[Disclaimer: I'm not saying Facebook doesn't work for business. its about how you work and when you should work Facebook. I'm trying to balance the hype]

I disagree with the "every business MUST be on facebook or be left out" argument and simultaneously with the "there are 400 million people on facebook, get in front of them too".

Firstly, many businesses shouldn't be on Facebook - they aren't going to get people to people referrals. Secondly, the way that people are trying to grow a facebook presence is to pressure contacts they have on twitter (especially), linkedin and their blog. In other words, people they already know. So if you have 100 good network contacts on LinkedIn and twitter, do you really want them to follow you on Facebook?

I use [used to] facebook to stay in touch with friends and family. I have friends from school, where I grew up, college, places I've worked and people I've met along the way. I don't want to bore them with updates from my accountant, contract cleaning company, favourite dvd manufacturer.

Here's the problem: I feel that businesses who want me to "be a Fan" are pressuring me by way of using our connection to help them promote their business. Which means that I now get their updates on twitter, LinkedIn and on Facebook. It also means that people I'm friends with probably think I shop online too much

Secondly, they're people I already know and they already know - because its the twitter and linkedin and blog reading crowd. So they haven't raised their profile. But they've done something big - they've asked people to let them into their private lives without giving anything back.

Paying it forward is an important part of successful social media. Asking people you know to fan you so they get 500 followers is nothing short of spam - and 500 people with an average CTR rate of 1.5% (Google told me this week that this was "good" although I disagree) and a CPA rate of probably the same, that means less than 10 sales. For all that trust and use of people's personal time.

Where is the measurement of brand damage? I.E.: God, following that organic wheelie bin crowd from Donegal was a nightmare, what else will I have to do for them ????

For people who espouse the 400 million users on facebook = 400 million possible customers and that catchy youtube video - well 2 billion people speak English, a further 5 billion people have telephones. Having both doesn't give you 5 billion potential customers - its nonsense.

A facebook fan page will not put you in front of a million people. Diet Coke's fan page, btw, has less than 290k (August, 2010) but Coke is the most recognised word on the planet.

If you wanted to get an ad in front of 400 million people on Facebook - then you would have to advertise. And advertising to 400 million people ain't cheap. I estimate that with an average CPC of €0.50 that this would cost €200million. But you'd be facing an average CTR of less than 1% - so let's call it €2mln. But thats 2 million people.

Was reading something similar earlier this week - there's very few businesses I'll fan, and they're the ones who give me something useful on an ongoing basis that I'd miss out on otherwise.
That said, I seem to be a bit picky - I've friends I've actually blocked from my news feed because it seemed to be about 40% full of them 'fanning' pages every 10 seconds. I think it doesn't bother a lot of people since they don't put much thought into it (they seem to correlate with the same people who forward chain letters). But with those people, what real benefit are you going to get if your business if one of 20 a person 'likes' each day?

Was reading something similar earlier this week - there's very few businesses I'll fan, and they're the ones who give me something useful on an ongoing basis that I'd miss out on otherwise.
That said, I seem to be a bit picky - I've friends I've actually blocked from my news feed because it seemed to be about 40% full of them 'fanning' pages every 10 seconds. I think it doesn't bother a lot of people since they don't put much thought into it (they seem to correlate with the same people who forward chain letters). But with those people, what real benefit are you going to get if your business if one of 20 identical pages a person 'likes' each day?

On the other hand, some businesses put a lot of effort into their facebook marketing, and offer an ongoing benefit to being a fan. And they're going to get more out of it in return.
I think it's become a bit of a buzzword - you have to have a facebook page. It's a bit like SEO - everyone's heard of it these days, but a lot of people think it's just a matter of sticking in some keyword meta tags and submitting your site to three fifth rate directory sites.
Or even websites - some businesses have such really poor sites they'd nearly be better off without one.

I think there's benefits there for many businesses, but not unless they're prepared to put a bit of work into it.

[edit]
lol, the next thread I read after this had a link to this post on Blacknight's blog. Says it much better.

Due to popularity I guess it will not hurt the business to have a FB account/page.

It's not for every business at all and its more suited to certain businesses than others. That 400 million (its now 500) doesn't really wash because thats no use to the guy that owns a bar in Waterford city. What matters is where his customers are in terms of online. Do they use FB or some other resource? Be where your customers are. It's like selling some highly specialised piece of machinery and taking out an ad during the Late Late Show - just because its the most watched show in Ireland. Those resources could be better used elsewhere.

I'm the social media guy at Neworld (Neworld Vision - web and new media development in Ireland and Europe) and i do a lot of work involving Facebook and the other day a page I was a Fan of posted a link to the Neworld blog and asked 'Why can't I find these guys on FB?' I had to point out thats not my plan for the company, we don't need FB (yet). That might change but we have a blog, Twitter and Linked in and these have only started up since I began working here 2 months ago. For now FB doesnt suit us as we're a B2B company and I want to grow these other channels first.

Facebook is a waste of time if you don't know how to use it.

First you need a Facebook page not a Group on Facebook, simply because you can integrate your Facebook page into your website or blog using "Widgets" or copy and paste code, that options are not available if you have a Facebook group.

Second you need to wait until your Facebook page have +100 members or "fans" otherwise i will not recommend to integrate a widget on your blog or website, simply because more than 85% of the people on Facebook just follow the lead... meaning just do what others do. At the same time if you show in your blog or website that only a small group of people follow you on Facebook, probably some of your users will start to think about Why people don't follow you...

Third, Content it's all for a website or blog, so why give the content to Facebook instead of your own site or blog... If you use Facebook you need to find a way to make any post short and catchy to atract users to your site, don't give all to Facebook.

Four, Don't promote Facebook, instead use Facebook to promote your website or blog. You need to have one thing clear Do you whant to users find your Facebook page or your website while searching on Google?
Do you whant to atract users from your site to your Facebook Page or from your Facebook page to your website or blog?

To keep this short, Facebook is a great tool if you have some stuff clear in your mind, like How? When? and Why?

After all you must consider a few things before use Facebook, like:
- A Feedback page
- A contact Page
- A newsletter

Once you have that you need to check how many users come to your site from Facebook, the bounce rate, and the page views from that users. Make the numbers and see if a Facebook Page is good for your website or blog.

Sorry for my english

facebook is the most popular social media site...so having a business page on it will definitely help one...so we should have a fan page on fb...

Originally Posted by brabazon

facebook is the most popular social media site...so having a business page on it will definitely help one...so we should have a fan page on fb...

How?

My thoughts on it are pretty much covered in the recent post here:Social Media and A Hosting Provider / Domain Registrar - Hosting - Domains - Blacknight Blog (already referenced)

I'd have to disagree with some of David's assertions about why not.. The thing is that social media isn't purely about sales. And if you focus only on those figures you will get a rather odd view of things.
Numbers are meaningless.
The exposure, however, isn't

For example, I like several TV shows on the ABC network. While I enjoy watching the TV shows I'm not going to go out of my way to check out the official websites ie. making a conscious decision to go there and see what's happening etc., However I have "liked" most of them on FB, so I can easily find out, almost by accident, when a new season is starting to air or if there's something interesting going on. And a popular show won't have spent much (if anything) on advertising their facebook page - they simply go viral (in the true sense)