How To Work Facebook - An Overview

Originally restricted to Harvard college students, Facebook was launched in 2004.Today it has grown to a company that has over 750 million users and has a revenue of over 2 billion per year. It is the second most popular website on the internet and so the potential for marketing is massive .
Facebook earns most of its revenue through banner advertising however in this article about how to work Facebook I will not be looking at advertising directly but rather the free methods that can be used to direct traffic to your website and develop your client base .

1) Setting Up Your Profile
To use the various functions of Facebook you must initally have a main profile page with a unique email address and it would be best to have your own name as opposed to your company name. As an internet marketer you should view this page as a way of 'branding' yourself. Social Networking sites such as Facebook are designed to work by networking peoples names.
Also fill in information about your business and education to help with networking, however it is not necessary to include personal tastes, in fact adding these details may result in you receiving targeted advertising.
The privacy settings can be easily customized however I would recommend you do not make your profile page public. As you will be branding yourself you will want to include some personal information about yourself and family. There are other pages on Facebook that can be viewed publicly, it is best to have restrictions on your profile page
To get contacts or 'friends' on Facebook you can import your contact lists from other places , search for people on Facebook individually , add 'mutual' friends or even use take advantage of Facebook's "Friends You Might Know" function which searches through your networks, schools, friends of friends etc to provide suggestions of people you may want to add. Personal profiles have a limit of 5000 friends. You can set up rss feeds directly from your blog and post links from any url you like straight on to your wall.
Remember you want to show yourself as being someone who is trustworthy and honest as well as likable in addition to being someone who knows what they are talking about.

2) Building Group Pages
Facebook groups are like real life groups in that a group is formed by people with a common interest. You can join a group that already exists or create your own. Groups have a limit of 5000 members. Groups are designed for more interaction than fan pages and you can message all members of your group with notifications that are posted to their inbox. Being part of a group of people in the same business as you or being in a group with potential customers is great from a learning point of view as well as the potential for marketing.

3) Fan Pages
Pages or Fan Pages as they used to be known are similar to Groups and are set up for people to follow a brand, famous person, politician, organization etc. They are not designed to be as interactive as groups. Pages do not have any limits on the number of 'fans' who can be members. Like Groups you can join one or create one. To create one simply type 'pages' into the Facebook search bar then click on 'create page' on the page that is revealed.

There is a lot of discussion on the internet about how to work Facebook when it comes to using Pages or Groups, they both have advantages and disadvantages .

Just as having the ability to 'work the room' is valuable when it comes to networking offline, knowing how to 'work Facebook' is valuable to internet marketers.

For more tips on setting up a small business online, and and to read this article on my blog, visit Paul at his blog or his website http://biztrainonline.com