of the page and business operation. It is also wise to encourage your fans to use the Facebook page as a "destination" website by allowing them to post pictures, start conversations, etc. Any way you can get your fans to go to the site to interract, hang out, contribute, the better for the page, your business, etc. And you didn't spend a dime (except for your time) to put the infrastructure together.

Facebook is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to a small business & a marketing strategy. It is also possible to screw the pooch & overuse Facebook's reach by overposting to where you just become white noise with your audience. You have to strike a balance by contributing knowledge & value to your followers and making the page a fun place for them to hang out.

There are those who "...don't do that Facebook/Twitter B.S." and that is absolutely fine. I myself don't necessarily understand or feel comfortable sharing everything there is to know about me, my family, what time I'm going to the grocery store, etc. I just see the medium as a way to interract & communicate with the people who have indicated that they are interested in my company & want to help it grow.

ceylonc,

That's a pretty good explanation. Thanks for elaborating.

Oddly I have never heard of linkedon until reading the replies in this thread, so I went to their site. Many profesional web developers/designers say the goal is to have homepages configured in a simple user friendly form, so that potential customers know within 5 seconds what your website is about. I just spent 5 minutes on linkedon and came away with nuttin usefull. The homepage is a login page, and what little they do state is quite vauge. Head scratch......

I'm registered on FB so I can go on there & say stuff to pizz-off the libtards.


Mike

Go ahead and get a facebook account, but don't be surprised if you want to starting texting people, rather than talk to them and you won't be comfortable in anything other than poor fitting pants with your butt exposed...

I buy lots of stuff on-line, but I don't become a "fan" of businesses I do businesses with. Yes I like to know if there are sales, but lots of business give me the option to receive e-mails about such things. If I want to check on something I go to the company's website, not Facebook.

What impresses me most is when I get a reply to an e-mail I've sent asking a question. I'm really impressed when someone at the business takes the time to answer my specific question in detail rather than directing me to some FAQ page I may have already looked at. Not many on-line businesses do that, but I keep going back to the few that do.

One of my pet peeves are on-line resellers who don't provided detailed information and photos about the products they sell. Guess they think I'll search the web or run down to some brick and mortar store to check out the product and then go back on-line to buy it from them, which I seldom do. Being I'm on-line I try to buy from the manufacturer first and only go through middle men if the price is significantly cheaper. Manufactures are catching on, so the days of on-line only resellers are numbered.

we have them for our papers, the Wolf Point one hasnt taken off but over in Culbertson they love it, especially since the post office here has taken to [bleep] up their delivery on a regular basis.....as soon as we know about a delay we post it on the Facebook page and they know and our readers really appreciate it, especially given we dont have an office open down there at the moment cause i cant find a place to move a new editor in to......we have about 800 subscribers to that paper and i just looked and there are 600 friends under that Facebook account....also when we do have an editor down there they scan old pics we have in our archives and post them in photo albums there and the locals really love that aswell, should start doing that with Wolf Point....

for us its an addition to our business that provides something we cant do through print and the instant messaging type system it has when delays and such happen seems to work better than our website does for that issue.....