In 2016 we operate in a business climate driven by powerful digital forces and rapid-fire innovation. Every business is now a technology business. Today we witness daily how it drives product design, upends business models, and rewires competition.

With that in mind, businesses need to be focused on how technology is impacting their workplace, not only on business processes, efficiency, team structure, but also the bottom line. One such technology is Social Media and within that realm, Facebook.

To be sure, it appears that Instagram and Snapchat have a growing popularity with the younger crowd but Facebook still dominates the market. There are over one billion people logging in daily to Facebook and Facebook Dominates the social logins for all Social Media. Therefore, if you want your message to reach new and existing customers, having a presence on Facebook is really a must.

Businesses need to be aware that Social Media is the kingpin to customer contact. The question is how do you leverage your Facebook Page? How do you attract and engage visitors then drive them to your website, and convert them into customers? There is no easy answer but there are some things you can do. Below are three items to consider in your business Facebook world.

1. Set up a Facebook page
2. Enhance Newsfeed visibility
3. Engage in promotional advertisement

The first item obviously enough, is to create a business page rather than a personal profile. So often I see the person with a home based business using a Facebook profile to promote their wares. This is wrong from two perspectives. Your friends may know you sell "xyz" but they are interested in a conversation rather than promotional content. Using Facebook this way may achieve some sales but more than likely it will cause some to "un-friend" you.

A Facebook page is built for business and in their terms of service, Facebook has the right to remove personal profiles used as a business. Why go to all the effort and have it snatched away from you? Hours of content placement, customer engagement and promotional design gone in a few seconds. Moreover, Pages include unique tools for businesses. Fans can "Like" your Page to see updates from you in their News Feeds if they wish, which is not available in personal profiles. Building a fan base is what you want because your fan base is interested in your products and is willing to read your posts.

The second most important item you want to consider is the development of news feed visibility. There are a number of factors that influence the visibility of your posting in the news feeds of your fans. Engagement is of primary concern to Facebook. Usually postings just scroll based on time but if there are likes or other interactions, Facebook may cause the posting to reappear near the top of News Feed.

This means you need to keep your content entertaining with questions soliciting comments and requests for re-postings. Use questions such as, What do you think? Or, if you think this is worth reposting, please let me know why. Avoid questions that can be answered yes or no. Gaining an active following is not easy, so seek out postings that speak to a problem that your product resolves. The problem — solution scenario is a very effective method of getting your reader to respond. People do not buy drills because they want a drill, they want a hole. Think of that with each post.

Last but not least, do not forget about advertising on Facebook. Facebook has developed special tools you can use to leverage your advertisement into the eyes of people outside of your friendship. You can select the demographics of age, gender, zip code, profession and much more. Facebook advertisement is by comparison less expensive than most other forms and can be directed at a specific target market. Newspaper, radio and TV ads are at best hit and miss in this arena. In addition, you can control the amount of money you spend on such ads by daily impressions and maximum allotment per month.

There are two tools for creating your ad, Ads Manager and Power Editor. The Power Editor is usually best for more precise control over multiple campaigns. Ads Manager works great for most companies. Which is best for your business depends on your business size and the number of ads you plan to run at a time. There is one caveat, best results are achieved using Google Chrome as a browser with these tools.

Facebook Insights is a another powerful tool for those wanting to track user interaction on their Facebook Fan Page. Use it to set and test specific ads on specific days or just track engagement. You can also use it to determine your optimum post time.

There is much more to Facebook than a page, newsfeeds and advertisements and I would be happy to share them with you in another post or in an analysis of your Facebook business needs. If you concentrate your efforts in these three areas and become efficient, you will have laid a foundation for all other Social Media process and procedure. Contact me for more detail on how you may become more proficient.

Let me know your thoughts!