Not to rain on anybody's parade here, but what does facebook do that normal telephone, txt & email can do? I know many use it as a venue to find old friends or have old girlfriends find you etc. but I genuinely don't understand the craze. BTW, and yes I am technologically savvy, its the human element that I am not getting.
Sorry Fubar.
I'm not sure if you're asking why/if I use facebook as a personal medium or why am I using it as a business medium. -- Personally, I made a facebook page like 5 years ago because it was a cheap way to keep in touch with a few friends who were overseas. It's ability to connect you with old friends became 'interesting' later. -- From a business standpoint it seems absurd for me to advertise my business on facebook. It just does not seem like a logical place to search for bail bond businesses. However, Google is a logical place to search and google made a huge change to their results logarithms back in November. Google now uses the Facebook results to "score" your website. The number of
fans/friends/liked persons, associated with your facebook page affects where my company is placed when people search for Bail Bonds from a Dallas based IP address. Google also uses the results from other search engines to evaluate your 'score.' AND Google sends out small postcards to business address to validate the address you list on your website. If you receive one of these postcards and you do not enter the validation code into Google's database, it will negatively affect your score. That's bad if you rely on advertising to attract new business. I could rant about google's tactics for hours but who would listen to that? ...and I'd still be buried somewhere on the second page.
Long story short (if possible now). I had been the first natural listing in Dallas for bail bond companies for years. In November I found myself buried somewhere on the second page and it was hurting my business. I have done many things to fix that but having a Facebook page with 25+ fans (this number allows you to create a dedicated company page) is a critical part of that program.
Note: my company's Facebook link has been upgraded from:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dallas-TX/Delta-Bail-Bonds/135273566543156
to
http://www.facebook.com/deltabailbonds
That took place today, due in great part to my friends online. Thank you again.
