Setting Up Shop On Facebook
I set up the Union Square Ventures page on Facebook this morning. It wasn’t much different than setting up a regular profile. I wasn’t offered an opportunity to market our services to Facebook’s user base which I would have thought was the whole point of allowing commercial entities the opportunity to set up shop on Facebook. Maybe I missed it.
Anyway, I think this is a good move for them. We now have another marketing channel for our business. It needs dressing up and we’ll do that over time. But I think this can be good for us and I know it’s good for Facebook.
Comments (Archived):
I think one way of using this page is to keep people updated on Union Square Ventures – glorified mailing list. But a far better way to use this page is to have someone from your team facilitate dialogue. Nothing fancy, just a “online community organizer” as Seth likes to say.You already have such a great community here on the site, but imagine if people used your Facebook group as a way to meet other like minded folk. I think something like this could make sense considering the growing number of young followers AVC and USV are attracting.I setup a Facebook community for a blog I run and every week I introduce 4 new people to the rest of the group. I share a little bit about their backgrounds, what they are up to and how others could get/add value into their lives.Anyway, I’d be interested to hear how you plan or would like to use this group.
I don’t think Facebook can be great for individuals AND great for businesses. It has to pick an approach — or risk losing focus. It’s not yet a successful company even though it has massive potential.
Possibly good for them and for you, but I don’t see how it’s good for me (a reader).I enjoy your blog and think highly of USV, but I have no interest in becoming a USV “Fan”. I show my loyalty and affinity by subscribing to your feed and commenting. That is a far more nuanced and accurate reflection of my interest than fandom.
We could use it like yahoo groups. To alert people of coming events and suchFred
You’re right, it’s hard to tell how creating a business page on FB is much different from making a group or profile–besides that it’s called something different than a group or profile.
Fred,I’m glad you’ve added Union Square Ventures to Facebook.As of a few minutes ago, I’m a fan.It has taken me a while to see the potential of social networking sites, but the “lightbulb” is finally turning on. (This is thanks, in part, to what I’ve read here.)Facebook has become a great way for me to keep in touch with far-flung friends without having to call or e-mail them, and is also proving a great way to do business networking without being intrusive….and as is the case with any network, it will only get better as more people join the party.
Facebook for Business seems half-baked. To date, it is just a single page with a “fan wall”. There does not seem to be a way to add applications to business pages, like a regular Facebook profile can. And there seems to be no way to add music (video yes, music no).I setup a Facebook profile for my start-up (Kompoz.com) which is a music collaboration site. So not being able to post music to the Facebook page is a problem. I wonder if that feature will be added (or maybe I’m just not seeing how to add that feature to my page).The other thing I noticed is that I could not find the Union Square page using the Facebook search box. I tried “Union Square Ventures” and “Union Square”, but nothing. When i searched for Fred Wilson, I found your personal page, but again, not the business page.
That’s not good. Maybe it takes a while for new pages to get indexed in the fb search engine?Fred
The Union Square page is in FB’s search index now. The Kompoz page is not and neither is our company’s. I emailed FB about this last week and this is the response I received on 11/8:We are aware of the problem that you described and hope to resolve it as soon as possible.