Many brands struggle with whether to invest valuable time and effort into Facebook, and it is not a decision any marketer or business owner should make lightly.

The fact of the matter is: creating and maintaining a Facebook page that will be beneficial to your brand if it is, in fact, a good fit, will take work – a lot of work! Many people create a page willy-nilly and get frustrated when spending 1 hour a week maintaining it is not getting the results they had promised their superiors. So before creating a page, ask yourself the following questions:

How will a Facebook page satisfy my business goals?

Facebook can be instrumental in driving website traffic, increasing brand awareness and providing exceptional customer service among many other goals. But what are you trying to achieve, and how will you achieve it? If you’re goal is to drive more traffic to your website where users will sign up for a free demo of your product, Facebook is certainly a tool to help you reach your numbers… IF you enact the right strategies. Make sure Facebook offers a unique incentive to prospective leads (like a discount of 20% if they choose to buy your product after your demo) to entice them to sign up.

Is my audience on Facebook?

There are two key components to discerning whether your target audience is on Facebook.

• Check out the data. Pew Internet research details precise demographics of users for various social networks and outlines which networks are best for reaching which audiences.
• Put on your listening ears. There are many great social listening tools out there that can help you evaluate whether your brand is already being talked about on Facebook (or other networks) – even tools at no cost to you!

Does your brand have a Facebook page? How did you decide if it was the right network for your business?