Facebook's Impact on Business
What began in a college dorm room is now a billion dollar business and practically everyone is a user, including many companies and organizations.
With 1.23 billion active Facebook users, it's no wonder companies take advantage of the social networking site to promote their products and services.
As many as 25 million small businesses have a facebook page, including many in the area like the Restyle shop.
Over the last year alone, restyle has seen the number of "likes" on its facebook page triple.
"Our customers range from 18 to 80 so you have to figure out a way to connect with your customers in a way that they want to connect with you," said Andrea Lindsley, Owner of Restyle. "So Facebook is a great way, especially because you can post pictures and our business is all about pictures, what does it look like? Enticing you to come in and see a piece of furniture."
With the advent of Facebook and other social media to follow, there are even entire businesses now that help other companies with their social marketing strategies.
That's what Naperville resident Michael Langenburg is doing with his company Confluence Social Marketing.
"We help people simplify their marketing efforts. So how do you post as a business on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, all these different things that as a business owner, they just cant keep up with everything, it changes so fast," said Langenburg.
As for Facebook, he refers to the site a mass form of "word-of-mouth advertising."
"When we used to tell people, "Here's a great restaurant I went to or what type of drink do you like or what's a good movie?" said Langenburg. "And now you go onto Facebook and people are sharing all the things that they like and commenting on things that other people like."
And it's not just for-profit companies utilizing the website – but not-for-profits too.
360 Youth Services promotes their events and programming on Facebook, and last year when they were losing thousands of dollars for their transitional housing program, it was fundraising through social media, including Facebook, that helped save the program.
"We were able to raise about $100,000 because of the interest in public, based on what we did on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, and word of mouth, and we were able to stay in that program until we got additional funding," said Dawn Portner, Special Events and Marketing Coordinator for 360.
And of course, we have our own Facebook page at Naperville community television. Search, " NCTV17" and "like" our page for daily news and sports updates.
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