How to Use Facebook For Generating Prospects For Online Or Offline Business
By bang323
@bang323 (102)
Philippines
July 2, 2009 8:04pm CST
One-fifth of the internet users on the planet or about 200,000 people and growing are on Facebook. So if you're doing online business, you might as well do it where everyone hangs out. Right?
The first thing to do then would be to set yourself up properly on this powerful social network. Whatever profile you might have, review it keeping the following cardinals in mind:
- Put up a good picture. Remember, Facebook is like a party... look proper; inviting to talk to
- Write a short profile note that establishes the unique, specific value you bring to others
- Set up not more than 3 website links; to your blog, your system page and your twitter account. If you don't have these, great! Put your name and email in the page that opens through the link below... and we'll learn to set them all up shortly. Do NOT put your business site link here... it's like going to a party with a briefcase
- Fill your interests and activities in a way that is 'bulleted' for the bulleted words help people 'search' you out
- Write a brief "About me"... use it to re-establish your unique, specific value and save the details for your blog. In Facebook we only want people to feel, "aha! this person is one I would like to know better".
Having done this, the next activity is to expand your 'friends' circle to attract the people you'd like to work with. So where do you find them? There's a 'search' bar on the top right corner of Facebook. Locate that and type your interest area in there. For instance, if I were to do this I'd type 'network marketers'. A lot of "people", "groups" and "pages" will show up.
Now click on one of groups or one of the pages that has a large following. Scroll down that page till you see the members / fans. Right click on "show all" to open in a new window. What you are seeing now are all the people who like your interest area... which is why they subscribed to that group / fan-page in the first place!
Your task is to "Add as a friend" about 40-50 of them everyday. It takes about 10 minutes to do so. And while you do, copy-paste a one-line "personal message" that helps them associate with you. Else they will wonder about your motives behind befriending and you won't start a relationship of trust. I use a line like, "Hi xxx, looks like we have xxxxxx in common! I specialize in building leaders and would like to put my 20 years of business experience to your good use. Let's connect!" Obviously you'll make relevant changes.
Once friends accept you, you can message them, chat with them, or invite them to games or whatever else may be of common interest. This is why your profile set up is important so your interests are known. And your choice of friends should be of your target group, to aid business.
The other thing to do is join 'Groups'. When you have 'searched' them, and they are of your interest area, join them too and post somethings on their 'wall' and 'bulletin boards'. Other group members tend to see this stuff and that could trigger a visit to your site.
Getting adventurous, you could also 'Create a group' (look for the icon on top of your Groups list). By doing so you can invite all your friends and they can invite their friends and you can have quite a following if you are providing valuable input. Make sure you name your group attractively. In your group profile you can post pictures, videos and links. On a weekly basis you may also want to 'Message all members' so they could visit any sites you'd like them to ... or just read up some of your ideas and thoughts.
Videos work very well on Facebook too. As a communication platform Facebook allows you to record videos directly (see an icon titled 'Video' among the icons at the bottom left of page). You can also upload existing videos from your computer. Same for photos. And these can be tagged with the names of the people you want to do business with. For example if you sell jewelry, you could tag a collection to 20 prospects and the pictures / video would be visible to them on their own profile page. Convenient, isn't it?
Similarly, you can attach links to people's profile 'walls' to draw their attention to your site / article. Just be sure it is not an annoying link or message for that will be counterproductive.
In case your business is having an event, you can create an event using the icons on the bottom left bar and invite all your friends to it... so the message spreads virally. Just be sure you are harnessing this platform with ethics and providing stuff people like to see. Else you may have to keep adding friends and may never have a relationship with any. So be smart about it and enjoy!
http://ppcclicks.blogspot.com
No responses