Everyone's always telling me, "oh, you should be on Facebook!" or "you should be on Twitter"...

I'm as techie as the next gal, but I somehow resolve not to give in to signing up for social networking sites. Besides being too busy to add another element to my life (Twittering? are you kidding? who CARES what I'm doing every minute of the day?)

Do any of you busy business owners use these, in a business context, and/or what do you think of them?

I'm stickin to my guns and saying No, but I was curious...

I have a seperate page for my business on FB and it has been a great marketing/advertising tool for me. Especially since it is free

I don't Twitter, but I definitely think a FB page (separate from a personal) page is practically a must in today's high-tech world if you are a business. If you are just a hobby baker, then not so much.

Having never been on FB, I can't imagine how it works in terms of actually selling any cakes....Do people really search there for, say, wedding cakes?

I don't have time to bake, answer calls and emails, do consults, run DH's business (too), manage both our websites, AND watch for new 'friends' on FB, lol.

Yes, Facebook is a very valuable tool for marketing your business. You create your business fan page. Then your friends become fans. Their friends then see that they became fans - and thus is spreads, virally. It's free, and a fan page like that takes very little time or effort to maintain, so there's really no risk or harm in giving it a try.

I have a friend who has quickly become a social media marketing expert. I have plans to talk to him about the "You're on Twitter .... Now What?" stage of marketing for an upcoming CC article. Preliminarily, one needs to track the responses to gauge how effective the Twitter/Facebook/etal is.

Film at eleven!

Most of my business has come from FB. I have over 600 fans on my FB pages, (in only about 4 months) and I get inquiries daily from people who have come across it. It is an invaluable marketing tool. It doesn't take much effort and you don't have to approve everyone who wants to become a fan.

Facebook is useful as an addition to a website. It's a little more casual, so you can have conversations with people rather than just putting static business info out. Twitter is more of a connecting-with-other-vendors thing unless you have a shop where you can tweet about specials you're running, etc.

Try following other bakeries on twitter and facebook and see what they do. I'm a massive fan of the wonderful work of sweet and saucy bake shop, pink cake box, bleeding heart, and many others and I think they do a really good job of showing off their work and keeping people really engaged in what they are doing. If you cant be genuine with it then dont bother as you'll just come off as false.

Also, if you're on twitter and all you do is just one message a day (eg the cupcake caps people say 'hello cupcake' and 'goodnight cupcake' and that is it, I just find that a bit irritating.

I'm on Twitter, Myspace and FB. I have it all set-up that I text Twitter and myspace & FB are updated. It's pretty much just about getting my name/brand out there. One of my regular vendors contacts posted on my FB wall - you're everyone! lol

As for the tweets, they are about upcoming shows, cakes I'm working on, etc... It's all about creating a brand - if you do it right.

I love social media!

Well I put the bakery on FB, but it's just a business page, which doesn't give me the ability to peruse FB members or follow other business without a personal page. I didn't do a personal page because I didn't feel like having my name out there for all my highschool friends to stop in and want to spend every day pm-ing back and forth (not to be cold hearted, but I have no time, and I'm in touch with the ones I want to be in touch with already)...

With just a biz page, it doesn't look any more useful than any other free web site (wedplan, gatheringguide, etc), but *shrug* I'll give it a whirl.

I don't have time to get on there every day and post some catchy new update of what I'm up to (I'm not THAT interesting anyway)--so I'm afraid it seem about as boring as contacting me via my website. Still, more exposure is good.

I'll update if it seems like it was the Greatest Thing Ever, but I'm not holding my breath.

If anyone else has just a biz page, I'd love to hear how it's going for you.

Facebook is the number one tool for our bakery. We opened our doors on Feb 23rd 2010 and as of today we have 1223 followers! It started the chatter in our town and even caused us to get free radio air time from a local station because we have more fans than they do! Two newspaper reporters and one magazine stopped by in our first month and wanted to do articles on us! All free advertising! It helps on a slow day as well because I can post a picture of something delcious or let them know of new flavor and the traffic picks up!

Another great thing about facebook is that your fans can post pictures and tag your page to let you know how well everything went. Then the next thing you know orders are coming in for "the cake that was facebook."

I say give a fan page on facebook a try!

I do have Facebook but have done very little. I recently took a class through our small business administration on using social media for marketing and I can definitely see the possibilities. I'll soon be taking a hands on class for Facebook because I just don't have the time to sit and play on it.

Facebook is the ticket! We have made so many contacts this way. Our shop recently purchased an ad on FB for our graduation specials...we recieved a lot of traffic in only 7 days! I want to do Twitter, but I don't think I can actually keep up with it to make it work for us!

The bakery where I work has a Facebook page and it gets MANY more hits than her website does.......It's true, one friend turns into two, which turns into 4.....on and on it goes! I think it is great and FREE (for now..) marketing.

LOVE my facebook fan page!!! I can't even begin to count the number of orders that have come from that, alone! Like someone above mentioned, it's viral!! I post pictures of every cake/cookie that I remember to take pictures of and tag "friends" when I can. EVERY SINGLE TIME I post a picture, I get more fans and more orders!! It's much easier to get traffic than a "free" website because people aren't really having to go out of their way to see your stuff. It just shows up in their FB status updates.

If I have one complaint, it's that FB doesnt message you when someone posts on your wall or comments on your pictures (like it does on a normal personal page). It's totally up to you to make sure you're not ignoring someone.

yes thats the only complaiant i have as well!

But i check ti everyday!

I have a facebook fan page. It has been fun to 'preview' my new cakes on it until I can get my tech guy to put them on my website, but it seems the public is somewhat fickle and the fans come and go. I've noticed that fans tend to drop when I message group members to tell them about upcoming events. It seems a lot of people just want to join and look at the pics but not be 'messaged'. I haven't gotten any business from my facebook page, and I wonder if those who have, have done any paid advertising on facebook for their group. I haven't done any, but I hear it's kind of pricey and not very effective. This is just my take on it though. I'm curious how much success anyone has had, without advertising. Also it seems that the groups I've checked out have a lot of chatter going on, on the wall. That can get to be time consuming to keep up on all of the individual requests and comments, so one needs to make sure they can commit the time for it. Still it is free (unless you advertise) so you aren't risking much to try.

I love the free aspect of facebook... I have a page and my cakes get hit every day almost all of my business is comin from some who saw a pic on fb.. I think if you have time to sit down definately put you cakes on a page...

Over 2300 fans here.... FB is a HUGE thing for me. I would say most of my orders come either directly or indirectly from fb in one way or another. People either say they found me on there, or a friend suggested my page. I agree with Chefjulie though, I wish you got notifications when someone commented. The nice thing is you can create photo albums for anything... I have them for all occasions so people can look through and find something they like. I also post pics of each cake I do every week... People actually say they can't wait for saturday when I post my cakes! It's a fun and easy way to interact with clients and potential clients. It's always a huge plus to me when people who ordered my cakes get on there and post about how much they enjoyed the cake, how good it tasted... like an instant review!

Chef_Stef:

check out:

The Cake Pop Company on facebook. If you go through at least a few pages of their posts I think you'll be able to see how useful a marketing tool facebook has been to her company. She's been in BRIDES magazine and has lots of celebrity clients and has been in business less than a year!

I agree with all the advantages mentioned above. I also thinks it gives your clients a sense of who you are. It's more interactive and casual. If you only have a website -- it's very impersonal. You really don't need to spend a lot of time on it. You can have your Facebook messages roll directly into Twitter. I love all social media!

I use Facebook to "advertise" my cakes! Just be carefull NOT to bad mouth that annoying, cheap, B*$%H who made you jump through hoops for her cake...and still had the nerve to complain about it!! Cuz she might be a "fan" of your page!! LOL!!

Not that I did that... Just being funny! =0)

do you have to be a business already to have a FB fan page? I am in the process of getting things together to open a business with my dd, but would like to have pictures out there, with out actually advertising any pricing. I do have a personal page just for my cakes though.

what changed are those, cuz i dont get them either for my business page

I love my facebook page for the bakery. I can't tell you how many people have stopped in to get something I have promoted on my page and say darn I wasn't gonna come in here today until I read that.

I have booked several weddings and it is a great way to keep in touch with regular customers. I do a hot out of the oven post. They love it!

Let's see what updated we all have in our pages... here is mine...ur welcome to visit and comment/suggest and become a fan... likewise... share yours so I can check it out also...

http://www.facebook.com/nataliecakes

I have FB too - LOVE it - I just started mine so not too much going on right now. I just post pics and things start to take off!! It's fun! But I too do not get notifications of posts for this page...just for my personal one....

Here is my link - feel free to "LIKE" or post comments, ask questions, etc!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brandie-Co-Custom-Cake-Designs/121163941275190?ref=sgm&v=wall

And you don't have to approve anything for this type of page, people just hit the "like" button and they are a fan!

I'm inspired to work on my FB page from this thread but I'm clueless on how to get the like button on my page. I built my business page off my personal page. Is that the right way to do it? Any help would be very much appreciated. Pam from Bama