You can reach millions of people – for free

Ahhh Facebook, the poster child for social networks. Started out of a college dorm room, this site was originally meant for coeds to find each other on and across campuses. In 2006 that all changed when Facebook (www.facebook.com) started letting everyone into the party. It has subsequently become the world’s largest social network, hosting more than 150 million people. What is the fastest demographic of Facebook users for the past several months? People over the age of 30. Facebook is no longer simply a site you monitor to see what your kids are doing (they’ve already moved on to another network, sorry). It is an enormous community of potential business prospects, customers, partners and employees. Is it the right place for your business? Well, let’s see.

Over the past few months we have talked about listening being a critical first step in any digital media campaign: Before you jump into the pool, always test the water. While blogging and online forums are an easy place to quickly discover whether your community is interacting in those networks, Facebook is an entirely different beast. First of all, to really "listen" within Facebook you have to join up ... nothing like diving in headfirst! Go ahead, sign up for a Facebook profile, fill it up with as much information as you would want people to know professionally and let’s get to searching.

Beyond the profiles of individuals, Facebook has three other important constituents: Pages, Groups and Applications. Let’s break each of them down as it pertains to your business.
 

1) Facebook Pages

These are fairly simple and consist of a page people can join that typically revolves around an individual or a company. For our B2B technology company, BreakingPoint Systems, we have created a Facebook page for customers, prospects and employees to see the latest information about our company and products. You can simply feed the page with content from your Web site or blog, upload pictures of your product or a company event and even leave notes for the members of this page. There are dozens of features and policies you can put in place, but I would suggest at least starting a page for your company, upload content for a few months, share that with your personal network and see who joins up. Worst case scenario is that you take down the page; best case is you have a built-in community with which you can communicate with and they will start talking about you with their network. Talk about viral.
 

2) Facebook Groups

Groups are a bit different in that they revolve around a topic. For example, at BreakingPoint we created a group for people interested in our industry. It is completely open to competitors and people can post whatever they want, as long as it adheres to common decency. You can build any rules into the group that you wish. Depending on the size of your market, you may get a sizeable group to join up. But as in all cases of digital media, make sure to feed the community as much as possible with information on industry news, events, videos and more. Also, don’t forget to search for similar groups throughout Facebook, join up and cross-pollinate.
 

3) Facebook Applications

Facebook is an open Application Programming Interface (API) that allows anyone to build applications that can be used within Facebook. The more famous ones have revolved around Scrabble or restaurant recommendations, but there may be room for your company to do something interesting to gain some traction within the network. There is a substantial time commitment to developing a Facebook application, not to mention technical need. But if you have found that your community is indeed on Facebook, this could be a really great way to grab attention and business leads. A great business example is FedEx’s Facebook application that allows you to send "packages" to your friends with little gifts, all branded of course with the signature FedEx box. Imagine doing something similar with your product.

This all may sound a bit silly when looking at a serious business model, but here is the ultra benefit: You can reach an audience of millions and it is FREE. Plus, you can search easily for old classmates, former colleagues, business partners, key customers and more. Just remember, what you put up on these networks will forever be on the Web. Next month, I’ll take a look at LinkedIn and some of its new features.

Comments