Chances are that most of your customers use Facebook. With a half billion users world-wide it’s become the place to promote your business with a Fan page.

Back to Basics: You need a personal profile first. If you’re a sole practitioner, you may want to stick with a profile and use the “List” feature we’ve written about to separate clients from friends.

Once you’re on-line here’s how to promote yourself on the most engaged website ever.

1. Fill in the blanks: Be complete.

Tell people who you are. Be creative. Write a description on the sidebar of your Wall and fill in information on all the tabs. There’s nothing worse than leaving something blank.

2. Let people know: Ask friends to like your fan page.

Your first goal is 25 fans. Once you hit that number you can apply for a vanity URL to plaster on business cards, t-shirts, websites, blogs and more.

3. Treat it like it matters: Keep current.

There’s nothing worse than visiting a fan page only to find it hasn’t been used for months or that it has very few fans and little or no interaction.  Don’t let that be your business.

4. Be engaging: Customers want to feel connected to your business.

Post photos of your business. Link to new information on your website and/or blog. Ask fans for their opinion using open-ended questions. Discuss deals, promotions, and events. Tell fans about your company and its people.

5. Stay unique: Don’t replicate content from elsewhere.

Consider a personalized landing page for first time visitors. Find competitors in your industry for ideas. If you’re sharing a blog post on Facebook, add a status update to make it unique.

6. Consider Facebook advertising: Set you own budget.

Target your advertising using relevant demographics to your company. Used effectively this can be a way to drive people to your fan page when you’re just starting. It’s cost effective too as you set your own budget. I recently purchased a $5 advertisement and that resulted in 6 new fans.

Deciding where your business needs to participate in Social Media has everything to do with your customers.  And for the most part, that’s recently gotten a whole lot easier to determine. Vincenzo Cosenza has created a 2010 World Map of Social Networks.

No surprise that with 500 million global users, Facebook is an unequaled social phenomenon.  Beyond that, Facebook has changed the world’s social graph and has taken hold almost universally.

Click on the map image below to enlarge it. I was most interested in what’s happening in countries around the Pacific and Asia where I’m based. The country colors are not always accurate (I had a difficult time believing that South and North Korea would be the same). I was able to locate the list that Cosenza developed to find the information most relevant to me.

Cosenza reports that Facebook is the top Social Network in French Polynesia, Australia, New Zealand, Phillipines, Guam and Thailand. That’s useful to many businesses here in Hawaii.

What about Japan, China and Vietnam? Facebook does not rank as number one yet in their countries. According to the research cited, Mixi ranks highest in Japan, QQ belongs to China and Zing is the choice in Vietnam.

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Traditional media is fragmented with shrinking viewership. I recently wrote about the decline of print media here on Techspokes.

Now is the time to be your own PR agent and take your message directly to your customers.  Every company needs to be a media company, telling their story through web sites, social media, video, and mobile.

Take this opportunity to engage with your customers.  You can achieve more credibility and reach.  Here are some things you can do:

1.  Allot one hour per day for Social Media.

Read our strategies for using your time effectively. Enlist your employees’ participation using our Social Media guidelines. If you think it’s a waste of their time read my post before you decide.

2.  Plan ahead.

Establish your goals, then develop strategies and campaigns just as you would in any marketing program. Read our nine ways to stay competitive.

3.  Measure your performance, successes and failures.

We recently shared the keys to success on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. To decrease the chance of failure, we offered 12 blogging mistakes to avoid.

4.  Target your content for your specific audience.

As an example, we recently wrote about marketing to the 50 and above audience. If you’re not sure of your target, do an informal poll on your blog to get reader input.

5.  Build relationships and credibility.

Network.  Find ways to add value to conversations. Read our post on relationship, trust and hard work. We also wrote about 6 free ways to listen to conversations happening about you and your business.

Which advice has been most helpful to you and your company?

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A just released Neilsen study of UK-based internet users may give a glimpse of what’s in store.  Funny too that I’m now not feeling so all alone with my grey hair showing on Facebook.

• 53% of new UK internet users in 2009 were over age 50
• 31% of all UK internet users are now over 50

Of the new users, the majority were:

• Men over 50 (38%)
• Women over 50 (15%)

Clearly, focusing your business online marketing solely towards younger people is no longer appropriate.  The demographics are quickly shifting towards older age groups.

According to a May 2010 survey conducted by AARP, one-quarter of Americans over 50 are using Social Media with Facebook being the most popular site visited. Of interest, AARP found that an overwhelming number said their children are responsible for encouraging their participation.

Lastly, another recent study of Facebook’s U.S. audience growth shows users over age 55 haven’t been returning to the site as much recently. This may be due in part to their finding a lack of compelling reasons to visit Facebook.

Going forward, your business should find and integrate ways of reaching and engaging with the 50 plus group, including targeted messages to younger generations in their family.

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If you have a Facebook Fan Page how do you keep up with comments? The major complaint I hear from clients is that they are never notified by email when a reader leaves one.

This means that the page administrator has to visit the fan page, sort through updates and find comments that were left.

That’s a hassle and not always effective. Fan comments, especially on older posts, can go unnoticed giving the appearance that you may not care.

What if I told you there is a solution? There is and it’s an easy fix.

Just “like” each update you write. That way you’ll automatically be notified by email when a comment is left.

If you’re already receiving email updates on your personal profile no further action is required for this to work.

Otherwise you’ll need to enable email notification. Just go to your “Account,” scroll down to “Account Settings,” and click on the “Notification” menu item at the top. When you’re on the Notification page, go to “Links” and check both boxes under the email folder icon.

It’s a simple and effective fix to a Facebook problem. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you.

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Hat tip to The Next Web for the reminder.