How to Use Facebook for Business Networking

Facebook, the social utility has over 100 million users. Facebook is a valuable tool that can help entrepreneurs, small business owners, and start-ups network, find sales leads, find customers, and meet others online in a business environment.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. There are several ways you can benefit from making connections and networking on Facebook. You can find:
   
   1) Contacts who can help you promote your blog, website, products or services
   
   2) Affiliate programs (that create passive income for you) related to your business to add to your website or blog
   
   3) Blogs, podcasts, videos, and websites where you can learn more about growing your business
   
   4) Bloggers and podcasters who can invite you as a guest
   
   5) Bloggers who can be a guest on your blog
   
   6) Information about your industry
   
   7) News and current events related to your industry or business
   
   8) Lost friends and contacts who may be able to help you network
   
   9) Sales leads
   
   10) Customers

2. First, create a profile. Use your real name. If you are a married female, use your maiden and married names. You want people to be able to find you if they do a search. Don’t use your business name as your profile name. The point of Facebook is to build relationships with people that could later lead to sales or business leads. Using your business name as your profile name will hinder your efforts.

3. Next, complete your profile and include a photo. Including a photo helps you come across as a real, genuine person. Also include business information, contact information, your high school and college (if applicable), and links to your website or blog. Facebook has Friend Finder feature that allows users to search for people by school, company, or organization. You want people to be able to find you so be sure to list all of your schools, organizations, employers, etc. Your efforts will not be as effective if your profile is incomplete.

4. Build your friends list. Invite all your customers, clients, friends, co-workers, family, school alumni, neighbors, and anyone else you can think of. Use the search box to look up people who you have lost contact with. The larger your friends list is, the more you will be able to extend your reach. Your profile will show up on all your friends’ pages. So, the more friends you have, the more pages you will be on, and the more other people will see your page and possibly click on it to read about you.

5. Join groups. Find groups with large memberships who could be customers for your product or service. Add photos and videos, write on the wall, participate in discussions, send friend requests to other members, and check in on the group several times a week. You want to look for groups with large memberships so that your marketing efforts will fall on a lot of people at once. Work smart, not hard! For example, let’s say you sell handmade, personalized baby blankets on your website. You want to find groups with moms, expectant mothers, women who may be starting a family soon, stay at home moms, breastfeeding moms, grandmothers, families looking to adopt, etc. Use the search feature to find these types of groups and join the groups with the largest memberships.

6. Start your own group. Being the administrator a group puts you in control and gives you access to all the members in one click. You can send messages to the entire group – such as links to your newest blog posts, new product announcements, and links to your affiliate programs. In the same way that your profile link shows on your friends’ pages, your group link will show on all the members’ pages. So, the more members you have, the more pages the group link will be on, sending more new members to join, to whom you can send messages that can result in sales, affiliate income,or subscribers to your blog.

7. Add updates several times a day in the "What are you doing right now?" box. These will appear on your friends’ pages so make them count. You can include blog post updates, announcements for new products, links to your affiliate programs, something interesting you found on the internet, general chit-chat comments, or anything you like. (Just make sure it isn’t offensive or your friends will remove you.)

Tips & Warnings

• Don’t spam other members or send unwanted solicitations or links. Nobody responds to that anyway, and spamming can get you banned.
• Avoid sending numerous applications friends on your list. Some Facebook users completely overuse these features and if you do, some of your friends will drop you.
• Don’t include ads or links on photo comments – just be sincere.
• Don’t haphazardly add friends from other people’s lists. You don’t know who those people are or how your friends even know them. Sending out too many friend requests too quickly is grounds for termination. Before sending a friend request to someone, determine if they are a good fit for helping you network.
• Avoid adding questionable material in your updates that may offend someone. Remember, everything you add appears on your friends’ pages. Be careful what updates you add – Facebook is a public forum and many people can see what you are doing.

Resources

• http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6834464610

[scentbygod]

on 7/28/2009 Excellent Excellent Article!

[kayceestudios]

on 10/9/2008 Great info! Thanks.

[kim82600]

on 10/7/2008 Good tips, thanks!

[SetApart]

on 10/5/2008 Great information! Thank you for sharing! 5 stars!