Businesses have discovered Facebook in a big way, and are becoming quite adept at establishing their presence on the social network, both as a way to broadcast their messages, and also as a way to engage and interact with customers, or “fans.” However, only the savviest recognize Facebook as a way to generate leads.

Establish your B2B presence on Facebook, by all means, but don’t miss out on the opportunity for lead generation as well. Below are five simple ways to accomplish just that.

1. Link Your Content to Your Facebook Wall

The very first thing you need to do is to create links on your Wall back to your own content, thus providing your Facebook fans a way to convert into leads. The best way to do this is to establish a conversion form on the landing page, which will lead to some kind of downloadable content, such as a Webinar, or an eBook.

2. Use iFrames to Embed Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons

You used to be able to add CTA buttons on the sidebar of your profile in Facebook, but that is no longer an option. No worries—use iFrames to add custom tabs with CTAs, and then make sure they point fans to your landing pages for your special offers and downloadable information.

3. Increase Your Fans

According to a recent study, there is a direct correlation with the number of leads a company’s page generates and the number of Facebook fans they have. Think of it this way, every new fan you acquire and every “Like” you get represents a potential new customer and therefore a new lead. Hold contests or ask questions to generate more “Likes” and consider adding a button on your own Website that will link your customers to Facebook and recruit more fans.

4. Add Like and Share Buttons.

Make it as easy as you can for others to spread the word about your content and business by adding a share button to your content pages, allowing them to link your content back to their own networks. Along the same lines, add a Like plugin to all of your content as well, increasing your visibility and thus your leads.

5. Make it Difficult to Not Convert

What if you could offer conversion opportunities to your fans without ever requiring them to leave Facebook to do it? There is a way! Create an app for their customers that present fans with a conversion form immediately upon clicking Like, which will consequently increase your opportunities for generating leads. This is very innovative, and worth the download.

Have any tips of your own? Leave them in the comments!

I stumbled across this Facebook reporting guide for those who are interested in running Facebook ads, or already are! It’s called “Facebook Online Campaign Reports: Product Guide for Brand Advertisers”.

Since it was created earlier this year, I’m sure there’s some content that could be outdated – i.e. like vs. fan. That said, it is still worth the read to learn more about the reporting features available to Facebook advertisers.

You can view the report below or download a copy of the Facebook report for yourself.

As with all marketing channels, you must consider the mindset of the user. Unlike advertising on Google or Yahoo you need to think about targeting a user (or group of users) who is part of a demographic rather than a specific keywords.  The concept of targeting a ‘query’ needs to be thrown out the window! Rather, target a group!

Facebook Marketing Tips

So what are the benefits of  advertising on Facebook?  The simple answer is it’s cheap and targeted.  The average CPC across the board is around 20-30 cents. One of the benefits of the Facebook ad platform is that it isn’t completely clear on what someone might be buying (think trademarked  or branded terms in paid search). When this comes to branded terms, you can really tell if you’re bidding on a specific brand in Google/Yahoo!/Bing and your keyword could be declined/deleted as such. However, this is NOT the case in Facebook.  By leveraging “interests” for advertising, you can bid on users that might like your competition, and it would be nearly impossible to find because it isn’t query based.

Facebook Advertising Tips

Similar to pay per click advertising, you should always test your ads.  Put simply, test everything: alternative landing pages, different phone numbers and most importantly make sure you have analytics in place to track your results.  One word of caution, “interest targeting” can provide a great return but watch out for burnout.  Sending the same message to the same group of people over and over again can stop working quickly so be sure to vary your messaging every so often. A potential alternative is to send people to your fan page because you get higher viral multipliers.  By taking them and turning into a fan, you can get more and more life from your spend.

Facebook Analytics Tips

We recommend viewing Facebook’s suggested best practices and these common reasons for ad rejections prior to getting started!