Dec 7, 2009

10 EXAMPLES OF B2B FACEBOOK FAN PAGES

By Jeffrey L. Cohen
Thu, Dec 3, 2009
As Facebook continues to grow, now over 350 million users worldwide, more and more B2B companies are setting up Facebook Fan Pages. These pages give a business a home on Facebook and allows their content to be shared with their fans, in the same information stream with updates and links from their friends. Studies have shown that many people follow brands on Twitter looking for special deals, but Facebook is different. People become fans of companies and brands on Facebook for two different reasons. The first is that they want to keep up with the company and learn more about them. The second is they want to associate themselves with the company. That is they want to express their love of the company with others. The origin of the word fan, after all, is fanatic.

While many large B2B companies and brands do have their fans, and we will see some below, why would someone become a fan of company they don’t love? The reasons are no different than connecting on other forms of social media. These are building relationship with the company, getting value from the content, customer service, and yes, opportunities for special offers. So below are 10 examples of B2B companies using Facebook Fan Pages in a variety of ways.

DELL (51,183 FANS)

dell-facebook-page
Dell’s Page
 features a custom landing page and a set of custom tabs. They also tell people why they should become fans.

CISCO (24,289 FANS)

cisco-facebook-page
Cisco’s Page
 does a great job of adding links of other Facebook Pages and other places to find them on the web.

HUBSPOT (8,046 FANS)

hubspot-facebook-page
Hubspot’s Page
 does a good job of providing content makes people comment. These comments show up in people’s profiles and with the revised Facebook News Feed, updates with more comments are more likely to show in fans’ information streams.

SALESFORCE.COM (3,569 FANS)

salesforce-facebook-page
Salesforce.com’s Page
 displays photos and videos, including user-provided ones, from a recent conference.

FORRESTER RESEARCH (2,593 FANS)

forrester-facebook-page
Forrester’s Page
 informs fans about upcoming seminars and other events, in addition to aggregating feeds from their analysts’ blogs.

GARTNER (2,059 FANS)

gartner-facebook-page
Gartner’s Page
 promotes its latest research findings and promotes its events.

ERNST & YOUNG (34,478 FANS)

ernst-young-facebook-page
Ernst & Young’s Page
 was started as a recruiting tool for college students when Facebook was mainly a college-based social network. It’s usage has grown as Facebook has grown. Rather than using a custom tab as a landing page, they use the boxes tab to show a variety of content instead of their wall.

SODEXO (2,069 FANS)

sodexho-facebook-page
Sodexo’s Page
 is also used for recruiting and is a channel for customer service and followup with applicants and interested parties.

CINTAS (1,156 FANS)

cintas-facebook-page
Cintas’ Page
 also uses the Boxes tab as a landing page to show a variety of content. There is a large custom graphic promoting their company values, along with links to social initiatives, posted videos and press release. This page also includes a Facebook FAQ describing why they are on Facebook and what is expected.

CDW (753 FANS)

cdw-facebook-page
CDW’s Page
 connects employees and partners to an outsourced discount program and they inform their employees about about current items in the program.
And finally, become a fan of the Social Media B2B Facebook Page. It is another way to receive the content from our site, within your Facebook information stream. And we are using Network Blogs to push our feed to Facebook, rather than just importing it to the Notes tab. This provides some additional sharing opportunities for the content.
Are there other B2B Facebook Pages that are connecting with fans in different and innovative ways? Let us know in the comments below.