Using Facebook to Advertise Your Local Business

Facebook is local! I have commented about this previously at LocalBizBits in these two posts: Local Business on Facebook and Local Search on Facebook. The reason we bring this up is that Facebook is now a very viable option for small business to advertise in/on.

Recently Facebook added a number of features for the small business. They were:
Social Ads
Beacon
Platform – be able to create applications
Business Profile page
Insights & Polls

If you want to read some more about it, you can see what Sebastien Provencher from Praized Blog had to say at Facebook Pages: Facebook Pages: The Return of the One-Page Microsites. and at Greg Sterling’s post Facebook Ads, ‘Beacon’ and Local.

ShowMeLocal, earlier this week, launched an application, Business Space, a very simple and useful tool that connects your business profile here at ShowMeLocal to your Facebook page. This application saves you the time and energy of not having to repeat your business information on your Facebook business page.

Business Space will easily allow you to mange such things as your coupons, links to ShowMeLocal blog posts, specials, job announcements, etc.

You might be asking yourself, “why should I even fool with Facebook?” The reason is simple, because “everyone” is going on Facebook. Being involved in Facebook via a profile page, local network (i.e. NYC, or Los Angelos, etc) or a niche group is a smart business move. It is very easy to create an account and now with Business Space you can take your information here and quickly put in Facebook.

As I will mention in future posts, the current and future wave of the Internet is communities. People are joining and participating in various group and network sites. “You can win, you are not in the game.”

The biggest issues for a small business are time and technical knowledge. At ShowMeLocal, the vision is to provide the resources, information, and directions you might need to get the job done. Regarding the time, look at that as an investment into your business.

Have a question, post it here and we can continue the discussion. See you on Facebook.

Introducing “Business Space”.

We are happy to introduce the Business Space, new application developed specifically for Facebook Pages. It allows you to enhance and compliment your Facebook Page with content from ShowMeLocal such as blogs, coupons, specials and job postings. In addition you will be able to post your business badge directly to your Facebook user profile, attach news feeds with your updates and have full control over the posted content. Business Space has look and feel of the Facebook and naturally blends your content with the existing page.

It is extremely easy to connect ShowMeLocal profile to Facebook. We have created comprehensive guide describing steps you need to perform to set up your Business on Facebook and then successfully bind your ShowMeLocal Profile with Facebook.

The new guy in town!

Happy Holidays from ShowMeLocal!

Wanted to take minute to introduce myself and let you know what is happening at ShowMeLocal Blog…My name is Larry Sullivan and am the new blog administrator here at ShowMeLocal. I have been working online for about 7 years, helping small business get the most of their online marketing efforts. I specialize in local search marketingand currently blog about it at LocalBizBits.com. My vision for the blog here at ShowMeLocal is to provide updates about ShowMeLocal and to provide some insight and observations on how small business can get the most out of online marketing and their website(s).

Please feel free email me (larry@showmelocal.com)  if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks and I look forward to writing here at ShowMeLocal.

ShowMeLocal Facebook Application and OpenSocial News

We would like to share some existing plans with you regarding Showmelocal.com.

We are finishing the new version of Showmelocal.com on the Facebook. We’ve also scheduled to release Showmelocal utilizing OpenSocial Api that supports applications for MySpace, LinkedIN, Orkut, HI5, Ning and many other social networking sites. This is great news for all of us, because we will be able to promote our businesses on the variety of social networks where lots of our customers are.

In addition we would like to remind you that we promote your content to Google Maps, Google Base, Edgeio.com, Vast.com, Oodle.com and other local oriented sites, not to mention that your business profiles get strong search engines placement.

If you own a local business and don’t yet have an account with Showmelocal.com, click here to register. Showmelocal.com is absolutely free to use for local business owners and local consumers alike and is committed to building a stronger network between the two.

Stay tune. Details will come very soon.