Facebook is a valuable tool that needs to be used by all business owners. It doesn’t matter if you’re big or small or if you’re a business that’s completely run online or if you have a store front. It also doesn’t matter if your business services the local area only or if you cover the entire United States, Facebook can make it happen.

There are a couple of ways to make this happen. Some can be made on your own, while other ways may need the help of professionals. When you’re trying to grow your business using Facebook, you need to consider all of these techniques.

1. Fan Page

A fan page is a great way to grow your business with the local market. You need to market your fan page whenever possible. It’s a good idea to have a link near the top of your website so it’s visible as soon as your visitors arrive on your site. It’s also a good idea to create flyers and hand them out with people that visit your store or place them in the orders you send out.

Once the fan page is created, you need to continually make posts to your page. You want to keep people coming back to your page day after day, so you need to find ways to make that happen. Posting tips, asking questions, and answering questions are a few of the easy ways to make it happen. You can also link your blog to your fan page so your blog posts automatically post each time you make them.

Finding local people to like your page can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. You should search for people you know first. Once you find local people you need to search their friends for other local people. The more local people you can find, the more people will join your fan page.

2. Facebook Ads

Facebook offers ads on the right side of each page. These ads are placed on pages based on information found on the page. The ads are similar to Google AdSense in that they are created based on keywords and phrases. When you create your ad you’ll choose specific details that will help them to be placed in the right location.

Creating these ads is something you need to be careful with because they’re the first thing people will see and it will help them to do decide if they want to click through to your site or not. It’s important you use pictures that are fitting to the ad and you also need to make sure you use text that will jump out at your viewers and will draw their attention.

Facebook has several tools you can use to grow your local business market. It’s important you use these to find local people so you have the ability to market to them as well. Local markets are not hard to find when you use these steps above.

To make real profits with a business you should be looking to provide a service that has low competition in your area and fills a gap in the market. Below I have outlined 3 of my favorite ideas from the many that I have reviewed.

• Spyware/Virus Removal: I used to think that this was an add-on business service but have known many people, including myself, that have paid good money to have their infected computers fixed. In reality there are very low-cost information packages that show you how to easily remove Spyware and Viruses from computers, and marketed correctly this growing business area should see good profits as competition from the repair shops is expensive and people will pay to get their computers sorted out quickly.
• Headstone Cleaning: I read recently about a guy that makes many thousands a year from offering a headstone cleaning service to his local community. Cleaning marble, limestone, granite and metal headstones on behalf of loved ones is not so specialist that a person with a bit about them couldn’t duplicate this in their area and make a good repeat business. What I particularly like about this business is that it is respectful and not difficult to get yourself known as the person offering this service. Add-on services could include headstone maintenance and flower placement if people are not able to attend to their loved ones.
• Christmas Light Installation: If I told you I know of guys making up to $100,000 a year in a few weeks installing outside Christmas lights then I bet that will surprise you, it did me too.Christmas light installers can make an annual income in a few weeks, and although I have seen two or three mentions in the national press and on TV about this business I believe that this business can be offered in many towns and succeed. I know of a few people that have remarked that they would take up this service if it was offered.