In business marketing, social media sites like Facebook are a new and unexplored world.

Everyone wants to connect with their customers, but business owners need not have experience or training to make the medium work for them — just ask the owners of Lyla’s Boutique, 404 Main St.

Lyla’s was founded in Clear Lake by Lisa Barillas and Twyla Tindall. Longtime friends, the two were looking for career changes, so they turned to a shared passion — clothing.

“Being in northern Iowa, there was really no good shopping,” Tindall said.

The two opened their own women’s clothing boutique in 2008, and named it Lyla’s after a combination of their names.

The store was a success, and Lyla’s expanded to Ames in September. Soon after, the boutique made itself a home on Facebook.

With the site, the owners hoped to connect with their target demographic and promote their business without a huge advertising budget.

“Since I had been in a business for 13 years, I knew how easy it is to throw away your advertising dollars,” Tindall said.

They created a fan page, promoted it in their stores and let current customers know about it through e-mail. Their next challenge was to give customers a reason to stop by.

That meant content. Today, Lyla’s updates its page almost daily with more than just news and text. Incoming inventory is photographed on mannequins as it arrives and is organized into photo albums on the boutique’s fan page.

Lyla’s also posts videos; for example, Jeans 101 explains the difference between American and European jean sizing. Another example is The Tween Transition, which gives tips for stylish wear during Iowa’s “Tween” season — “that season between winter and spring where you’re not quite sure what to wear.”

The page also includes special deals and coupons.

“We’ve done a couple specials where if you’re a Facebook fan you get 20% off,” said Kelly Stewart, manager of Lyla’s Ames store.

Updates to the business’s page appear in fans’ news feeds, which is perfect, Stewart said, for “keeping it at the top of their mind.”

But the real measure of success for a business is how many customers walk through the door. By that measure, Lyla’s venture into Facebook has been wildly successful.

“They’ll come in and say, ‘Hey, I’m a Facebook fan,’” Tindall said.

That popularity then translates into sales.

“There are times where we’ll be sold out [of an item] because people saw it on Facebook and came in to get it,” Stewart said. “It’s been probably our best marketing tool.”

Their success has allowed Lyla’s to keep expanding, with a store in Iowa City opening in June.

But despite the success on Facebook, for now the boutique won’t venture into other online venues such as Twitter. However, it’s a possibility for the future.

“I would say that anything that would be innovative and will hit our target market, we will do,” Tindall said.

She has a plan to keep up with new technology online.

“I have four teenagers,” Tindall said.