Facebook has been around since 2004 and has grown exponentially, reaching every part of the globe. Many people like Facebook’s user friendly profile pages and applications. Also, there is a degree of privacy Facebook users enjoy – no one can view their profile page without being added as a friend first. This decreases the amount of friends, but increases the quality of the social networking relationships. Facebook is also social network marketing friendly, allowing businesses to showcase their products and services to targeted customers. This is invaluable for reaching your potential clients. The key is to get them to add your business as a friend, create a fan page or pay for advertisement.
If you’re just starting out, it’s recommended you create your own personal profile by following a few simple steps:
1. Go to facebook.com. Here you have the Join Facebook / Login page.
2. Once you enter all the details, just click the “Sign Up” button. You will then be taken to their verification page to make sure you’re human. Just enter the letters displayed and click “Sign Up.”
3. Chances are you may already have a Yahoo, MSN or GMail account. You can have Facebook check your account to see if your friends are on Facebook too. This makes it very easy to add friends without having to email them yourself. Just enter your email address and your email password and click “Find Friends.” If can also elect not to do any steps by clicking the words “Skip this step” in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.
4. Now we’re on to the popular profile page. Once you’ve signed up, there is an opportunity to add lots of information about yourself. For now, Facebook just ask for school and company information to help you link up to old classmates and current colleagues. Feel free to enter your information and click “Save & Continue” or you can click “Skip”to move on to the next step.
5. The final step in getting your profile up is adding your profile picture. Facebook gives you the option to upload an existing picture or you can take a picture using your web cam. When you’re finished, “Save & Continue” or “Skip.”
6.Now you just need to verify your email address by opening your email from Facebook and clicking on their link to confirm. That’s it! Now you are a part of one of the largest social networks in the world. Now you just need to add some friends. Facebook allows you to import your existing friends, add suggested friends and/or search for friends either by name or email address. This will allow you to build a large network of friends quickly. Once you have friends and have built a relationship with them, it’s easier to let them know about your website and your business.
NOTE: Don’t make the mistake of selling to your Facebook friends. It’s a definite turn-off! Instead, learn about their interests and develop a mutually trusting relationship with them. If done correctly, with a bit of patience, they will want to know more about your products and services.
Social Network Marketing – FACEBOOK EVENTS
As you start to grow, it’s a good idea to host an event to promote your business. Many Facebook users enjoy attending events if it matches their interests. Once you’ve come up with the best event concept, let’s see how to put it out there in Facebook land.
1. Go to the events page by clicking the calendar icon at the bottom of your Facebook page. Here you will see any events you have been invited to as well as an opportunity to create your own event by clicking “Create an Event” highlighted in green.
2. Now you can create the event with basic information. Be sure to add the street address! Then click “Create Event.”
3. A pop-up page will appear allowing you to publish your event to your Facebook homepage. This also allows your friends to see your event without sending them emails. Very convenient!
You can also add details of your event (highly recommended) to give your potential guests a chance to know more about your special event. Adding a picture is also recommended because people remember pictures more than words and it stands out amongst a sea of posts!
4. What’s an event without friends! Although you already posted your event, not everyone checks their Facebook everyday. By sending an invitation, each friend will receive an email about your event. You can select All to invite all your friends to your event or choose a select number by either highlighting their picture or typing their name. Adding a personal message is optional, but adds a nice touch. When they receive your email, they can choose: “Attend” “Maybe” or “Not Attending.”
5. Voila! Your event is all set and everyone is informed! You can always go back and make changes if needed, promote the event using Facebook advertising, add pictures and videos to make it more appealing, etc. Most importantly, try to have fun with this. If you enjoy it, so will they!
Social Network Marketing – TWITTER
Twitter has captured the attention of celebrities, Presidential candidates, businesses, street vendors and everyone in between! Twitter is a microblogging tool that allows you to send quick messages to anyone who is interested in what you have to say, “followers.” You can also “follow” others and see what they have to say. This is also a great way to promote your website and your business. Again, be careful not to over do it. If people feel you’re just out to sell something to them, they will drop you. But if you genuinely want to help others, they will reciprocate! So let’s get started.
1. Signing up for a Twitter account is extremely simple! Go to twitter.com and click the “Sign up now” button.
2. Fill out the necessary information and type in the words in their verification field and click “Create my account.”
3. Twitter will offer some suggested friends. If someone looks interesting, tick the box next to their picture. When you’re ready, click “Finish.”
4. Twitter will send you an email to verify your your email account. Simply open their email and click the link to verify. That’s it! Now to the fun part – posting!
Here’s a video for you to enjoy!
Twitter allows you to make post using up to 140 characters, which is standard for mobile phones. As you type, a counter will let you know how many characters you have left. After typing your post, just click “Update.” Congrats! You are now Twittering! As you get into it, you can add applications, twitter from your mobile, etc. Enjoy!
Social Network Marketing – DIGG
Digg is an extremely popular bookmarking site. If you’ve ever came across a webpage you really liked and wanted to bookmark it, perhaps you bookmarked it to your browser. The only problem is you can only access your bookmarks from that computer. However, social bookmarking sites such as Digg allows you to bookmark any page, access it from any computer AND share with everyone! As a website owner, you also would like your pages bookmarked by others. Believe me, having your website on Digg, especially the front page, can open the gates to traffic! Joining is very easy.
1. Go to digg.com and click “Join Digg.”
2. Fill out the necessary information, including Digg’s verification form and click “I agree,. continue…”
3. That’s it! Just go to your email account and open the email Digg sends you. Click the verification link and you’re ready to start bookmarking pages. Of course, you can start by bookmarking your pages, but you definitely want to check out other sites and promote them if you feel they are that good. Trust me, they will return the favor!
Social Network Marketing – STUMBLEUPON
StumbleUpon is another social bookmarking site, similar to Digg. “Stumblers,” those who actively participate in finding and bookmarking the latest news, can rate their favorite web pages. A toolbar can also be installed to make bookmarking even easier. If one of your pages get “StumbledUpon” viewers can check out your site and vote to rank your page upward or downward. Make sure your website offers valuable content and a good look and feel that viewers crave and you will see your website fly up the ranks. This, of course, will add more traffic to your site. Try keeping your site fresh with new content and people will continue to stumble your pages. Be sure to return the favor! So let’s get started with social network marketing!
1. Go to stumbleupon.com and click “Join StumbleUpon”
2. Fill in the necessary information and click “Join Now>.”
3. The greatest feature of StumbleUpon is the toolbar. After you join, SU automatically download the toolbar, which will allow you to vote and/or stories you StumbleUpon.
4. In order to give you stories that interest you, SU offer categories from which you can choose subjects that you would like to read about. Tick your favorite categories and click “Save now & Stumble.”
5. Browse through the list of stories until you find something that grabs your attention and click the headline link.
6. Here’s the fun part. You can vote whether you like it or not,
or share it with others from your email accounts, Facebook or Twitter. The power of StumbleUpon can be great! Create some content for your website that can really help others, unusual or controversial. The key is to attract attention to your site, but make sure it’s the kind of attention that will positively affect your business.
Social Network Marketing – SHARE
Before you start to feel overwhelm with so many avenues and wonder how are you going to manage all this, we have one more invaluable tool – AddThis. As you create content and people come to your site, they could feel so impressed with your profound thoughts that they want to tell everyone! Excellent! Let’s make it easy for them to do this by adding a button to your website in two steps.
1. Go to AddThis.com and follow the four steps they provide. Choose the format of your site. Tick the style you like. Decide if you want analytics (you must then register your site) or not. Finally, click “Get Your Button.”
2. Copy the code they provide and add it to the code between the body tags <body> </body> in your website. That’s it!
By implementing these steps for social network marketing, you will begin to create relationships with many people who trust you and will trust your business!
Good luck!
