I used to think that Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) was just for the under 25 crowd. I first heard of it when my niece was preparing for college and used Facebook to meet and get to know her dorm mates. And back then it was just that, a social networking site for the high school and college crowd.
Not so anymore! As social networking sites have entered the mainstream, more and more adults are using social networking sites as career networking sites. LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/) was the first major site that allowed professionals to post their career histories and network with colleagues from former companies and classmates from school. LinkedIn recently added groups to their free service, allowing anybody to form or join a group for career networking or that relates to a special interest.
Facebook has recently started offering some great opportunities for individuals, organizations and business to post information, and communicate to others with similar interests. I’ve been playing around with Facebook lately and it’s obvious that there is a terrific opportunity here if you want to spend some time.
The whole mantra of Facebook is “make it personal” and “keep it fresh”. The more you post to Facebook, the better. But be warned, Facebook can be pretty addictive!
I started by creating an account with Facebook and created my personal profile, including photos, career and education history, my interests and activities, that kind of thing. In order for people to see my profile, they need to also have a Facebook account and then become my friend. So I started looking for people I know to become “friends” with. Once a person is your friend, they can see your profile and you can see theirs. You can write on their page, send them email through Facebook, share photos and other tidbits, and vice versa. When you log in to Facebook, you’ll see a “newsfeed” of what your friends are up to. See how this can become addictive? But wait, there’s more… MUCH more!
And, here’s where it relates to your business or organization. Once you have your profile, you can then start adding to it with Facebook applications. For example, I found an application that lets me post my blog to my Facebook page… pretty cool, huh? As I write this post about Facebook, it will then show up on my Facebook page. How Escher! This helps to increase exposure for your blog, keeps your Facebook page fresh and notifies all your Facebook friends that you’ve posted to your blog, so they can come and read all your pearls of wisdom.
You can also create Facebook “pages” specifically about your business or organization or whatever interest you want. Unlike your profile, your page is public, and anybody can visit it. Your page shows up in the Facebook directory, and when people visit your page, they can in turn, become fans of your page. Once you’ve got some fans, you can then communicate with them and send them your exciting news and special offers! Okay, I don’t have any fans yet (well, except for me, I had to click the button!), but you can visit my page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theatrium-Web-Design/18617011121 and become a fan. Once I have 10 fans, I will start to see more statistics about my page.
Let’s see, what else can you do? Well, for organizations, you might want to create a Facebook group to promote events and allow people to participate in discussions and post information of their own…
And perhaps coolest of all, you can now create targeted ads that will show up on Facebook pages. Similar to Google ads, you create a text based ad that links back to your Facebook page and you pay by the click. However, Facebook ads are targeted by interests and activities that people list on their profiles, or relating to interest groups. So for example, most of the ads I see are directly targeted at ME and my interests.
So, as you can see, Facebook has a lot of potential for you to promote whatever it is you want to market. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
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