TTh+2+social+networking+blog+post

=How Facebook is used to promote big and small businesses.=

Introduction: Priyanka
As Facebook continues to grow and mature, more users are showing their interest on using business promotion, business listing, and business networking applications. Many of us have heard of Facebook and many of us use it to connect with family and friends. But, have you ever considered using Facebook to promote your business? Facebook is now both the largest and the fastest growin g social network. With people spending a great deal of time there during their personal time, there is also an increased opportunity to connect with both customers and business contacts. That highlights your business and automatically imports content from various sources like your website, blog, twitter, etc. The idea here is to provide valuable content for your customers and a means for them to interact with your company. This page could then be promoted through ads on the network.Also available are groups. You could create one for your customers so they could interact with each other as well as you. These work best if there’s a bit of momentum, so try enlisting some of your customers and business contacts to help you out.

**Big business: Montenae**
Big business have started the trend of using social networking sites to promote their products to people world wide. This is a very strategic move on their part because majority of social networking sites are able to be reached in other countries besided the United States, which in turn will promote their business internationally. "Now that there are over 150 million active users on Facebook, more businesses large and small are actively reaching and engaging customers through Facebook and the Facebook Platform." (Smith, 2009). One way big businesses promote their product through Facebook is by making a fan page. A fan page allows the users to view the business and what they have to promote without going directly to the website. For example, with Coach, users are able to see pictures of the new line of products that they are currently promoting. Also, users are allowed to become fans of the particular businesses' page which will in turn build their customer rating along with their sales because when you become a fan, you are continuously updated with information about promotions, sales, or anything that has to do with the external accounting portion of the company. Another way that big businesses promote through Facebook is to make events. Events are sent to the users as notifications about a certain event the company is hosting/having, e.g. sales, trunk sales. This will keep the users who become fans aware of the events that the company is having, which will build their popularity, via web and store. Although big businesses seem to dominate the Facebook trend, there are several small businesses now building their popularity and sales through Facebook also.

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Smith, Justin. (2009 27 January). "10 Things All Businesses Should do to Market More Effectively on Facebook". Retrieved Nov 1 2009. from []

Small Business: Michelle
Small businesses have begun using social-networking sites to promote themselves to more potential customers. According to one article, “forty-five percent of small companies with fewer than 100 employees said they use Facebook and Twitter to promote their businesses” (Boulton, 2009). One major reason small businesses prefer to promote and advertise on Facebook is because is it free. Paying for online ads can become expensive quickly for companies without a vast amount of revenue. Another major payoff for small businesses using social-networking sites, such as Facebook, is the ability to generate fans through fan pages. A local company can create a fan page for themselves and then send out requests for fans. Those fans will get other friends to become fans, and so on, allowing the company to expand its potential customer base. Also, the fan pages allow the small businesses to advertise events and specials they may be having. With the added recognition from Facebook, there is the potential to create more business. However, it is hard for small businesses to actually monitor how effective the promotion form social-networking sites really are.

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Reference

Boulton, Clint. (20 October 2009). Small businesses use Facebook, Twitter for promotion. Eweek.com. Retrieved November 1, 2009 from [] Small-Businesses-Use-Facebook-Twitter-For-Promotion-634033/ Posted Yesterday 5:10 pm

Poll: Frank
Why is Facebook worth so much if anyone can use them for free?. The answer is simple, Facebook make money by selling advertising space to who seeks to promote their business online. Facebook can be used to promote business irrespective of it's size because lots of people login onto Facebook multiple times daily.

Poll would be conducted and tally up the responses to figure out the results of the finding; poll questions would be based on a **yes** and **no** format, here are some of the questions that would be asked;

POLL QUESTIONS: Do businesses promote their product enough Do businesses optimize events for social media sharing Do businesses keep communicating with current and prospective customers

Facebook is a primary weapon for businesses to spread the word, increase awareness and accomplish goals.

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Conclusion: Gina
Both small and big businesses can use Facebook for promotion. According to a blog on Uprinting.com, there are 5 ways to promote a business. The following are ways to promote your business on Facebook: 1. Facebook Profiles 2. Facebook Groups 3. Facebook Pages 4. Facebook applications 5. Facebook ads Facebook is a great way to promote your business because you can sell a product or promote an event. A bonus to using Facebook as a promoting tool is that it is completely free for users. Promoting a business on Facebook is beneficial because Facebook is popular and growing for Gen Y. Businesses can target Gen Y through Facebook.

References [] Posted Today 1:08 pm