You know the statistics: Facebook is the most popular method for sharing online content. It’s approaching one billion users worldwide. 85% of B2B journalists are on Facebook. 61 of the world’s 100 largest companies maintain Facebook brand pages, as do 71% of B2B firms. Three-quarters of North American advertising agencies say their clients run PPC campaigns on Facebook.

While having a presence on Facebook is no longer an “if” question for most companies, many “how” questions remain. How can I design my company’s Facebook page for maximum impact? How can I grow my company’s following? How can I increase the probability that my fans will see my content updates?

Find the answers to these questions and many more here in more than 30 of the best articles and blog posts on Facebook marketing of 2011.

Facebook Marketing Tips and Tactics

The Best Facebook Page Strategies and the Pages That Use Them by Inside Facebook

Contending that “there is a great deal of nuance to creating a successful (Facebook) Page,” Josh Constine highlights three strategies with examples.

How To Make a Facebook List (& 6 Ways To Use Them) by Search Engine People

Ruud Hein steps through a quick process for creating Facebook lists, and recommends various uses for them such as sharing information with only a specific subset of your contacts, or using Facebook lists as a CRM tool.

Facebook is FOREVER by iMedia Connection

Lucia Davis uses an infographic titled “Obsessed with Facebook” to argue that Facebook has become so ingrained into our lives that it will never go away. And given that all of the attacks from would-be “Facebook killers” along with Mark Zuckerberg’s own complete disregard for data privacy or user experience still haven’t doomed the platform, she may well be right.

Five Top Facebook Marketing Tips by LiveWorld

Bryan Person shares highlights of a presentation from Ekaterina Walter on five best practices for Facebook marketing, including optimizing wall posts for the News Feed and using Facebook Insights data to better understand your fan base.

A Big Brand’s Social Strategy Really Means ‘Facebook’ by MediaPost Online Media Daily

Justin Archer notes that despite the fact that for much of the Fortune 500, “social media” really means “Facebook,’ many still fall short in this area. Socialcasting the latest company updates is a fail; planning and engagement are key.

Ranking in Facebook Search by Vertical Measures

Kaila Strong notes that Facebook now accounts for close to 3% of all U.S. searches—a still small but rapidly growing and not insignificant figure. She then shares three ranking factors in Facebook organic search and three tactics that can be used to improve ranking for your company Facebook page.

The Basics of Advertising on Facebook by Practical eCommerce

Paul Chaney walks through the process of creating a Facebook ad campaign, from identifying your goals and target audience to designing ads and setting pricing.

15 ways to increase your brand’s impact on Facebook by Socialmedia.biz

JD Lasica starts by pointing out that, “Your brand isn’t reaching as many people as you think through its Facebook Page…88 percent of Facebook members never return to a Page once they’ve clicked the Like button. Your opportunity lies in engaging with fans through their News Feed. But…only 1 out of every 500 updates makes it into your fans’ critical Top News feed, which is how 95 percent of Facebook members get their updates.” Ouch. Fortunately, he also notes that turning “your Facebook presence into a larger conversation strategy for your brand” can dramatically increase a company’s visibility on Facebook, then delves into 15 tactics to support that strategy.

Facebook Pages Just Got Easier for Brands by Dose of Digital

Though it’s no longer news, Jonathan Richman here provides one of the best and most comprehensive summaries of the changes Facebook made to Pages earlier this year, as well as tips and techniques to capitalize on the new features. This rather long post is also conveniently available in PDF format.

10 Tips to Fully Utilize Facebook’s New Page Design by Mashable

For those who prefer a more condensed summary of Facebook’s switch to iFrames earlier this year, the brilliant Jeff Ente explains how iFrames work and why they are potentially very, very important to marketers.

20 Tips to Get Your Content Seen on Facebook by HubSpot

Ellie Mirman explains how Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm works, then offers 20 ideas to make your content more visible, including posting a variety of content to attract interactions, including images on blog posts, and asking questions to solicit feedback from your fans.

Easy ways to attract more fans to your Facebook page by Facebook Toolkit

10 tips to make your page more visible and encourage “likes,” such as using the photo strip call to action, investing in Facebook ads, and featuring influential fans as your favorite users.

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know by Hongkiat.com

Learn how to place Facebook chat in a sidebar in Firefox, how to update Facebook without using Facebook (e.g., through Ping.fm [http://ping.fm/]), how to specify which of your friends’ photos display on your Facebook profile page, how to create quizzes, block ads and more in this helpful post.

7 Awesome B2B Facebook Fan Pages by HubSpot Blog
***** 5 STARS

While there are lots of posts written about “great Facebook brand pages” that highlight large consumer marketers, few include examples from the B2B world. Eric Vreeland addresses that gap in this excellent post, showcasing companies like Saleforce.com and Forrester Research, and also provides tips and guidance on how B2B marketers can make the most of the world’s largest social network.

15 Ways to Get ‘Liked’ on Facebook by Practical eCommerce

Paul Chaney recommends including a “Like Us on Facebook” link in marketing emails, investing in Facebook ads, providing incentives for fans to spread your message, and posting multimedia content among other tactics for growing your fan base on Facebook.

How to Build the Perfect Facebook Fan Page, 2011 Edition by techipedia

Writing that “With the new layout providing so much screen real estate for visual branding, it has raised the bar for a Page’s visual branding on Facebook. The new layout offers the opportunity to claim visual ownership of your Page,” Tim Ware outlines the six key areas of a Facebook brand page and how to optimize the use of each area.

Make the Most of Your Facebook Marketing by Alison Zarrella

Alison recommends cross-promotion (e.g., through Twitter, marketing emails and your blog) and utilizing the many types of Facebook updates and tools in order to maximize the probability that your fans will actually see your Facebook posts.

Facebook Publishes Guide to Social Marketing Best Practices by ReadWriteWeb

John Paul Titlow outlines and links to Facebook’s 14-page PDF Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook which “serves as an official resource on how to take advantage of Facebook’s advertising products, social plugins, analytics and other tools to grow one’s business.”

Facebook Apps and Tools

5 Facebook Applications to Add Useful Tabs to Your Facebook Fan Page by Search Engine Journal

Frequent best-of contributor Ann Smarty reviews five Facebook apps to help extend the functionality and engagement value of a Facebook fan page (though note that Facebook has moved away from support for Static FBML).

The Definitive List of Facebook Video Apps for Facebook Pages by ReelSEO

Mark R. Robertson lists and briefly describes more than 40 Facebook video apps, organized into categories for YouTube, Vimeo, live video streaming, video chat/calling, Facebook video, and miscellaneous video apps.

10 Killer Facebook Page Creation Tools by All Facebook

Brian Ward (no, not Brian “St. Paul” Ward) reviews 10 tools “that can help your brand build a more enticing page” on Facebook, such as ShortStack and Pagemodo.

3 Tools to Create New Facebook iFrame Pages by Practical eCommerce

Paul Chaney (again) summarizes the problems that Facebook’s switch from FBML to iframes created for Facebook page developers, then reviews three tools that simplify the creation of iframes apps.

4 Free Facebook Landing Page Creation Tools by DreamGrow Social Media

Priit Kallas reviews ShortStack, Pagemodo, Wildfire iFrames and TabSite, then offers his recommendations. A follow-up post, Facebook Cheat Sheet: Sizes and Dimensions, details the real estate (dimensions, text characters, file size etc.) available on each key area of a Facebook brand page.

Facebook Stats, Facts and Research

More Inc. 500 Companies Succeeding With Facebook by MarketingProfs

Among the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., Facebook has become a key marketing platform: 71% of Inc. 500 companies use it, with 85% calling their efforts successful. About 60% of those companies also use Twitter, and roughly half maintain corporate blogs.

Facebook Demographics: A Comprehensive Guide (Amazingly Squeezed Into One Page) by Soshable

JD Rucker highlights an infographic and slide deck with detailed Facebook demographics, showing Facebook’s population broken down by country, age, gender and more. The top-line number (just under 600 million) is a tad out of date though.

Survey: Facebook Strategy Should be About Deals Not Engagement by Social Commerce Today

A UK study found that 19% of users follow brands on Facebook, and more than half of those people have recommended a brand there. However, 70% follow specifically to get special offers, and most will unfollow a brand if they stop getting them. No mention of “engagement.”

Facebook Skeptics, Haters, and Tellers of Uncomfortable Truths

Why Only Idiots Promote Their Brand’s Facebook Page via Traditional Media by iMedia Connection

Think Facebook is the ultimate brand marketing platform? Or even remotely close? Kent Lewis reminds marketers about what’s “not to love” about Facebook from a marketing standpoint, such as the fact that Facebook owns all content on the site, can (and does) change page design and functionality at any time, the analytics are limited, and the UI is distracting.

Designing Email Campaigns for Facebook Messages by Campaign Monitor

Ros Hodgekiss details the capabilities and limitations of Facebook Messages for email, and concludes that “its limitations as an email platform will most likely prevent it from being widely used as an everyday email address. Plus, would you take a job applicant really seriously if they were sending from a @facebook.com address? Really?”

8 Reasons Marketers Can’t Trust Facebook by iMedia Connection

Douglas Karr details eight lessons learned about what can—and at least sometimes does—go wrong with Facebook as a marketing platform, from access control issues to lack of recourse / customer service to the risk of data loss.

Why I Don’t Use Facebook by PC Magazine

Professional curmudgeon John C. Dvorak writes that he doesn’t use Facebook because it’s a closed system, it’s essentially AOL 2.0, and, in his view, “There is no reason for anyone with any chops online to be remotely involved with Facebook.” Hmm, I wonder what he really thinks?

Is Facebook Losing its Marketing Mojo? by Oz2 Blog

The delightful Catherine Lockey details some of the problems induced by Facebook’s design changes earlier this year, and offers partial solutions, but concludes by noting that “Facebook is not your brand. Facebook is Facebook’s brand…If you put all of your marketing eggs in Facebook’s basket then you’re in trouble.”

Author: Tom Pick    Tom Pick on the Web Tom Pick RSS Feed

As an independent consultant and through B2B technology marketing firm KC Associates, Tom helps clients increase their visibility, credibility, and business success online. His expertise in SEO, search marketing, social media, content marketing and social PR has helped clients ranging from single-person businesses to $1 billion+… View full profile

This article originally appeared on Webbiquity | B2B Marketing Blog and has been republished with permission.

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