With over 250,000,000 users world wide, Facebook is one of the most popular, steadily growing open-sourced social networking sites on the Web.

Facebook is more than an addition to the social media. In fact, it is becoming widely used among communities of business professionals around the world. There are countless ways to utilize Facebook to make marketing and sales gains. Here are just a few:

Making Your Company Unique

The first step to creating a welcoming and friendly environment for you business is to create an eye-catching profile page. What applications you choose to incorporate into your profile should reflect the styles of your business. The goal is to engage the viewer with useful information about your company, but avoid overstimulating them with videos that deflect the text. Materials you submit on your profile should be meaningful and original.

Facebook's integration capacity allows member to now upload photographs using Photobucket tools. Adding photos is an interesting way to personalize your business. It is also a valuable resource for presenting logos and branding. Aside from photographs, members include links that direct viewers to other sites. Businesses have started using this tool to bring customers back to their main Web pages.

Access the Stats and Find Your Targets

Facebook maintains all statistical information regarding members of Facebook, including the numbers of views on your profile, group, or wall. The search tool helps businesses track down specific groups of people based on common interests, gender, and location.

It even allows businesses to create graphs based on this data to be analyzed, making it quicker and easier to determine target groups, locate prospects, track leads, and forecast future sales demands. Results are then analyzed for trends and businesses push sales productivity to new levels.

Get People Talking

Perhaps the most difficult venture for any business, particularly small, unknown businesses, is to get their companies known. By creating a company Facebook profile, you are encouraging word-of-mouth about your products and services. The fastest way information is shared among a community is through friends and colleagues. Facebook enables businesses to locate new customers, while holding on to existing ones.

Clear Up Mishaps

The newest applications on Facebook enable members access to instant messaging within the main page. Whoever is has signed in to the page is now available for communication via instant messaging. Not only does Facebook benefit sales and marketing, but it also enhances customer service practices.

Unhappy customers are bound to leave complaints or negative messages on your page pertaining to product or services they receive. Instant messaging allows companies to locate these comments, and react efficiently by sending a message and opening up the lines of communication.

The longer a problem goes unresolved, the more difficult it is to fix later. Instant messaging on Facebook enables companies to provide the best customer service possible. Many Facebook users offer pleasant comments on wall posts as well. These are useful advertisements tools for businesses that want to include testimonials on their main web pages.

The possibilities of Facebook as an advertising and marketing tool are endless. High quality businesses do not need to rely on face-to-face interactions or phone conversations alone. Instead, businesses can make use of all the social media cloud computing offers. Real-time services offer numerous tools for public use that are free of charge.

Sales productivity shows steady increases by using social networking sites, mainly because people are engaged and are taking full control of the services they need. By using programs such as this one, even the smallest companies have the ability to keep up with the largest competitors.

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