Facebook Marketing Guide

Discover the step by step process to generating a flow of targeted buyers to your website that will

blow your profits out of the water!

Facebook Profits Guide p.2

INTRODUCTION

Have you noticed that Facebook comes up more and more in conversations

lately? Well here's why!

Facebook has:

• More than 55 million active users • An average of 250,000 new registrations per day since Jan. 2007 • An average of 3% weekly growth since Jan. 2007 • Active users doubling every 6 months • The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older • Sixth-most trafficked site in the United States (comScore) • More than 65 billion page views per month • More than half of active users return daily • People spend an average of 20 minutes on the site daily (comScore)

Clearly if you are not promoting your business on Facebook you are missing out on sales. And lot's of them! Our step by step guide is in two parts and shows you:

Part One – THE FACE OF FACEBOOK

• How to join Facebook, set up a profile page and get started • How to add friends and build a network • Joining groups and causes • Interacting

Part Two – MARKETING ON FACEBOOK

• How to promote your site to thousands of people interested in what you have to offer.

• How to promote your site to thousands of people who live in the same area you do!

• How you can target your promotions to the very people who want to buy your product or service.

• The killer marketing secret that Facebook does not want you to know.

• How you can set your self up as an expert in your area so people come to you.


PART ONE - THE FACE OF FACEBOOK

In 2004, Facebook was created in a college dorm room. Three years

later, it’s one of the biggest social networking sites in the world with fifty-seven

million active users, about two hundred thousand more joining every day, and

over half of those users logging in daily to update their status reports, poke each

other, play movie and TV trivia, and assign each other “hotness” points. They’re

networking with coworkers, looking for love, joining meaningful groups like “Stop

Global Warming Now” or “War Is Not The Answer” or fun, pointless ones like “30

Things to Do in an Exam When You know You’re Going To Fail It Anyways,” “I

Need Turntables,” and “Britney Spears is Bald!”

Why is Facebook the phenom site of the year? Because you can interact

with friends (and strangers) in thousands of fun, cool ways – and find out what

they’re up to whenever you want. You can track down friends and family you’ve

lost touch with and express yourself in ways you never thought possible. It’s

interactive in a whole new way that’s addictive and constantly changing.

If you haven’t shown your face to Facebook yet, Part One of this EBook

will show you step-by-step how to sign up, log on and get the most out of the site

that’s taken the cyberworld by storm. So get ready to learn what Facebook is all

about – and why you should give it some serious face time!


CHAPTER ONE - GETTING YOUR FACE ON FACEBOOK

When you first come to Facebook.com as a newbie, the screenshot above

is what you’ll be greeted with. As you can already see, the nice thing about the

whole Facebook experience is it’s easy to follow, with a simple, clean and inviting

interface that never threatens to overwhelm you – even though it’s overflowing

with social networking goodness.

What you do here depends on what you want to do here. Want to check

out who’s on Facebook that you know? Search for them in the “Find Your

Friends” Search Bar at the bottom of the intro screen. Worried about privacy and

who’s going to see what? Click on the “privacy settings” link and you’ll see the

varied options you have on how you can limit access to certain people - like

maybe that creepy ex that won’t leave you alone.


Or click on the links on uploading pix and publishing notes (i.e. what

everyone else in the world calls a blog) for details about those Facebook

features. And for an overall look at the whole enchilada, click on the small “Tour”

link in the upper right, which will take you through a series of screenshots

covering the Facebook basics.

If you like what you see after all that – or if that’s WAY too much time to

waste and you’ve already decided that Facebook is for you - click on that red

“Sign Up” button and we’ll go on from there.

The sign-up itself, again, is pretty straightforward – just the basics, starting

with your name and whether you’re a student, company employee or, our

personal favorite, none of the above (for our purposes, we’re registering a “none

of the above” user named “Britney Lindsay Hilton,” who is conveniently between


jail time, under house arrest and has a lot of time on her hands at her home

computer).

All you need to enter after that is just your e-mail and password, and your

date of birth (so everyone knows to tell you happy birthday – yes, your Facebook

friends are notified on the big day!). After a security check and a tick of the little

box that says Facebook’s in charge, you’re on your way – right after the email

confirmation almost-instantly arrives in your inbox.

Once you’ve confirmed, you’ll be taken through a few first steps. You’ll be

asked if you want to immediately track down some friends on the site, so you’re

not left out there all alone in the vast Facebook wilderness.

If your address book is compatible, Facebook will import it and check to

see if any of your email addresses match up with other Facebook residents’.

Then you can decide who you want to add as friends and who you don’t. Hint: if

the creepy ex is on Facebook, stay way far away! You can also skip this whole

step and do the friend-adding thing later very easily (including the email imports

and match-ups).


Next, you’ll be asked where you live – and after that, you’ll be asked which

regional network in your area you’d like to join. If you registered as a school

student or company employee, you’ll be asked if you want to join those particular

school or workplace networks too, if they exist. This allows you to immediately

hook up with a group of people you know. You can also opt out of a network

altogether if you want.

You should now be at your official Facebook welcome page. Congrats –

you’re officially a member of an exclusive club of fifty-seven million people. So

what do you do now? Show the world who you are - at least the part that’s not

too scary!


CHAPTER TWO - MAKING A PRO PROFILE

So – here’s the brand spanking new profile of our Facebook member

Britney. Quite frankly, it’s very sad. We don’t know her current status, we don’t

know what she looks like, what her hobbies are, or if she’s back to using the

prison computer or still at the mansion. Britney’s got a lot of work to do and let’s

hope she’s sober enough to pull it off. Follow along and you’ll find out how to do

the same for your new Facebook profile. We trust yours will end up being much

less embarrassing.

First of all, let’s face it – we’re desperate to know what this girl looks like.

Click on the “Upload a profile picture” link underneath the giant question mark.

Facebook will accept a jpg, png or a gif graphic file with a size limit of 4 MB. If

the dimensions of the picture itself are too large, it will also sometimes get kicked

back – but you can make your photo smaller with a simple photo editing program.

Now – take a look at what a difference a photo makes:


Wow. Think our girl’s been partying a little too hard.

Now, go up to the top left and hit the “edit” link by “Profile” to really start

filling in the blanks. You’ll be taken to a “Basic” page, which does the broad

strokes – name, gender, whether you want your birthday displayed to the world,

political views and religious views. Again, you can be as specific as you want to

be.

Click on “Contact,” right next to “Basic” at the top of the Profile box, where

you can enter your email, your website, your screen name for either Skype, AIM,

Google Talk, Windows Live, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu or ICQ, your phone numbers

and address. Big note here – you don’t have to put any of this in, and, if you do,


you don’t have to display it to everyone. Always control access to personal

information such as this. There are fifty-seven million people out there, and if

you accidentally add the wrong one on as a friend – yes, we’re back to the

creepy ex scenario – they can mess with you.

Next, move on to “Relationships.” This doesn’t take long and it’s there for

you to specify if you’re open for a relationship and what you’re looking for on

Facebook - Friendship, Dating, A Relationship or Networking. If you’re not

looking for anything, or at least you don’t want to admit you are, you don’t have to

pick any of them.

Now, it’s on to the “Personal.” Depending on how much you want to say

about yourself, this could take you a reeeeeeeally long time. Again, it’s a matter

of how much you want to put out there when it comes to the categories of

Activities, Interests, Favorite Music, TV Shows and Movies, Favorite Quotes and

About Me. You can write as much as you want – or just forget writing anything,

because who wants to think that much right now? Best bet is to continue to fill in

the blanks as you continue to use Facebook and you think of the things you want

to put in there. Doing it all at once gets to be a chore.


After the Personal section, it’s pretty smooth sailing with Education and

Work very simple and obvious. If you’ve already uploaded your picture, you’re

done and your precious Profile is there for all to see.

Later on, when you’ve added videos, pictures or other applications, you

can easily change your profile layout, by just dragging and dropping boxes where


you want to place them, right on your profile page. But what’s important now is

getting together all your peeps!


CHAPTER THREE - YOU’VE GOT TO HAVE FRIENDS

Okay, you’ve made your basic Profile. Who wouldn’t want to be your bud

after checking this Profile out?


Now - how do you start finding Facebook Friends so you’re not the only

one out of fifty-seven million standing alone in the cyber-corner?

There are a few ways. First of all, you may already have access to a lot of

people you know when you went through the sign-up process – if you

immediately hooked into a school, work or regional network. To make sure you

did, check your “Mini-Feed,” found directly under your basic info on the right hand

side of the Profile page. The Mini-Feed area keeps track of what you’ve done on

Facebook in terms of Friends Added, Applications Added, etc.

In Britney’s mini-feed, about three items down, you’ll see it says “Britney

joined the Los Angeles, CA network.” All Britney has to do is click on the Los

Angeles link – and she’ll be taken to the Los Angeles network.

Unfortunately, she’ll find out there are over 350,000 people in that

particular network. Hopefully, you live in a smaller town – or you’ve connected

with a school or work network where you can easily find people you know. As

you can also tell from the screenshot, it’s easy to browse other networks where

you might find other friends and family. Networks are broken down into four


groups – High School, College, Region and Workplace. Keep in mind to browse

networks based not just on places you’re at now – also check for schools,

companies and places you used to be a part of, that’s how you find people

you’ve lost track of.

Your next plan of attack is to start searching for individual names. The

Search box in the upper left corner of the Facebook screen, right below the logo,

is the easiest place to do this. Just type in a name and see what comes up. If

it’s a strange name, like something Gwyneth Paltrow would name a child, it

should be an easy find. However, if it’s a common name...


…sifting through over 500 names can be more of a challenge (and you might be

left wondering how Shauntea got to the top of the John Smith list).

You’ve done the search, you’ve found a person you want to add as a

Friend…what’s the best approach?

Well, that depends on how much of a friend they really are!


Say you want to be friends with our Facebook creation, Britney Lindsay

Hilton. You did a search on her name and you came up with this:

As you can see from the screenshot, you have four options in a column to the

right…

Send Message

Poke Her!

View Friends

Add to Friends

What you do depends on your relationship to Britney. Are you besties and

constantly in the back of her limo downing cocktails? Then you go ahead and

just hit “Add to Friends.” She’ll be down with that and return the favor.

Let’s say you kind of know her, but not sure she really cares enough to add

you as a Friend. Then, and we mean this in the nicest way possible, you Poke

her! Poking allows the pokee, i.e. Britney in this case, to know you’re there, to

see your picture and hopefully remember that you’re the one that helped clean


the vomit off her that night at the club. If this is the case, she’ll either poke you

back – or just request you add her as a friend.

But maybe you had a little misunderstanding with Britney – she could have

sworn she heard you say her last single sucked. You try to Add or Poke her and

she’ll just ignore you. You need to “Send Message” - so you’ll be able to explain

that you were talking about Fergie’s last single, not hers, and could she please

add you as a Friend?

Final scenario – you hate her, she hates you. But, hey, there was this good-

looking guy that used to be her bodyguard… Click “View Friends” and see who’s

there that you want to hook up with – without having to hook up with Britney

herself.

In fact, that’s the best overall technique to adding Friends. First, find and add

a few friends in all the different areas of your life – school, work, family, etc.

Then, check out their Facebook buds – you’re bound to come up with almost

everyone you know that’s on Facebook through this method.


Don’t forget, if you didn’t do it when you signed up, Facebook can also import

your email address book and automatically check who’s registered on the site

with those email addresses. Facebook will also automatically send invites to join

the site to your email addresses that don’t match up with anyone. That’s a smart

way for them to build membership - and for you to build your Friends list!


CHAPTER FOUR - FIND YOUR GROUP – AND YOUR CAUSE!

Now that you’ve done your profile, networked and hunted down your

posse, it’s time to get more involved – and make a whole new circle of friends

that share your views or interests.

Let’s start with Groups. Go to the Applications column on the left side of

the page – if you’ve just joined Facebook, there will only be a few listed. Click on

the “Groups” application – and you’ll see just what our lovely superstar Britney

sees in the above screenshot.

Here’s where it gets fun. Because no matter what you’re into, you can

probably find a Facebook Group that shares your interests. For example,

Britney, as we know from her Profile, enjoys partying. Search on that particular

activity and you come up with…

.


Yes, literally thousands of partying groups. Fortunately, the number one

group listed is right in Britney’s area code.


But let’s get more specific. Britney, it turns out, enjoys a good game of the

old favorite, Twister. Now, who would bother to start a Twister Group?


Well…must be what everybody’s doing at parties.

So plug in your favorite hobby, song, movie, TV show, personality, sports

team, whatever, and you’ll find a group to match it. If, by some slim chance you

don’t, you’re not licked yet. You can start a group of your own, just by clicking on

“Create a New Group” on the My Groups page. You’ll be walked through the

process quickly and easily and you can start inviting everyone else to your new

Facebook experience.

Even Britney started her group to express a secret passion:


Feel free to join – it’s open to everyone.

If you have loftier aims than discovering more about naked Twister, you

might want to try out the “Causes” application. Click on the “Applications” link on

the upper left of the page below the Search Bar. This will take you to an

Applications page that’s similar to the My Groups page.


Just click on the “Browse More Applications” bar, search for “Causes,” and

you’ll stumble into an incredibly socially-conscious world of choices, designed to

benefit non-profit groups. Mainstream charities such as Greenpeace, the

American Heart Association, Habitat for Humanity are aligned with this

application.


You can browse the various causes, see which ones are getting the most

support overall from Facebook members, and also see which ones your friends

are involved with. You yourself can donate money to those you feel most

impassioned about, or you can even start your own cause. Causes is set up so

that you can name a nonprofit beneficiary that’s linked to the application –

anyone who wants to donate to the cause you create can do it very simply with a

credit card. All you have to do is send invitations to the Friends you think would

be receptive.


This is an innovative example of using social networking sites for social

change of the best kind.


CHAPTER FIVE - GET INTO INTERACTION You’ve got your profile, your groups, your networks, and maybe even a

cause – now it’s time to mix and mingle.

First of all, your status update is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE! Located

right below your name in the upper right, the more you update this, the more

other people love it (unless you’re really obnoxious about it). Whatever you’re

doing, wherever you are, let people know about it…just like Britney below.

Just don’t make the common Facebook newbie mistake – using “is” twice.

It gets annoying reading “Bob is is going home” or “Julie is is so over Chris.”

Remember the IS is already there!

Also by clicking on your Friends tab on the top menu, you can check all

the status updates of all your friends at once. If they’re all doing the same thing

without you, you know you need a new group of friends.

The way to interact with big pools of people is by using your groups,

networks and causes. You can start discussion groups, post pictures and video,

and get something going easily. Again, this is a great way to meet new people

who are into the same stuff as you.

The applications that came with your Facebook enrollment are also cool to

use for other things. “Notes” is where you can blog if you want, “Events” is

where you can put up where your next party is, “Photos” is where you can create

your own photo albums with descriptions on the pix for friends to take a look at,

and “Marketplace” is kind of the Ebay of Facebook, where you can buy and sell

whatever.


Getting beyond the basic Applications, however, is where the real fun

comes in interacting with your individual Facebook Friends. You can add

“Superpoke” if you want to do things like throw chickens at friends, you can add

“Petrolhead” to buy a virtual car and “race” other friends, you can enlist people to

help you become a TV trivia guru with “Mesmo TV,” you can match up your


movie taste with others with “Flickster,” and best of all, you can throw poo at

whoever you want with “Poo Fight.”

Believe it or not, Poo Fight is a cause. It’s to raise awareness about bowel

cancer in the UK.

And that’s no line of crap.


PART TWO – MARKETING ON FACEBOOK Introduction This is not a guide to spamming. It is for legitimate businesses seeking to share

their product or service with those interested in hearing about it. I have been

blown away by the traffic I receive on a daily basis from Facebook. What follows

is the techniques I have tested and applied to marketing my business which has

opened the ‘traffic’ floodgates and they can for you also!

How to promote your site to thousands of people interested in what you

have to offer.

Facebook has thousands of groups covering a wide range of topics. The key is to

search for groups with similar interests to what you have to offer. You can do this

by selecting Groups in the left hand navigation bar.


Once you have identified the groups that match your interests then spend some

time on each group reading the posts of its members and understanding the

motivations of those who set up the group.

Next join the group and make some posts to ‘The Wall’.

Tip 1: Keep these on topic. Don’t just post your website URL or you will

loose credibility quickly.

Remember your product or service is all about solving problems. Talk about how

your product or service has made a difference.

With more active groups you can post more than once a day. Once you have

posted, check how long it takes before your post drops off the bottom.

Remember that you are after ‘relevant eyeballs’ so once your post drops off you

will need to repeat the process.

Another feature in most groups is the Discussion Board. Here you can post a

topic and people interested will reply and you can build a relationship from there.


Tip 2: The groups which have more members generally are more active and

generate more traffic.

You can also invite the group members to be your friend. (You do this by clicking

on their photo in the members’ area and click ‘Ad to Friends’)

Once they are ‘your friend’ you can: email them, share articles, blogs, links, etc

as much as you like.

Tip 3: You can have up to 5000 friends per Facebook account.

How to promote your site to thousands of people who live in the same area

you do!

This strategy is really powerful if your business provides a product or service

locally. Let’s say you are located in San Francisco.

So select networks at the top of your screen and enter ‘San Francisco’ into the

search box. Then click on this network and you will arrive at the page below.


You now have 200,000 people in the Bay area you can market to! Repeat the

same process you did with the groups. Start discussions and make posts to the

wall.

You can also create an event for your business that will show up in the events

area. This is a great way to catch the attention of the people in your network.

Another cool feature with Networks is the ‘Marketplace’. Here you can list your

product or service for free.

Tip 4: Did you notice the section above for the most popular Groups for

members of the San Francisco Network? Go where the people are!

How you can target your promotions to the very people who want to buy

your product or service.

If you have been in business for a while you will know your target market. For

example their location, age or gender may be key factors to your target market.


Facebook has a feature called ‘Social Ads’. You can target your ad precisely to

the audience you choose. This can be by age, gender, location, interests, and

more. Simply click on ‘Advertisers’ at the bottom of the webpage and then

‘+ Create Social Ad’.

The ads can also be shown to users whose friends have recently engaged with

your Facebook Page or engaged with your website through Facebook Beacon.

Social Ads are more likely to influence users when they appear next to a story

about a friend's interaction with your business.

Tip 5: Start off biding higher and then slowly ease it back. Bidding higher

means your ad is picked up faster and will save you money in the long run.

The killer marketing secret that Facebook does not want you to know.

OK here it is. You can have more than one Facebook account. Facebook only

lets you change your Network twice every 60 days. The secret is to set up

different accounts and join different networks, this way you can promote your

product or service to all your key markets.


How you can set yourself up as an expert in your area so people come to

you.

This is has been a really powerful marketing idea. Wait for it! Setup your own

group and have everyone come to you. You have the power to choose which

features people can use and which ones only you can use. For example with one

of my groups I am the only one who can upload video and post news. This way

you can market to people as they interact with others on your page. You can also

email everyone as much as you like.

To set up your own group click on groups in the left hand navigation and then

click on ‘+ Create a New Group’.

Tip 6: Select your group name carefully. Think about what search terms

people would enter to find a group like yours.

Once your group is up and running you can invite those on and off Facebook to

join. Think about inviting your current database to join? This way they can

interact with others and do the selling for you.


Thank you for taking the time to read the guide. I wish you all the success with

your Facebook marketing. If you have any questions or suggestions then feel

free to email me at: [email protected]

Kind Regards

Colin Salisbury

www.facebook-profits.com

© 2008 – All Rights Reserved

Business

Facebook Marketing Guide