Facebook becoming big friend of small businesses

Facebook is not just for friends anymore. The free social networking site -- blocked in many workplaces as a potential time-waster -- is increasingly becoming an inexpensive marketing tool for small businesses. A growing number of mom-and-pop businesses are taking advantage of a relatively new program on Facebook, one that allows them to claim their name, become visible even to folks who aren't on the site, and stay in close contact with their customers. The business, in effect, can act like any other person on Facebook, posting status updates and seeing what its fans are doing. Facebook doesn't break out figures for small businesses but says it has 1.4 million business "pages," with an average of 100 fans per page. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a speech in New York last month that every day, 10 million people become fans of pages. (Many of those pages are for random concepts, such as the beach, or laughter, or even one called "I don't sleep enough because I stay up late for no reason," which has 3.5 million fans.) Businesses need to go where their customers are, and increasingly these days, that's on Facebook and other social media sites, analysts say. More than 300 million people have signed up for Facebook, and half of them visit the site every day.