Social media is the best thing to happen to small business owners since the personal computer. Social apps like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare enable small businesses to compete with big brands by giving small and big brands alike the opportunity to connect directly with prospects and customers. There is minimal cost involved to set up a business brand page, the ongoing cost is just your time to update content, create and share offers and respond to your followers and fans. Deeper engagement with your customers means increased loyalty and sales over the long term. The latest social media platforms are free to use - and your customers visit these sites everyday!
The benefits of setting up a Facebook page for your business are obvious. It gets your name out there, and you can easily get friends and family to "advertise" your business just by liking the page. You can always have a generic template to begin with, but how do you stand out from the crowd and make a great first impression? We suggest take inspiration from some big brands who have created branded Facebook pages and set up a branded page for your business.
The screen-grabs below highlight some of the best Facebook fan page examples on the web. In this post we've collected our Top 20 Facebook Brand Pages from 2011. We hope you like the list!
#1 - Glaceau Vitamin Water
#2 - Angry Birds
#3 - Mountain Dew
#4 - Nutella
#5 - Back To the Future
#6 - National Geographic
#7 - Red Bull
#8 - Firefox
#9 - iTunes
#10 - Pringles
#11 - RockStar Energy Drink US
#12 - Cheezels
#13 - Glee
#14 - Ministry of Sound
#15 - Subway
#16 - Nokia
#17 - Mercedes-Benz
#18 - Nando's Australia
#20 - Audi USA
As you can see - beautiful, custom Facebook graphic design (rather than templates) is a common theme! The Facebook pages that encourage you to click on the 'Like' button (perhaps via arrows or custom text); or those that are just branded extremely well, are the standouts!
If you think that this is a great idea for your business, all you have to do is start up a website design project with DesignCrowd and watch the awesome designs flow into your inbox. We think that it's one of the more obvious starting places for any startup business to get some free advertising and start an online presence, so go for it and see what I can do for your business.
Written by Jo Sabin on Friday, February 10, 2012
Jo Sabin is Head of Designer Community at DesignCrowd. She's led the company's public relations and social media programs since 2012. With more than ten years' experience working with Australian and international tech startups in the creative industries, Jo has been instrumental in meeting DesignCrowd's objectives in Australia and abroad. Get in touch via Twitter.
