Following on from last weeks Friday Five, here are five tips on how to promote your business via Facebook page.

1. Tag other pages - tagging pages is a great way to be seen on the business pages of businesses you support. One of the best ways is to do this as part of a recommendation to explain why you are tagging this page.
2. Introduce yourself - some pages allow you to post on their wall. Post an introduction of yourself and tag your page, and include a comment about the business you are posting on. For example “Hi, I’m Jane from My Business Page (with tag). It’s great to be part of this page, I love your products”.
3. Promotion pages - there are a lot of different pages that allow business mums to promote their business on their pages. Join these pages and use them to promote your business. Make sure you read the guidelines on the pages and post in keeping with their guidelines.
4. Terms & conditions - review the Facebook terms & conditions & other hints Facebook has. They have strict conditions about promoting your page, and in some of these there are also some great tips. These conditions include how you can promote your page on other pages.
5. Be involved - get involved with your favourite pages. Read posts and reply to the conversation. You never know when the chance to recommend your business may come up, or pages of some of your other favourite businesses.

I hope these tips are useful to help you promote your business on other Facebook pages. If you have any other tips, please share them with us.

If you have visited Facebook pages, you may see lists of people posting simply to promote your business. As a page owner, this can be very annoying, but people still do it.

I thought today I would post 5 ways NOT to promote your business via Facebook pages. These things may result in your posts being deleted, you being kicked off the page and banned, and even result in you being reported to Facebook.

1. Introduction - do you go to networking events and say “Hi, I’m Jane and I sell widgets, come and buy from me”? No… well this is what a lot of people do when they join a page. They say “Hi, I’m Jane from World Wide Widgets (with a link to their business page) come and join my page”. This gets really annoying reading posts like these. Better to say something like ” Hi, I’m Jane from World Wide Widgets (with a link to your page), what a great page this is, I look forward to getting to know your business”. If people are interested, they will join your page.
2. Tagging a promo - there are a lot of businesses out there who will post a promo on their wall, then tag a number of other pages. Sometimes this is good because the pages they tag are set up for these kinds of promotions, however others are not. Be careful when you do this to make sure the pages you tag are happy for these sorts of things to be added to their wall.
3. Tagging to get on a wall - I have seen a lot of businesses who will tag other businesses just to be listed on their wall. Again, this is OK if the business you are tagging is set up to accept these sorts of posts, otherwise if you are tagging a business, be open to why you are tagging them. For example you may recommend Jane’s Widget Page because she has great widgets your followers would enjoy. This way you have a reason to tag this page.
4. Inviting EVERYONE - when inviting people to join your page, be selective. Not everyone is interested in widgets. I get invited to join almost every page and at one point almost all of them had to do with maternity wear. I’m not pregnant and not planning to be, so these pages were of no interest. Especially if you invite a lot of people to a lot of pages, it can get annoying and will result in them blocking or deleting you off their list.
5. Friending page owners - this is something else that can get annoying. Many business owners set up pages for their businesses so they can keep the personal things apart from their business information and don’t want to be friended by everyone, especially if it’s for the purpose of promoting your business. Instead, if you like the look of a business owner and want to friend them, include a note introducing yourself and why you want to be on their friend list.

I hope these help you with promoting yourself and your business on Facebook. If you have any other things to add to the do not do list, please add them.

Next week I aim to include points on what TO do to promote your business on Facebook pages.

Did we get your attention?

Are you on Facebook? Do you have a lot of friends and pages you follow? How much attention do you pay to requests that are given out? Could you be missing out on opportunities?

My 6 year old is currently obsessed with lizards - I’m trying to get some inspiration for Christmas & his birthday (they are a week apart) as he says he wants a lizard as a pet (that’s not going to happen).

I know I have quite a few people who run toy shops and even someone who does kids parties with snakes & lizards on my friend list.

A few days ago, I sent out a request asking for responses from anyone who has lizard type products I could purchase for my 6, nearly 7 year old. I had 2 responses from people recommending other people who had goodies we might be interested in. None from the people who had toy shops or the person who does kids parties!

So, how much attention do you pay to the requests that are posted by your friends and contacts on Facebook? Could you be missing out on an opportunity for new customers? If your business can’t help, then maybe one of your friends or other contacts can.

Oh, and I’m still looking for ideas for my son for his birthday, can anyone help?

I see a lot of Facebook business pages, and am invited to join a lot of them. There are a few things I look for in a business page when deciding whether or not to join them.

For this weeks Friday Five, I thought I’d share some of these with you as they may help you attract more “likers” to your page.

1. Location - where possible, I like to support Australian businesses. If I can’t see where you are (even if it just a country or a state) I may not join.
2. Description - there is a place to add a brief description about your business. If it is not obvious what your business does, make sure you complete this. It will help get potential visitors interested in your business and they will want to find out more.
3. Image or Logo - many businesses have a custom image created for their Facebook page. These look great, however if you don’t have one, make sure you upload your logo or an image that represents your business.
4. URL - I’m amazed at the number of businesses that have a website that don’t add it to their business page. In the Info tab there is a place you can add the URL of your business, your blog, and other sites you sell your products, such as Etsy or Made It.
5. Posts & Updates - there are a number of pages I have been invited to join that have no messages on their walls. To attract new “likers”, add some posts & updates to your wall. This also gives potential “likers” an idea of what to expect when they join your page.

I hope this will help you attract more “likers” and have a busier and more effective business page.