With more than 1 billion users worldwide most people’s customers and clients are on Facebook. For many this has made it the go-to social network when businesses look to crack the social media nut.

Many businesses means much competition; as with most things in life, those doing it well will grow and strive forward, those doing it poorly or as an after thought will spend much time and never fully reap the potential dividends.

Here’s the five most common Facebook errors we see:

Setting up your business up as a profile and not a page.

Profiles are for people and pages are for businesses, groups, people of interest and basically anything that isn’t you as a person!

How do you know if you’ve got this wrong?

If you see the number of likes you have, it’s a page! You’ve got it right!

If you can’t then it isn’t (assuming you’re looking in the right place of course!)

Your business should always be set up as a page and not a profile; we’ve known of Facebook writing to those that have got it inadvertently wrong and on occasion removing the profile.

A page is fundamentally different from a profile and will give you a platform from which to promote and share your business, which brings us on to advertising…..

Advertising to everybody

Facebook has an incredible amount of information on its users.

If you’re going to be spending your hard earned money on Facebook advertising then you want to make sure you’re reaching the right people.

We’ve heard tales of gaining 1,000’s of likes in a short period of time, sometimes in a matter of just a few days.

Sounds fantastic doesn’t it?

This is almost definitely unfocussed advertising; reaching everybody, everywhere no matter if they’re going to be interested or not.

We all love big numbers but we draw the line way before paying for a larger number to be written on our Facebook page!

Remember that 100 active and engaged Likes are certain to have a greater value than 5,000 that will never engage or be interested in you.

If you advertise to people that won’t give you value all you’re doing is paying to have a larger number on your page.

Letting your advertising run and run

So you’ve avoided error number two and you’ve targeted the right people with the right message.

That’s it? Job done? Just leave it and reap the perennial gains surely?

After a certain period your advertising campaign will become stale and the rewards you gain from it will diminish. Think of it this way, if you’ve seen the same advert repeatedly how often do you click on it and show interest after the 10th time you’ve seen it?

There is a case for repeated brand exposure here but lets for this example focus on the definitive return, which will be decreasing.

Don’t believe us? Check your stats!

Make sure you continually address your advertising and what it is delivering. This isn’t just for Facebook; Google make a whole lot of money from people using PPC and letting it run untouched for month after month and in some cases even year after year!

Not integrating with your website

Ok, so a bit of a cheat here as it’s not technically on Facebook, but so often the integration of social media with other marketing activity amounts to a Twitter and Facebook icon lodged in the top right hand corner of a website.

You can do better; we know you can!

Look at ways in which you can better integrate your Facebook page with the rest of your web presence.

Can’t think of any ways? I bet we can help!

Marketing creates greater rewards when it’s integrated and all working together; make sure you’re doing that and you’ll see the difference. Drive traffic to your website, pass it back to your Facebook page. Build brand engagement and enjoy the fruitful relationships it brings.

Making it salesy

Ah the ultimate temptation; you’ve got a sales platform so get on the soap box, dust off the Derek Trotter fur coat and begin selling.

This time next year Rodney!

Unfortunately this time next year you’ll likely be driving the same three-wheeled car as if you go to salesy it’ll back fire worse than a Robin Reliant!

Use your page to engage, to add value, not only to you but also to your location, to those around you and your clients!