Using Facebook for marketing – 10 company examples and engagement tips

Thanks to the power of Twitter and with especial thanks to my followers on Twitter, this post is a showcase of businesses from a range of sectors who are using the recently revamped (Feb '09) Facebook pages which now look more like individual profile pages.

The Facebook pages page doesn't really give any good company examples - just the NYT, so in a Tweet I asked "Do you know good examples of Facebook company pages please?"

Since I wrote this article in February 2009 - see 10 business examples retained at the bottom of the post, there have been some more good company examples and tips. Econsultancy have highlighted these in their 2010 post A fat-free guide to Facebook for Brands and 25 examples of Facebook brand pages.

Facebook Head of Brand Solutions, Chris Pan talks about: Fan pages as an authentic voice | Brand fan pages by fans | Content is king | What people want to hear vs. what you want to tell them | Facebook marketing solutions

The ten Facebook company examples

These are the responses I wanted to share with others - more welcomed in comments! Not looking at Facebook Applications here.

1 STA Travel Facebook page - c 24,000 fans

Thanks to @chriseden who says "I like STA Travel's. Some good features and very human voice. They're quite active in responding too".

Notice how they incentivise recruitment of fans and participation through a prize draw if you become a fan and take a picture.

2 Social media for small business - Powered by Dell - 33,000 fans

Thanks to David Hughes of NonLine Marketing for this - a useful resource showing sponsorship options for Pages.

3 Marmite - 230,000 fans

Thanks @guy1067 and  David Hughes. Yes, Marmite is my mate too.

4 Howies Facebook page - c 1,000 fans Howies are a clothing retailer.

Thanks to @marksnichoson for this one. Mark recommends this because Howies enagage with their audience on facebook. I like the question "What would you want howies to do for you?" which attracted over 60 responses.

5 The National Trust - uses a Facebook Group - 1,200 members

Thanks to @DJBenLogan who says  "Hey Dave - The National Trust seem to update their Facebook group frequently with video content etc".

This is an example of a Facebook Group rather than a page. For me, Facebook seems to have not developed the Group functionality as much as other areas, so I think the Facebook pages are now the best way to go.

6 Wiggly Wigglers - organic gardening (group with 1,400 members)

Thanks to @einbusiness_JG

7 Another small company advocate is Claire @preseliventure who says: "we use FB extensively for managing r'ships, it works brilliantly, generates enquiries, and drives traffic to our website 🙂"

Other Facebook pages and corporate social media examples

Here are some others via Peter Kim's recent and impressive List of Social media examples which also has some examples of Facebook fan pages and Facebook apps. Thx to @peterjabraham for the tip.

- 8 http://www.facebook.com/applestudents > 1 million fans

- 9 http://www.facebook.com/pages/innocent-drinks/7211436203 - 13,000 fans

- 10 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kodak/20385151754 - >3K fans and good use of visuals.