Tips to Marketing on Facebook
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007;
-- Janet Meiners |
MarketingSherpa just ran a great article on how to market yourself or business on Facebook. As they point out the approach to marketing in a social community takes a little different approach than marketing in other contexts. Offending the community means you won’t be trusted.
It goes like this. Imagine going to church and thinking that there are a lot of people in your potential market there. So you decide to make an announcement about a big sale at your store. Everyone feels uncomfortable. It’s happened to me and it was in bad taste.
Facebook is a community of 46 million members, it’s growing by 3% a week since January, especially with the 25 and older demographic. I’ve noticed more and more friends joining in the past few weeks.
MarketingSherpa interviewed Andrew Kaplan and Neil Patel, who is Chief Technical Officer at ACS, a social media marketing and search engine optimization agency, to see how to best optimize for Facebook. I’ve added some of my thoughts below.
Your Profile and URL
Every social network with a profile page can be an opportunity to brand yourself or your business. I don’t know if Facebook lets you do this (my profile is http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=626820159) but many social networks like MySpace will give you a custom URL. So I could be http://www.facebook.com/newspapergrl.
Also, create a separate profile for your business. If you’re an unknown, use one of your main keywords in the URL such as http://www.facebook.com/SEOcopywriting
Put links to articles you’ve written, to your LinkedIn profile, and to any articles about you. Talk about successes and specific goals.
I thought this was well-put: “If you say, ‘I’m looking for a job,’ people have a hard time with that. If you say, ‘I’m looking for a job with a PR firm based in New York in the entertainment industry,’ that’s more specific. You have to be very clear what your intentions are. Be very specific about what you’re looking for and people will help you, just like any part of life,” Kaplan says.
Join a Facebook Group
You can create or join groups on Facebook and share information with others. I checked out the biggest internet marketing group and it was full of advertising everything from an MLM to want-to-be-rich-quick internet gurus. But there are groups that are active and professional.
After you join a group, you can text-message other members, send them emails, comment on their profiles or contact them. You’d be surprised at the range of types of groups there are.
Buy Advertising Space
I didn’t know this but you can buy an ad on Facebook. It’s called Facebook Flyers Basic so you can create banner-like advertising on networks. This is a great way to target advertising to a specific demographic.
Facebook also has Flyers Pro — a cost-per-click advertising program that’s triggered by keyword searches (like Google AdWords). The article has more in-depth tips on how to do this and I’d be interested if anyone reading this has tried either advertising method.
Similar posts you may like...
Save & Share: 
Category: Social Media
Forward: Email This Post
October 31st, 2007 at 4:02 pm
am I the only person that redirects a .com to his profile on Facebook? (I’ve only been doin’ it like forever!)
October 31st, 2007 at 6:22 pm
#1 or the tactic described by Mark do not work. The reason is that Facebook profiles can only be read by the friends of that profile-owner, unlike myspace where I can view someone’s personal page without being their friend.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:30 am
am I the only person that redirects a .com to his profile on Facebook? (I’ve only been doin’ it like forever!)… i am too
November 1st, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Great article! Facebook allows you to customize the url or your profile
It’s in the profile web address module- for example the profile web url for my facebook profile is http://profile.to/southwestseo/
November 1st, 2007 at 5:30 pm
It makes a lot of sense to focus on people when it comes to social networking. It’s easy to get lost in always thinking about algorithms, but in the end the best way to make any social networking or bookmarking site work for you is to use the system as an end user and become a valuable member of the community.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I’m actively implied in the creation of a Fb Group, and both your article and the one of the Marketing Sherpa are good.
However, they do not talk people’s motivations for joining a group and the social strategies you need to set beforehand to make sure your group will be composed of the people you are interested in targeting.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:08 am
[...] Tips to Marketing on Facebook [...]
November 27th, 2007 at 8:04 am
You can buy ads on facebook. I know some people that do this…
November 27th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Err, you didn’t know at the time you posted it, I’m sure, but Facebook flyers are set to die in favour of Facebook Ads. Might want to edit this post with an update.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
redirecting a domain name to a Fan Page works (don’t believe me, click on mine!).
February 17th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
[...] Tips to Marketing on Facebook: Writer Janet Meiners considers some of the basic but effective marketing tools that Facebook has to offer. [...]
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 pm
http://socialauthority.ning.com/
Just thought some of you would appreciate knowing Jack Humphrey just started a social networking site about social marketing at the url above.
The more I use Facebook the more I like it. It is easy to post blog posts into and there are a lot of marketers and bloggers to hang out with. I haven’t used Facebook advertising yet but will as soon as I learn more about how it works.
April 5th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Facebook can be monetized for supreme traffic. Using techniques, found here - Utilizing Facebook Ads to Make Money - you should create targeted and cheaper ads that are niche-based.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:43 am
[...] Tips to Marketing on Facebook: Writer Janet Meiners considers some of the basic but effective marketing tools that Facebook has to offer. [...]
April 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am
News feed on facebook is the most effective that keeps you in touch to what people are doing. I usually end up adding those apps which i see my friends using it.
Jia’s last blog post..Miami floods with foam flakes?.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:13 am
[...] Your Brand Inside Facebook - Inside Facebook 100 Tools and Tips to Tap into Facebook - Inside CRM Tips to Marketing on Facebook - Marketing Pilgrim A Successful Facebook Marketing Campaign - Social Media [...]
June 21st, 2008 at 10:06 am
[...] Tips on Marketing on Facebook, Marketing Pilgrim, October, 2007 [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Get unlimited FREE clicks from Facebook every day! Check out the FB Guru:
http://www.Facebook-Marketing-Guru.com
October 7th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I tried advertising on Facebook using their ad system. It wasn’t very effective for me. I think people have banner blindness when it comes to ads placed. Has anyone else have better success with it?