Business There Has Been Some Disagreement Among

¶ … Business

There has been some disagreement among people about whether Facebook is good for business. Some people suggest that Facebook is an invaluable marketing tool that can really help business, particularly emerging businesses, by helping them with publicity. Other people warn about the dark side of Facebook. Although it allows good news about businesses to spread virally, it also leaves businesses open to some dangers. For example, unlike on business websites, businesses have no control over what people say about them on Facebook, so that a disgruntled customer or a customer with a grudge might be able to do significant damage to a company's reputation, even if such damage is actually unwarranted by the underlying scenario. Despite that caveat, there are five ways that Facebook is good for business: 1) it allows a business to manage its reputation; 2) it allows a business to engage in event promotion;

it helps a business move up in its Google rankings; 4) it allows business to recruit employees; and 5) it promotes relationship-building.

In order to understand why Facebook is good for business, it is important to understand Facebook's function. Facebook is a social media tool. In that way, Facebook is not a business tool, though it can be used for business purposes. Instead, it is a social tool. In this way, Facebook is essentially the same as other social marketing tools. Therefore, a business should not approach Facebook as a new venture, but within the existing context of media and marketing. Moreover, it should approach Facebook as a social networking tool. Is the business one that would realistically benefit from positive word-of-mouth that would spread on a social networking site? A new restaurant would traditionally avail itself of social media; a new funeral home would not. These same guidelines are going to apply to Facebook, just as they would have applied to businesses in a pre-Facebook environment.

The first way that Facebook is good for business is that it allows a business to manage its reputation. In many ways, businesses can be at the mercy of customers or other disgruntled parties in an online environment. It is not unusual for unhappy customers to post about bad experiences and the internet means that complaints can reach a much broader audience than they could have in previous time. However, Facebook provides companies with the opportunity of addressing complaints levied against the company, and in the same venue where the complaints are being made. This allows for a real-time response to customer complaints and gives businesses the opportunity, not only to engage in superior customer service, but to publicly demonstrate that they are engaging in superior customer service. Facebook also allows companies the opportunity to showcase strengths. While many ratings systems are going to be focused on people who are either extremely happy or extremely unhappy with service, Facebook is different. People will "like" or "fan" a company on Facebook in scenarios where they would not go to that company's individual website and make a positive comment because "liking" things is part of the Facebook experience. Likewise, people are likely to leave positive comments on a company's page, because commenting is part of the Facebook experience.

The second way that Facebook is good for business is that it gives businesses an opportunity to engage in event promotion and focus on those things that customers might enjoy. Of course, the type of event that might be promoted would depend upon the nature of the company. However, just today, on Facebook, I observed Facebook groups promoting: a Greek Festival, a special wine-tasting event for a winery, and a Slumber Parties 24-hour sale. These companies could email the same information to consumers, but the customers would have to open the emails to read the text of the information, whereas it is just presented as part of information on a consumer's Facebook page. Moreover, a customer has easy access to more information by simply clicking on the company's Facebook page.

Another way that Facebook is good for business is that a strong Facebook presence helps businesses move up in its Google or Yahoo rankings. A Facebook page is another way for a company to establish an online presence and can help drive potential customers to a company's website. A company has to be somewhat internet savvy for this strategy to work. However, if a company keeps current and relevant links to its website from its Facebook page, this should increase web traffic, and thus increase placement on search engines.

Another way that Facebook is good for business has nothing to do with reaching customers, but is focused on building the strength of the business: recruiting employees. Facebook is a fantastic way for organizations to find and develop talent. They can look for emerging professionals and introduce them to an organization before they have graduated and while they are developing. In fact, potential employees can get a feel for a company's environment by examining the company's Facebook page. This can help companies appeal to young users who may not yet be in the job market, and establish a relationship before the potential employees are actually job hunting. It can also provide an opportunity for established professionals to learn about a company and determine whether the company seems like a good match for the professional. Moreover, Facebook is different than professional networking sites like LinkedIn, in that it helps demonstrate how the company is going to interact with customers, which can be a different experience than how a company might represent itself to potential applicants.

Finally, Facebook is good for business in that it promotes relationship-building. Facebook is a social media tool that is focused on relationship building. While most of these relationships are personal relationships, it is critical for a business to build good relationships with customers in order to become and remain competitive. Facebook provides a way to build one-on-one relationships with customers in a way that might not be feasible outside of a social media environment. This is because, unlike professional organizations, Facebook is not focused on business relationships, but on building the everyday relationships that are critical to driving many small businesses. Furthermore, many employees of businesses are on Facebook, and their personal Facebook presence provides an additional means of companies extending their presence on the Internet. This may not be true for large companies, but, for small companies with small groups of employees, having some link to the Friends list of a group of employees can be critical.