Facebook Fans vs Google Places

What is a small business owner to do?  There are only so many hours in the day.  For today, the most important thing in advertising for small businesses is free, except for the time it takes to do it right.  Google Places (formerly Google Local Business Center) is one place where your visibility almost guarantees phone calls.   For a step-by-step guide as to how to set up your listing on Google Places and how to optimize that listing, check out my new blog How to Optimize Your Google Places Listing.

This writer believes that Facebook Fan Pages will rule the world.  They might someday, so take some time to read this entire article (2500 words.)  Here is an excerpt.

400 million people already are on it and Facebook accounts now for 1 in 4 pageviews that occur in the United States. That’s an order of magnitude larger than Google on both a traffic and unique visitor level. They’re doing something right to encourage people to create profiles on the site and also encourage repeat usage.
And the creation of a personal profile is really no different than creating a website– whether for yourself or your business.
All Facebook has to do is tell these 400 million people: “hey, want to create a page for your business in one easy step?”  No need to create a new account, as we already have your information.  It’s fast, free, and easy– plus, you already trust Facebook with most of your information already.  So why not?