I'm so livid that I can still hear his voice in my head.
Does that ever happen to you?
"You're completely f—ing nuts," he said. "You can't get
anything from Facebook but a sheep thrown at you."
"No. YOU can't get anything out of Facebook because you
have a time management problem." I hung up the phone,
furious. I mean, how can you call yourself a marketer if
you can't manage to gain from a site where the leads come
to you?
Since he obviously won't listen , I'd like to tell you for
free what I wouldn't tell him if he paid me. (No, he'll
never read this - don't get me started on That.)
What follows are Five Fun and Free Ways to Benefit from
Having a Facebook Profile.
1- Import Your Blog Posts, or Social Feeds
Make sure you already have asserted your own copyright and
that you read their T's and C's before proceeding.
Another thing Jeff Pulver mentioned to me in Facebook is
that your audience in Facebook and in the Blogosphere may
be different, so this isn't for everyone. There's not
enough space to go into it here, but several variations on
this can explode your results.
2- Get to Know Clients, Colleagues and Mentors Better
Many people think of LinkedIn when they hear about this
tip, another of my favorite sites. (Google "Vincent Wright
LinkedIn" and you'll get tons of great, free information.)
It's a great site to network at if you have a specific
professional purpose in mind.
However, if you want to get to know people, with no
particular agenda in mind, Facebook is better. It's not an
either/or type of thing, they're just different tools.
Once you've made some type of connection with someone in
Facebook, you can unobtrusively learn about your online
pals, and use the little tidbits to make small talk about
common interests, which can lead to conversation, which can
lead to phone calls and other offline encounters.
The reason this is so powerful is that it mimics the way we
get to know people in our offline lives.
Familiarity goes a long way to establishing trust. Add in
the transparency that occurs from them seeing your news,
and you're doing two things with your clients that your
competition is not.
Who would you buy from, someone you trust, or a company
where you're just another number?
3 -Participate in Groups
The emphasis is on participation. Interact and get to know
people.
Be more concerned about connecting with others than about
gaining site traffic. To get more involved, you can stop by
occasionally and contribute content. You'll get the best
effect from joining the discussion board conversations.
If you're looking for business related groups to start
with, try Mark Joyner's Simpleology, Jeremiah Owyang's Web
Strategy Group, Open for Web Business, or Facebook for
Business.
Once people start to see your name come up in
conversations, on their Facebook home page and in
discussion boards, they click on your profile to learn more
about you, which often begins interaction. Of course, they
can also surf to your site through your profile. You can
even start your own group, or a fan page about your
business.
4- Upload videos
The kinds that seem to go over best are short, simple
videos with just you, a plain or simple background (white
wall or you at your desk). If you're a bit too shy for the
camera, think about a video capture of your screen as you
demonstrate something important (also called a screencast).
They can be up to 15 minutes long, in a variety of formats,
and up to 300MB in size. It's free, and it automatically
translates from their allowed formats into a format
viewable by all browsers.
5- Share Links
When you share a link on your profile, your friends can get
a notification of this, and they can also easily share it
with their friends. Big deal right? But if you have 100
friends who average about 100 friends, the right link,
exposed virally, can spread as if you emailed it link to
10,000 contacts.
As with email, not everyone will pay attention to it, and
of those who do, not all of them will act on that
information. But for the price of free, without spam? Can't
be beat.
If that weren't enough, you can share links in Groups now
on Facebook. So that means if you are an active participant
in 20 groups of over 1000 people, you have added a
potential 20K to your audience.
Hint: Link sharing works better when you're being helpful
and have a track record of being an open, sharing person,
not just constantly posting links from your own site.
And there you have it, five fun, free ways to utilize
Facebook to enhance your business.
The next time someone tells you that Facebook can't help
you, tell them to shut the hell up or talk about the things
they know.
Okay, I'm kidding.
Just ignore them, and join the group of quiet marketers
who are learning the laid back ways of social media
marketing.
You don't have to spend your day on Web 2.0 sites to
promote yourself either. Often, when your profile is
properly set up, it can generate leads for you with a
minimum of upkeep- free. Not to mention advertising
opportunities that are appropriate for some sites.
Try it yourself, then decide.
----------------------------------------------------
Confused about how to get clients, joint venture partners
or more blog traffic from Facebook without violating their
terms with traditional online marketing techniques? Go to
http://freetraffictip.com/1-facebook to learn more about
the ins and outs of marketing on Facebook.
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