More than just an international social network, Facebook can help your business grow.

Facebook, with its many customizable options and plethora of applications, has become what many consider to be the most popular social networking site on the Internet. Creating a profile page about your company is a great way for you to tap into the massive potential that Facebook offers to business owners. Either by becoming friends or fans, other users can be friends with your company. This will expose their friends to your business’s profile too. As word spreads about your company, so will interest in it.

By planning special Facebook events, you can build interest in your company and contact a wide variety of possible clients. Getting the word out about your event is not very difficult since the users who participate in it will post information on the event straight to their live news feed. This is sure to arouse interest in other users as well. Large scale invites may be better for some events, such as webinars. You can send your invitation to all your fans and friends so that they can forward it to others.

One of the most useful things you can do with Facebook is to encourage your customers to leave a testimonial on your fan site. By having real testimonials, your business will appear much stronger than one without testimonials. It will also impact potential customers much more greatly than a company without them. Once you have a good selection of convincing testimonials, increase your fan base by offering incentives for new companies to join your page.

If you want to contact the most people as quickly as possible, Facebook offers some marketing tools that come with fees. The grand majority of Facebook’s main marketing tools, however, are completely free to use. Starting a fan page is a great way for a company with a limited marketing budget to begin boosting sales and reaching their potential clients effectively.

The networking opportunities Facebook offers to B2B companies are extremely valuable. Contacting other businesses that could benefit from your products and services will mean increased traffic to your website, additional sales for your company, and new clients who will continue to spread the word about your company.

Ray Perry is an Internet marketing executive with more than 25 years of experience. He is the Chief Marketing Officer at Market Blazer, a small business marketing company and authorized Duct Tape Marketing coach. You can get more information about Facebook marketing at www.MarketBlazer.com