Ezi Wash is a 24 hour self-service coin operated car wash located in Christchurch on Selwyn Street.

View online: www.eziwashchristchurch.co.nz

Viva New Zealand are New Zealand immigration consultants and specialise in delivering a wholesome, professional and personalised service to people who wish to obtain temporary permits to remain or enter New Zealand or to achieve permanent residence.

View online: www.vivanewzealand.net

Thrive Jewellery travel the world sourcing unique, beautiful, glamorous jewellery.

View online: www.thrivejewellery.co.nz

Specialising in Harley modifications and customs, Radical Choppers & Customs are passionate about bikes. They are totally committed to sourcing only the highest quality motorcyle parts and accessories.

View online: www.rccl.co.nz

What is Facebook?

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve probably heard of Facebook. To say it’s had quite an impact on the web is something of an understatement; it has on occasion received more traffic than Google. For better or worse, anyone you have ever known (including great aunts, annoying ex-workmates and very old school friends) can find out you are on Facebook and ask to be your ‘friend’. Whether you accept or not is totally up to you, but it can be quite the social conundrum!

So what is Facebook exactly? Well, it is technically a social networking website where people can communicate with each other via private or public messages or ‘wall posts’. The communication can be quite passive – you post to your wall and all of your friends automatically get the post in their ‘news feed’ – or people can write directly onto their friends’ walls or send private messages to each other (like email). Facebook users can also upload photos (and restrict which friends can view them), join interest and hobby groups and become fans of pages. Pages can be about absolutely anything you could possibly think of, so if you hate Mondays you can join or start a group or a page and share with each other why Mondays suck so much!

Why go on Facebook?

When used as a personal communication tool, it’s a great way of keeping in touch with people, organising social and networking events, and staying up-to-date with your interests. As a business tool, Facebook is a very powerful way to utilise viral marketing to promote your business. As of July 2010, there were more than 500 million people on Facebook from around the world including 1.7 million New Zealanders – that’s quite an audience. To use it for business, we recommend you set up a Facebook page (follow the step by step instructions below). But before you can do that, you need to have an account on Facebook for your personal profile. You need the account to attach the Facebook page to, but it is up to you how much information you put online, and you can restrict who can see it via the privacy settings.

How to create a Facebook page

Here’s how you get started on Facebook

Create a Facebook account or login to your Facebook account if you have one. You can create an account from the Facebook homepage at www.facebook.com.

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.
2. Choose the ‘Official Page’ option, choose the Business option, and then choose the category your business fits into from the drop-down box.
3. Enter your Page Name into the Page Name box (e.g. Acme Hotel).
4. Tick the ‘I’m the official representative….” box (you might want to read the Facebook terms and conditions and the specific Page terms online at http://www.facebook.com/terms_pages.php.
5. Click the ‘Create Official Page’ button.
6. You will now be directed to your page.
7. Upload an image to your page. The image will be displayed in the image box at the top of the page and as a smaller image in your posts to the wall.
8. If you don’t want your page to be visible to everyone just yet, go to Edit Page, click Edit under Settings and change Published to Unpublished.
9. Wall settings – set up your permissions for your wall (who can write on it).
10. Mobile settings – you will be assigned a unique email address that you can send emails to. The emails will show up as wall posts on your page.  Note down the address if you want to update your page this way. You can also update your page via text messaging and will need to activate this by sending a text to the number shown during the Text Activation (Telecom and Vodafone are currently supported).
11. Work your way through the remaining settings. For example you may want to add the Review box so people can leave reviews about your business.
12. Write a short description about your business by clicking on the text box under the image.
13. Twitter option – if you are on Twitter www.twitter.com you can connect your Facebook page to Twitter so your updates are automatically published to your Twitter account.
14. Blog import – import your blog (if you have one). Your blog has an RSS feed (real simple syndication) which means it can be published on other websites like Facebook. From the Edit Page section, go to Notes and click Edit – go to the bottom of the page and look for ‘Edit Import Settings’. You can now import your blog (enter your website address into the box).
15. Now go to your Wall and write your first post. It could be as simple as “Welcome to our new Facebook page”.

Promoting your Facebook Page

1. Start by ‘Liking’ your own page as this will show up in your friends’ news feeds.
2. Send a message to your Facebook friends directly by clicking on the ‘Suggest to Friends’ link. Your friends will get an email from you suggesting that they like your page.  You’ll be surprised at how many friends of friends will also become fans.
3. Consider promoting your page with an advert (you can set a daily budget). At the time of writing there were 1.7 million New Zealanders over the age of 13 on Facebook.
4. Promote the page on your website with a ‘Like’ box. With a ‘Like’ box visitors to your website can ‘like’ your Facebook page with one click (so they become a fan). They can also see recent posts from the page and how many people like the page.
5. Add a ‘Like’ button to your website. The button differs from the ‘Like’ box as it’s just a button, and when a visitor to your site clicks on it, the link to your website will be added to their Facebook profile.

If you get stuck or need some guidance, the team at TML Web Design can set up your page for you, import your RSS feed, add your images and publish your page. Just give us a call on 03 366 3340 or email info@tmlwebdesign.co.nz.