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Using Facebook To Generate Leads

Written by: Omaro Ailoch

Article Overview: Social networking sites were originally formed with the intention of building friendships and networks of like minded social contacts. However, there is no avoiding the fact that these same websites also offer businesses the opportunity to improve their exposure and increase their search engine rankings.

Using Facebook To Generate Leads

Social networking sites were originally formed with the intention of building friendships and networks of like minded social contacts. However, there is no avoiding the fact that these same websites also offer businesses the opportunity to improve their exposure and increase their search engine rankings. Many of the big search engines treat links from these social networking sites as being powerful links and they form a very strong link profile for any business related website. One of the key aspects of any social media optimization strategy is to genuinely get involved and not just needlessly and ineffectively spam the sites.

Be Ethical

Spam is a problem in virtually every aspect of the Internet. As well as being a major problem for regular email users, forum spam, blog spam, and MySpace spam have become increasingly common and infuriatingly frustrating. Users of social sites have become near experts in ignoring the irrelevant comments because they use social sites in order to find relevant information and talk to like minded people. The key to success with Facebook, like any social networking site, is to provide what the users want – relevant information.

Building A List Of Targeted leads

Finding targeted leads is the most profitable method of building a powerful network. Facebook offers access to a large number of topic related groups that you can access and join. Find the topisc that are most relevant to your business where you can become an active community member. Generally speaking, the more targeted the group and the more active you are, the better you will fare in your promotional efforts.

Your Profile Page

Set up your profile so that it helps to promote your business in a positive manner. Having a profile opens up various useful features in Facebook but above all else it will be the one page that other users visit if they want to find out more about you or your service. By all means include a link or a small number of links to your sites but don't get carried away.

Keep Your Network Updated Regularly

Once you have a network of feeds you can contact them all by updating your Facebook notes. These updates will appear in your friend's RSS feeds. Do be careful when using this feature, though, because while it is a genuinely useful way to gain a direct line to potential leads, the posting of too many sales based or irrelevant posts can quickly deplete your network.

Sell Products On The Facebook Marketplace

The Facebook marketplace is particularly beneficial for those businesses that sell tangible products. If you are primarily an Ebay business, or you run an ecommerce store, you can promote your items for free in the marketplace giving you greater exposure and potentially improving your sales figures and profit levels.

Create A Facebook Application To Promote Your Brand

By creating a Facebook application you promote your business in several ways. First, other users will be more inclined to add you as a friend if your application is useful. They may also send details of your application to their own network – this style of viral marketing can generate a lot of interest for very little money. Users will also build a greater degree of trust in your service because you have offered them something genuinely useful. They will remember your name, the name of your service, and they will instinctively know how to find you online – you can pay thousands of dollars for a branding campaign this effective but Facebook offers the same advantage for free.

Why Use Facebook To Promote Your Business?

Facebook has grown in popularity very quickly. Many of the users are young adults and professionally minded people, rather than the predominantly teenage crowd that frequent MySpace. More businesses get actively involved in the Facebook community too. Facebook also offers tools and features that are more in tune with the business than some of the other big social networking sites.

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Article Tags: active community, building friendships, community member, facebook, intention, irrelevant comments, link profile, media optimization, myspace, optimization strategy, powerful network, profitable method, search engine rankings, search engines, social networking site, social networking sites, targeted leads, users forum



Related Forum Posts
Re: Facebook Fan Pages - What will always draw me to something valuable in Facebook Fan Pages is how they are giving information on a regular basis so that's what I could recommend. Generate more interesting contents on a regular basis and yes, giving freebies to those active followers could even motivate the others more. Good luck!
Re: Facebook Fan Pages - [quote="brokemet":19vhhru2]What will always draw me to something valuable in Facebook Fan Pages is how they are giving information on a regular basis so that's what I could recommend. Generate more interesting contents on a regular basis and yes, giving freebies to those active followers could even motivate the others more. Good luck![/quote:19vhhru2] [quote="Anelly":19vhhru2]If you provide giveaways people will join your faceboock fan page becasue they love free stuff.[/quote:19vhhru2] Freebies sound like a key feature...thanks for that advice!
Re: Social media question - Facebook is where I get all my traffic. Facebook is great, because you can create fan pages and your customers come to you. Twitter is good, but I just don't see the same results. I think Facebook is the most popular and it's easier for people to find what they're looking for.
Re: Helping a Grade 5/6 student make money fast - 1,Let him create a blog using wordpress. 2.Post topics that student like him are happy about 3.Put adsense on it 4. Generate advert from his school business If he did it well in few months , he will be earning money to take care of his need
Re: Facebook Advertising? - Facebook has more than 700 million active users and half of them log in on a daily basis. Through Facebook advertising, you can be sure to reach any particular segment. Conventional advertising models are expensive and difficult to reach a narrow target. Facebook advertising is one option that can get you results and target specific user groups. You may be the local beauty parlor, restaurant or a Fortune 500 organization, but eBizUniverse will show how to build your brand equity through Facebook advertising. Consider these ideal scenarios: You own a restaurant and wish to target those who are recently engaged to be married for their catering business. All you need to do is to find the women with the relationship status of “engaged” on Facebook and you have your desired segment with Facebook Ads. (See Sample Ads Below) There is a birthday special that your restaurant is offering and the Facebook Ads would be displayed only to those whose birthdays are in the offing. An event is being organized and you wish to target local college graduates, who are single and 25-35 years old. They are on Facebook and you can reach them with Facebook Ads.


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